Diary of a First-Time Mother

April 23rd 2015

I am pushing the McLaren Quest down Streatham High Road on an overcast afternoon when I hear a man mutter “not working?” as he passes me by. “Excuse me?” I say, wheeling the buggy to face the man, who is dressed in a Nu-leisure ensemble of grey tracksuit bottoms and box-fresh Kappa trainers. “Not working, then?” the passer-by repeats, outside an empty branch of Chicken Cottage at 2.30pm on a Tuesday afternoon.

I want to tell him that, until six weeks ago, I was working 11-hour days while heavily pregnant, as I scraped through the latest round of redundancies in a dead-tree industry where psychopaths call the shots. Instead, I tell the judgmental stranger the truth of my new reality.

“I’m on maternity leave,” I say.