The Undercover Mother_A laugh-out-loud romantic comedy about love, friendship and parenting

by Emma Robinson

  Her sister’s sympathy made Jenny even more cross. This was ridiculous. Why did it matter that she hadn’t seen his first roll? But somehow, it did.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m sure I’ll see it later.’

  Claire started to say something, then stopped. She picked up their coffee cups and took them to the sink to wash them up. Even this bugged Jenny. Why couldn’t she just stick them in the dishwasher like a normal person?

  ‘Actually, I was going to ask you for a favour.’ Claire rinsed the cups and put them on the draining board. She didn’t turn around. ‘Can you help me write a CV?’

  This was a surprise. ‘A CV? What do you need a CV for?’

  ‘A job, of course. It’s been a while since I’ve applied for a job and you’re good at writing, so I thought you could help.’ Claire found a tea towel in the drawer and started to dry the cups.

  Jenny was still confused. ‘A job? For you?’

  Claire opened a few cupboards before finding a home for the mugs. ‘Yes, for me. What’s so shocking? I did work before I had the children, you know.’

  Jenny could barely remember her sister pre-parenthood. ‘But why now?’

  ‘Both children are at secondary school. I’m at home all day. There’s no reason for me not to get a job.’

  Jenny detected Steve, Claire’s husband, in this. He’d spent the last decade or so openly questioning what his wife did all day.

  Any joke about her leaving her children alone would only open the floodgates for another lecture, so Jenny kept to the facts. ‘What are you applying for?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. Office work, I suppose. I can only work ten till two so that I can drop off and collect the children. And I need the school holidays off, of course.’ She thought for a moment. ‘And no weekend work. Other than that, I’m completely flexible.’ She looked at Jenny so brightly that Jenny didn’t have the heart to tell her she was living in cloud cuckoo land.

  Jenny stifled a smile. ‘Okay. Well, when you’ve found something which fits the bill, let me know and we’ll knock up a CV.’

  ‘Great. Thanks.’ Henry started to cry upstairs. ‘I’ll go, and let you see to him.’

  Jenny gave her sister a brief kiss on the cheek. ‘Thanks for looking after him.’

  Claire smiled. ‘It was a pleasure. A real pleasure.’ She paused in putting her coat on. ‘You haven’t even explored the idea of what it would be like to give up work, Jen. Have you tried a baby group?’

  Jenny shook her head and started up the stairs. ‘No, I’ve been too busy.’ Too busy putting it off.

  ‘Just try it,’ Claire called after her. ‘Speak to some of the mums there. Find out how they find it being at home with a baby. You might surprise yourself.’

  Chapter Twenty

  This week I learned about Attachment Parenting, which seems to mean that parents are, like Sporty, almost always physically attached to their baby. There are also Authoritative Parents, who set clear rules and expect their child to follow them. My money is on Scary for that one – I’d like to see anyone brave enough to refuse her instructions. Posh, on the other hand, with her detached attitude, is more likely to be a Permissive Parent. According to parenting websites, these parents allow their child to do as they wish, only stepping in at the last moment – if, for example, the child is hanging off a window ledge or about to climb inside the cooker.

  The list goes on. Snowplough Parenting (clearing anything potentially harmful out of their child’s way – from friends who might upset them, to the wrong kind of sandwich on a play date); Helicopter Parenting (over-protective parents who constantly hover over their child); Outsourced Parenting (employing baby home-proofers, sleep consultants and, I kid you not, a thumb-sucking guru who will fly from Chicago – for rates starting at $4,300 – to cure your child of putting its fingers in its mouth) and Tiger Parenting (the new term for the competitive mother who can be identified by her hissing of, ‘You will thank me for this one day,’ as she drags her weeping child to piano practice for the fourth time that week.)

  Now I am completely freaked out – which of these nutcases am I going to turn into?...

  From ‘The Undercover Mother’

  * * *

  Standing outside the church hall, Jenny could hear muffled cries, shouts and a clatter of crockery from inside. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door – to be confronted by a baby gate. Worse, a brand of baby gate she hadn’t seen before.

  She hoisted Henry onto her hip, pushing and squeezing anything on the gate that looked remotely like a button, quickly degenerating into shaking it in the hope that it would miraculously open. Thankfully, one of the other mothers rescued her, before dashing off in the wake of a chubby toddler.

  The church hall was pretty bare, but the floor was covered in an array of coloured plastic. There were babies and small children everywhere. Usually, Jenny would have no problem walking up to complete strangers and starting a conversation – but that was when she had a glass of wine in her hand. What was the form here? ‘Get a grip,’ she mumbled under her breath, and strode purposefully towards a large play mat.

  Laying Henry next to a collection of small toys, watching as he kicked his legs and gurgled, she marvelled at how much she loved him. Maybe letting the column go wouldn’t be such a huge price to pay to get to spend more time with him.

  Her conversation with Ruth earlier that morning had brought it home, loud and clear, how lucky she was.

  ‘I need to talk to someone and you’re the only one who knows what’s going on,’ Ruth blurted, as soon as Jenny had answered the phone.

  If Ruth came over, Jenny had thought, that would give her an excuse for missing the baby group again. ‘Of course. Do you want to come here for a coffee?’

  ‘No. Sorry. It’s not that I don’t want to, but I haven’t really felt like going out anywhere this week.’ Ruth took a deep breath. ‘It’s David. He has been talking about starting fertility treatment again. He’s not pushing – he says he will wait as long as I need to, but he wants me to know that he’s ready when I am.’

  That was a surprise. ‘I thought he was happy with the “let nature take its course” approach for a while?’

  ‘Well, he was. But he said nature doesn’t seem to want to play ball.’

  Jenny paused before phrasing her next question. ‘Is nature still not being given a chance?’

  ‘If you mean am I still on the pill, then yes.’ Ruth took a deep breath. Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I can’t stand deceiving him, Jenny. I’ve even thought about just leaving him and giving him the chance to meet someone else.’

  Jenny’s heart beat faster. This was really serious. ‘That’s crazy, Ruth! Why are you thinking like that?’

  ‘Because it’s my fault, Jenny.’ Ruth’s voice was so soft, Jenny had had to push her mobile into her ear to hear her. ‘I’m the one who can’t fall pregnant without help. I’m the one who can’t hold on to a baby once I am pregnant. Whose body managed to actually…’ She trailed off and Jenny heard a stifled sob on the other end of the line. ‘If David meets someone else, he could have a baby without all this trouble.’

  Jenny’s heart was breaking for her. ‘But he doesn’t want a baby with anyone else, Ruth. He wants you. You do know that, don’t you?’

  Ruth was crying openly. ‘I do. I do. And I don’t know if I could actually leave him, it’s just… your brain… it goes round and round and… I’m sorry, you don’t want me going on about all this.’

  ‘Ruth. I’m your friend. Of course I want to talk to you about this. I am here any time. But I do think you need to speak to David, too.’

  ‘I just can’t. I can’t. But I don’t know what to do. I am terrified of coming off the pill. What if I get pregnant? What then? How long will it last?’

  Jenny had wished with all her heart that she had been able to answer Ruth’s questions. What was she supposed to say?

  She was interrupted from thinking about Ruth now by the sight of a poncho-wearing
woman waving at her from across the room. Before Jenny could wave back, a dark-haired woman wearing a more conventional jeans and shirt combo dived down beside her, plonking a little girl with dark curls beside Henry.

  ‘Saved you, just in time.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Serena – super mother. She was just about to swoop over and welcome you.’

  Jenny glanced over at the poncho lady, who, having seen Jenny being welcomed by this other mother, had resumed her conversation with the woman beside her. ‘Oh, does she run the group?’

  ‘Thinks she does. I’m Fiona, by the way.’

  ‘Jenny. It’s my first time.’

  ‘I guessed as much from the way you walked across the room as if the ground was covered in landmines.’

  Jenny hadn’t realised her fear had been so apparent. ‘First time I’ve attempted a baby group, actually.’ She didn’t explain that she was only there because her big sister had made her come. So she could say that she’d taken Henry somewhere other than Costa.

  Fiona nodded sagely. ‘Then let me introduce you to the natives. Serena, you just almost met. Earth mother extraordinaire. She spent so long with her baby wrapped to her chest, I began to question whether it was real. Self-proclaimed authority on breastfeeding, skin-to-skin and co-sleeping and, if it wasn’t for her stomach-churning description of how she ate her own placenta, I would believe that she was still attached to her child by the umbilical cord.’

  Serena sounded like she’d make the perfect friend for Naomi.

  ‘They,’ Fiona continued, nodding towards a group on the far side, ‘are the stay-at-home mums. On the surface, they have a life to be envied: lunches out, no alarm in the morning and no guilt about leaving their child in childcare. However, get one on her own and the truth comes out.’ She counted off on her fingers. ‘The relentlessness, the husband who doesn’t understand, the frustration of being labelled “just a mum”.’

  Jenny looked at them intently. What would it be like to never go to work again? These women looked perfectly happy and calm. Maybe Claire had a point about her fulfilling life.

  ‘Over there, you have the nannies and childminders. The mothers of those children are currently trying to ignore the constant nagging guilt they feel about being at work all day – the level of guilt being proportional to whether they were forced to go back to work full-time or whether they chose to.’

  Jenny followed Fiona’s nod with her eyes. Maybe getting paid to sing nursery rhymes and shake rattles made it easier.

  She turned her attention back to Fiona. ‘So, which group do you belong to?’

  Fiona tucked her dark fringe behind her ear with her thumb. Her curls matched her daughter’s. ‘Ah, well, I’m part-time.’

  ‘Really?’ If Jenny was only writing interviews and reviews, part-time might be an option for her, too. Dan had tentatively suggested that part-time might be a good compromise. But ‘compromise’ wasn’t a word Jenny was hugely comfortable with. It sounded so half-hearted. ‘That must be good?’

  ‘Yeah. Sadly, it sounds better than it is. When I’m at work I have to catch up with what I missed on my two days off, so I end up taking piles of work home which I never actually do, because when I am at home I’m with Violet—’ she gestured at the curly haired toddler, who was playing happily with a plastic teapot and cups ‘—and I have to spend all day at baby groups, like this one.’

  Jenny was also finding it increasingly difficult to write whilst she was at home with Henry. During the day it was impossible to concentrate because he wanted her attention, and when he went to bed at night she was far too exhausted. She had started to use the Dictaphone app on her phone so that she could speak her thoughts aloud when they came to her, but the combination of the speech recognition software and Henry’s garbled interruptions had made for some interesting typos.

  ‘But why would you want to spend your day off here?’

  ‘It’s the guilt. You need to make up for the time you leave them by filling the day with quality activity.’ Fiona smiled ruefully. ‘Just wait and see.’

  It wasn’t what Jenny wanted to hear. Surely this Fiona was exaggerating?

  The whole time they had been talking, Fiona’s daughter had been making tea for herself, a rubber frog and a chewed-up teddy bear. Considering she only looked to be around two, she had put together a very nice picnic for the three of them. ‘Your daughter looks very happy playing by herself.’ The way to get any mother smiling was to praise her child.

  Fiona glanced at her daughter. ‘Yes, she’s very independent. I think it’s important, don’t you?’

  Jenny wasn’t sure whether she did or not, so she mumbled an incoherent response which Fiona took for agreement.

  This was obviously another topic close to Fiona’s heart. ‘I have a friend who complains that her daughter is clingy, but at the same time she’s constantly picking the child up. Doesn’t leave her alone for a moment. What does she expect?’

  Jenny, who had just been about to pull Henry onto her lap, froze mid-air and pretended that she was just stretching her arms.

  ‘Clearly it’s the mothers who are the needy ones – let the child breathe, for goodness’ sake. Oh, here you go, here’s the queen of them.’

  Jenny turned to see Serena smiling benignly at Henry. ‘And who is this handsome little man?’

  ‘This is Henry, and I’m Jenny.’

  ‘Serena. And this is my little one, Storm. So nice to see new faces. I trust that Fiona isn’t scaring you off?’

  Jenny opened her mouth but Fiona answered first. ‘I thought I’d leave that to you, Serena.’

  Serena spoke to Jenny with a mock-confidential air. ‘Fiona and I have very different ideas about raising children. I believe in attachment parenting.’ She stopped there, as if Jenny should know what that was. Jenny was reluctant to admit that she didn’t. She would google it when she got home.

  ‘Whereas I think that children need a routine and a bit of time alone,’ said Fiona.

  ‘Now, Fiona, you know that…’

  And that was it: the two of them quickly became embroiled in an in-depth parenting discussion which Jenny didn’t understand, much less want to be a part of.

  Jenny wanted to kill Claire. Admittedly, she had found this group herself, but it had been Claire who had forced her to come. These women were insane. Full-time, part-time, attachment, independent. What did it all mean? If being a stay-at-home mum meant more of this, she would be running back to work.

  But how much work could she do without missing out on Henry’s babyhood? Last week, she’d missed the rolling over. Next it might be crawling. Or walking. Even if she could persuade Eva, or Mark, that she could write part-time, it didn’t sound like that was a solution, either. She felt hot and clammy, and it wasn’t just the overheated room.

  Gently pulling Henry onto her lap, she stood up slowly and began to back away until she was in reaching distance of the exit. Just before the doorway, she turned and was confronted by her nemesis: the damn baby gate.

  Then, like an angel sent from the gods of JoJo Maman Bébé, Antonia appeared at the door, slipped a finger under the gate and flicked it open.

  Without stopping to ask what she was doing there, Jenny swooped down on her, hissing, ‘Go, go, go! Save yourself! We don’t have much time!’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Pretty much as soon as you give birth, you are supposed to encourage your child to be as independent as possible. From a few days old, they are supposed to fall asleep on their own without being so much as rocked, for fear that they will use you as a ‘prop’ to fall asleep. When you wean them, you aren’t supposed to actually feed them any more because they have to feed themselves: with a spoon, with their hands, or even by putting their face in the bowl and snuffling away like a truffle pig, if necessary. I am pretty sure that current wisdom would ideally have you packing them off to live alone at nine years old, having no further need for a parent in their independent life.

  It
’s not that I am at the other extreme: I won’t be sticking my boob through the school gates or climbing into bed with The Boy and his first girlfriend, but I’ve only just given birth to him; surely I am allowed to look after him for a while?...

  From ‘The Undercover Mother’

  * * *

  Jenny had never been so glad to see a slice of lemon drizzle.

  After escaping from the church hall, she and Antonia had relocated to a nearby coffee shop. Henry and Jessica were asleep in their prams and there were no other children nearby to interrupt the quiet hum of conversation and the occasional clink of a cake fork. Jenny began to breathe again.

  Antonia slid a tray bearing vintage crockery onto their table. ‘Here you are, darling. That should make you feel better. If I’d known you were planning on visiting that place, I would have warned you. It’s a hothouse for competitive parenting. You should have heard the discussion they had the other week about nurseries. Montessori this and organic menus that.’ Antonia shuddered. ‘It can be exhausting just listening to them.’

  It had been worse than exhausting. Fiona had left Jenny feeling rather depressed. She recounted their conversation to Antonia.

  ‘Then she said part-time work is even worse. She feels a failure at both.’

  Antonia grimaced. ‘Sounds to me like she’s trying to be Superwoman. She’s like Gail and Naomi rolled together. How tedious for you.’

  Oddly, Jenny felt defensive. ‘I don’t think it’s that. I think she just likes her job. I mean, if you enjoy what you do, it must be pretty hard to just stop, mustn’t it?’ If her dinner with Mark had taught her anything, it had made her realise how much she missed her own job. A draughty church hall and a weak cup of tea were no replacement for white tablecloths and a cold glass of white wine.