“Wow. Are they all yours?”
I’d arranged to meet a friend at the local country park to give the kids some fresh air (and my wife a precious couple of hours to get the house straightened).
I had a looked-after baby strapped to me in the sling, my eldest daughter was manhandling the pushchair containing my friend’s toddler, and my son had just run ahead with the two girls — who had swiped the packet of sweets from their mother’s coat pocket.
As the kindly middle-aged couple came towards us, I realised my friend Becky and I looked like a very prolific couple. The kids play together like siblings, I suppose six children under ten was mathematically possible…
“Yes! They’re all ours!” replied Becky with a cheeky smile.
At the end of our walk we clattered into the cafe for tea and cake, all coats, wellies, squeals, buggies and bags. The kids noisily dragged two tables together to make a space for us all. I felt the weight of all the eyes on us.
“My turn for the baby” announced Becky. She fixed up the bottle whilst I distributed fruit shoots and refereed cake. She’s a trained NCT lactation consultant, and militant “breast is best” for her birth children — but bottle feeding in public? No problem. Looked after children get their own etiquette.
Since fostering I’ve learnt not to care what people think when we’re out in public. I was brought up to keep up appearances, but we now have a get-out-of-jail-free card for pretty much any parenting social situation. We rarely have to play it. It is enough just to know that others wouldn’t dare judge your abilities if they knew the backstory. The card gives you confidence.
We fostered a beautiful 18-month-old girl for about six months. She was mixed-race: cappuccino coloured in sharp contrast to my semi-skimmed birth children. With her in the pushchair, I would get admiring glances and supportive smiles from strangers in the street. However if my wife took the kids out alone she would see the snap judgements in people’s faces. Visible differences in skin tone meant people assumed she had children from different fathers. This isn’t a race thing — it’s sexism.
I now try to be welcoming and not dismissive of other families — especially when they appear unconventional. Blended families, step-sons and half-sisters and various combinations of multi-generational households — these are things to celebrate.
One of my friends has five kids. He says his favourite High Street heckle was “Get a telly!” Why are we so down on large families? My great-grandfather was number eight out of eleven.
Are noisy kids in a restaurant or a library there deliberately to disturb my own experience? Or is it their first ever outing to this place and they don’t know any better? Do we give dirty looks to the parents, or welcoming smiles to the grown-ups for making the effort?
Next time you meet a new family: please don’t assume things. Be polite, be accepting. Let them introduce themselves and if it’s appropriate they may explain how they fit together.
And if you foster, enjoy not having to worry about what people think. This is your job, you are doing a good thing — and you can take confidence from that. When you meet someone new — see how long you can hold off from dropping the F-word. It’s kind of fun, watching others trying to make sense of you — and it can give you more varied conversation as it’s often the only thing people want to talk about at first.
Once I was yawning in a meeting at work, after a tough night with a newborn. A customer with a nine-month-old baby gave me well-meaning advice on getting him to settle better. I didn’t have the heart to tell him this was baby number eight, and the health visitor had said he’d sleep just fine once the prenatal cocaine had fully worn off.
We all have our own parenting path to tread, it’s not a competition. There’s no single right way to do it. Don’t judge others, try to help each other out along the way.
Thank you.
