Whatever gets you through
“I just never get the urge for a drink these days” said the Mum I was chatting to at playgroup coffee time. We’d agreed upon most things so far that morning: we’d like to feel a bit more ‘appreciated’, we’d like ‘me’ time to be more than a dash when the kids are in bed to the lady-time aisle at the 24 hour supermarket and, like everyone, we’d like more of a work-life balance. But, just like on First Dates when they’re doing so well only to blow it with some ‘I’ve got a penchant for adult nappies and I keep a bottle of vodka in the wardrobe’ revelation, I thought it was all over. She’s going to judge me, I thought, if I say I get the urge, pretty much every 5pm.
When she went on to say “Too tired I guess” I think my face actually went a bit Khloe K when Kim hit her with the handbag.
Sorry, what?
I nearly put the conversation to bed there and then, and changed the subject. But for once, rather than clamming up on my own vices, I ventured, honestly, ‘Yes I know what you mean. I still like a drink though’. I did clarify ‘At bedtime,’ just in case she assumed I was a raging alcoholic with a bottle of vodka in the wardrobe.
what happens when you open up
I’m not going to lie, I did have a brief moment when it went a bit quiet and I thought, “sh*t, she’s going to tell me she thinks I’m a raging alcoholic with a bottle of vodka in the wardrobe,” but she eventually came back with ‘but I do stuff my face with Pringles and Cadbury’s Fingers when I think they’re not watching’ and all was well again.
Whatever gets you through…
Funny enough, the fact that I didn’t slink off, embarrassed by my own shameful thoughts of “drinking a lot of wine is what the bad mummies do” then led to a discussion about various other misconceptions I often allow myself all too much when speaking to other Mums. For example, she told me she only had clean, swishy hair that day (which I had noticed – and compared my own to, obvs) because she’d been on a KIT day the day before and had treated herself to a blow dry the day before that. I think I was actually a little bit in love with her in the moment just after she said that.
people ARE MORE OFTEN THAN NOT ON YOUR SIDE
I realised I had been silly to be sat there making myself feel inferior comparing my dry-shampooed, scraped back it’s-Friday-I’m-hanging-in-there’ hair and sniff-tested sweatshirt, to what I assumed was her ‘perfect’ existence when here she was openly admitting to me that actually life was far from Lenor freshness and coiffeured hair too.
But it got me to thinking that, even though we now live in a world where Mums mostly champion and support each other, we still have to be honest and show our flaws to each other sometimes just so we know none of us are perfect and we are all in this together.
One Mum’s Stealth Snack on the loo is another’s longing midday look at the cherry brandy miniature, purchased on a trip to Dubrovnik in 2008, that lurks at the back of the booze cupboard. Or something. God, maybe I am an alcoholic….
Most of all, don’t project your own judgement of yourself onto others when actually they are ‘with you’.
We are all just getting by.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Mums need alcohol
