Baby love

Whenever my daughter plays happily with a baby boy someone, the other parent or an onlooker, makes a reference to them maybe getting married one day. I hope not, I say, as having friends become your child's in-laws could be disastrous. Imagine the layers of rivalry when it came to who they choose to spend Christmas with. But I am also always keen to stress that we don't assume heterosexuality for our child. "Yes, she might fall in love with him," I say, "but you know, she might be into girls, and that would be okay too." And this being liberal middle-class London everyone falls over backwards saying "yes, yes of course, might be into girls, yes yes, how lovely."

One of the local new mum friends I made after having my daughter is a lesbian. Her son has two mummies as well as a daddy and an uncle. "What a lucky baby to have so many people to love him" we all say, desperate to show how okay we are with their 'alternative' family.

Her son and my daughter were playing together the other day, by which I mean snatching each other's toys, grabbing each other's hair and stealing each other's breadsticks, and a group of us watched from the sidelines cooing. "It's so sweet," his mummy said, "I think they might get married." And ridiculously, what with her being a real life out the closet happily civil-partnered lesbian, I just didn't feel comfortable saying that yes they might, but my daughter might be into girls and we'd be okay with that too.