Mum vs Dad
The playground: one place, two worlds.

You arrive. Push the pram. Look around.

And then it begins.

The woman over there seems so relaxed. How does she do it? Her child is just playing and she’s just sitting there. I never just sit there.

You sit down on the bench. The baby in your arms, the older one already on the slide. You smile at the other mum. She smiles back. Kindly. Or was it just polite? Or did she just look at your thermos flask?

Then the moment comes. The baby is hungry.

Do I breastfeed here? Or use the bottle? If I breastfeed, someone might look at me funny. If I give the bottle, she might think I don’t breastfeed. Why am I thinking that right now? She probably isn’t thinking that. Or is she?

You breastfeed. Or give the bottle. Both are right. But something inside you still briefly calculates whether you should have an explanation ready, even though nobody has asked.

A little while later, your older child falls over. They cry briefly, then get back up.

Should I have been paying closer attention? Did she see that? Was I too laid-back? Am I too laid-back?

You are not too laid-back. You are a mum at a playground. And your mind is working overtime because that’s what it always does. Because you worry. About your child, about yourself, about the fleeting glance of a woman you will never see again and whose opinion really doesn’t matter.

And yet somehow, it does.