Parenting: two years and one pandemic in

She’s two! TWO. Two whole years (and three weeks) old. Holy faaark, that went fast! I wrote a sentimental post about being her mum and what it was teaching me when she turned one – and who am I to break a birthday tradition? This year, I’ve also been thinking a bit about what life’s been like since 2020, and what I hope for Ruby in the future. So buckle in and bear with me, because this one kicks off a bit kooky…

At some stage in the past couple of years, an Alt-J song that Tom and I like called Every Other Freckle came back on our radar. A lyrical masterpiece in my opinion, the first verse goes:

I want to share your mouthful
I want to do all the things your lungs do so well
I’m gonna bed into you like a cat beds into a bean bag
Turn you inside out to lick you like a crisp packet

I love how it nails infatuation, the pining, the innate urge to messily pool who we are with someone else. I imagine anyone who’s ever been besotted with anyone can relate. Or else it’s a stalker song. Either way, from my perspective – as someone who oscillates between battling and embracing an addiction to crisps – licking someone like the inside of a crisp packet might be the best metaphor for obsession I’ve ever encountered.

The lyrics weirdly call maternal love to mind too. Before Rubes, I hadn’t fully appreciated how children could stoke the fire of infatuation within us, although – from a survival perspective – it makes perfect sense (if we weren’t hardwired to adore them, there’d be real problems, especially when they wake at 3am…) When I was pregnant, a lovely lady I used to work with who has two adult children told me to ‘prepare to fall in love’. And of course, like countless parents before me, I did. 

I find myself grooming Ruby like a mother monkey with her infant, smothering her in kisses and constantly stealing cuddles. I can safely say she’s the only person whose food I would eat, on request, after it’s been in her mouth (she can be very persuasive…). Because I’ve discovered a wellspring of unconditional love within me – an infatuation that will never wear thin. I’m abundant with affection and adoration and I find myself sinking into it, unguarded, like that cat bedding into the beanbag. 

Back in lockdown, I used to think of the lyrics to Every Other Freckle as a private rebellion against the social distancing measures in place: they seemed to be the antithesis of ‘Hands, Face, Space’, or whatever that natty little catchphrase was. It was almost as though – in 2014 when the track was released – Alt-J had seen into the future and, in anticipation of what was coming, had written about what one might do to sabotage a sanitised existence.

The past couple of years have – for me at least – reinforced physical human connection as the essence of life. I mean it’s the primary source of life, without getting too Year 8 Biology about it. No substitute can ever do and, clearly, we cannot thrive long-term in a socially distanced world. To varying degrees, we depend on access to others to fulfil our basic needs, to share in the joy and pain of life and to help uncover who we are.  

We have, I’ve concluded, got to be able to get amongst it – other individuals, societies, nature, everything – knowing that some degree of risk is inherent in our existence. And I don’t say that lightly. Caution is a rational response to the precariousness nature of being alive: we are, for obvious reasons, hardwired to avoid risk. Over-caution, though, paralyses us: we dare not move for fear of making the wrong move. What would we allow ourselves to experience if we did throw it to the wind? What will we miss out on if we don’t?

I hope, through resisting an over-cautious approach ourselves, we can give Ruby the confidence to follow a path that doesn’t compromise on seeking out and embracing new experiences. I hope she can find a way to focus on life’s rewards, rather than be deterred by its ever-present risks. As Baz Luhrmann put it: “The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.”

Two years in, the potent combination of the pandemic and new parenting has certainly given me new perspective. I wouldn’t have necessarily landed on a life not governed by worry as one of my chief hopes for Ruby had we not, collectively, so naturally succumbed to it. I may not have put the same emphasis on meaningful, in person interaction had it not been so swiftly taken from us (although my longstanding unease towards technology’s role in hijacking this suggests maybe I would…).

Pandemic parenting has given me the space and awareness to appreciate the time we spend together. Through Ruby, I’ve rediscovered the joy of the seemingly inane: chatting (all day long, mate); baking (or rather, eating cake mixture); singing (the louder the better, especially in supermarkets). We play hide and seek and I try not to laugh when she walks straight past me crouching behind the cabinet, or when she shouts out from her hiding place to confirm that she’s not where I’m looking.

One evening recently when there was one of those pink, purple, orange London sunsets, probably the love child of pollution but no less sensational for it, we spun round in the street while looking up at the sky. We stare at people too long in the park, especially when there is a whiff of family drama unfolding. I’m not sure I’d be quite so openly and willingly weird, frankly, if the universe hadn’t delivered her in this unique moment in time. I doubt I’d give this stuff a second thought – much less share it with you.

I realise that, with each new experience Rubes has, I get the chance to experience it as if for the first time too. When she meets friends and family she hasn’t met before, we get to meet them again (her recent introduction to my friend Penny was a cracking example of this: they got along like a house on fire!). So I’m starting to understand that, to greater and lesser extents, what happens to her will also happen to me, to us – for better and for worse. That’s the privilege and the price of parenting, right?

Our job is just to be here; to prepare her for independence as best we can; and to resist sowing seeds of doubt in her mind that stem from our own fears. This will be a million times easier said than done and I hope, more than anything else, that we can pull it off.

But it’s a bit daunting thinking ahead to our girl all grown up, so for now I’m just enjoying watching her and having my own world refilled with wonder (plus a healthy measure of tiredness). The ongoing challenges and divisions of modern life and its endless politics can happen in the background. Because there’s more than enough meaning to be found in those we love: we can – if we allow ourselves to – get completely lost in them. That’s where the real party is and, bloody hell, it’s good to let our hair down at last…

So a belated HBD Ruby Roo, Ruby June Bug, Rubatron of the Rubatron Clan. Keep on keeping me connected to all that’s good. Keep on driving me barmy and simultaneously keeping me sane. Here’s to infatuation in all its forms and the curious ways it manifests in us.

Queue more Alt-J:

You’re the first and last of your kind
(Pull me like an animal out of a hole!)
I want to be every lever you pull
And all showers that shower you

I’m gonna paw, paw at you
Like a cat paws at my woollen jumper
Be your Minpin
And Borrower of handsome trivia

Devour me
Lou, Lou, let the cover girls sing!

All handclaps, you will clap
(Let me be the wallpaper that papers up your room!)
I want to be every button you press
And all the baths that surround you
Yes I’m gonna roll around you
Like a cat rolls around saw dusted patios
I’m gonna kiss you
Like the sun browns you

Devour me
Devour me
If you really think that you can stomach me

I want every other freckle
I want every other freckle
I want every other freckle
I want every other freckle
I want every other freckle
I want every other freckle
I want every other freckle
I want every other freckle, freckle