I shall talk about my child

I'm conscious, when being out with people who do not have children, to try not to be "baby this and baby that" in my conversation (that, after all, is what this blog is for), and I am aware that people without children often moan about people who do talk about their kids.

But I've been giving this some thought and I've decided to stop being so accommodating in my topics of conversation. After all, having a child is the biggest thing in my life. It impacts on all that I do and how I participate in the world. These people who moan about parents talking about their kids - do they moan about pet owners the same way? After all I've had two conversations about other people's pets this week. What if I spoke about a holiday, or a new car, or buying a house? This, I suspect, would be considered 'normal' conversation. If I were buying a houe and having difficulties, ground down by estate agents and surveyors and gazumping and gazundering, I would be pretty peeved to meet a friend for a drink and not be asked about it and sympathised with and and made to laugh about it and given advice and generally engaging with it. Well guess what? A child is much more important than that.

So I've decided - I shall stop making the effort to keep it in and I shall talk about my baby. And those who don't like it will just have to tolerate it the way you might listen to me talk about a failed romance while internally rolling your eyes and thinking I'm a sap, or a work situation where you think I'm unreasonable, or a novel I like that you think is crap.

Except of course when I'm with other parents - after all, we're the ones who most need a good chat about wine, or travel, or culture, or anything other than babies.