Mums n Toddler Groups

Mums and toddler groups have been the best answer to our isolation.

After Sofia was born I threw all my might into keeping up contact with my antenatal class peers. For the first time since I started Uni in a remission in 1991 I had a ready-made group of friends with whom to undergo this life-changing experience of motherhood. And while they were marooned at home on maternity leave we all had fervid email exchanges about strangely –coloured poo, sore nipples and insomniac babies. Occasionally I would make it to a meeting at someone’s house. For a short span of energy I was in heaven. My lovely girl on my knee was my passport to conviviality and chit-chat and a sense of belonging that I craved for during all those years of non-work.

But each week the time and venue of our meetings changed. The mums got restless of breastfeeding with cappuccino and cake. The babies got harder to contain on our laps in homes or cafes. Their get-togethers would turn into power-pramming sessions and increasingly ambitious excursions to far-flung farms and the like in search of the ultimate in mum n baby gratification. The logistics were too much for me. Each week I agonised about whether I could make it or not. I beat my head against the wall as each enthusiastic promise to join in turned into ever-lamer sounding apologies for my sudden relapses, bad days and total unreliability. My and Sofia’s no-show stretched from weeks to months and I ached as our tenuous social world was dissolving.

Then I found out about a nice toddler group nearby and now I’m at peace. Not just any old toddler group, mind you. I had tried some that were overpopular, overcrowded and anonymous, some that were sad and forlorn and some which didn’t even meet my basic requirement of a chair to sit on. This one was just starting up and gaining momentum through word of mouth. (They are the hardest to come across if you’re excluded from the word of mouth.) Unlike the antenatal group meetings, it’s at the same time, the same place, with all the facilities to entertain toddlers and supply you with tea and biscuits and shelter for a pittance. But the real beauty of it is I don’t have to promise to show-up, explain or apologise when I can’t. It’s just there – a loose group of mums that I can dip in and out of when I can.

It’s taken some adjusting to. The only way I can get there with Sofia, stay for an hour or two and get us home again in one piece is with my mum’s help. On a good day she just chauffeurs backwards and forwards and comes at the end to scoop up a strung-out Sofia just as I’m keeling over with exhaustion. Other times I need her to stay and look after Sofia, steering her out of territorial conflicts with other toddlers and helping her up the slides, while I make the most of the chance for a cup of tea and a chat. I feel haunted by that teenager angst of not being able to break free from my mum. She cramps my style, she shows me up, she gets in my hair, as the best of mums do. I wince at the thought of what people think of our unusual duo. I also feel ashamed at asking her to play this chaperoning role in which I try my hardest to assume control and make her into a spare part. But we’ve reached an understanding and it’s worth it. Sometimes when I’m too ill she takes Sofia on her own and I’m happy that Sofia has that continuity and my mum gets to be proper full-on granny from time to time.

I’ve had to learn to pace myself. To know for how long I can try and juggle playing with Sofia and chatting with other mums before the competing demands overwhelm me along with the general noise and chaos of the setting.

I’ve had to learn to accept that for all the joy of sharing day to day experiences of motherhood with other mums there will always be the gaping chasm of ME that separates me from them. I can make small talk about potty training and joke about my toddler’s quirks with the best of them but there will always come a point in the conversation when I have to reveal that yes, Sofia goes to nursery but no I don’t work part time, or no, my mum is not on a temporary visit but is my permanent companion. Because I have ME and I can’t look after Sofia independently. Then they try and place me within a previous job or occupation and learn that no, actually, I’ve never worked because I’ve been ill since I was 18. And however sympathetic and au fait they are with the notion of ME (and most of them are) that last revelation always elicits a strained silence and a brisk change of subject on my part as their brains struggle to absorb all the implications of that statement and still treat me like one of them at the same time.