“Just call me MumBappe,” I said, arriving at the green to play football with my children and their friends.
“Could you be any more embarrassing?” you might ask.
But I had actually been asked to play football with them. Though I concede that “play” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Anyway, it was my son’s birthday, a birthday he shares with his sister, though they are 12 years apart. And birthdays are special. On birthdays, the birthday person gets to choose what they want to do – go to the beach, or cinema, or Bray for an ice-cream, whatever tickles their fancy.
But, on this occasion, the birthday boy had asked for everyone to play football up at the green – including his mum. The birthday girl, meanwhile, was working, an option I suspect she’d have preferred over playing football anyway.
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I regard myself as a proud feminist. And a probably even more vocal one of the home front, now that my daughter has moved out and left me with all these boys. It’s a needs-must situation or I’d never get control of the TV remote. But there has to also be an upside to living with so many boys, and so this proud feminist has happily deferred to the males in the house when there are bins that need emptying, toilets that need unblocking, and spiders that need put-outing. It’s not that I can’t, it’s that I choose not to.
But I also fell into the habit of not being the parent who played football with them up on the green – on account of the fact that I had deadlines to meet. Or more pressingly, Bridgerton to watch. “That’s the lads, doing lads things,” I contented myself. And it took a special birthday request for me to realise, they noticed.
So, I sauntered down to our local green, pleased that he wanted me to play and with grand delusions about my own ability to do so. Some neighbourhood children spotting the goalposts in transit, decided to join in, much to the birthday boy’s delight. I’d go easy on the younger ones, I figured, on account of them only being kids. And, sure my 6ft-plus-ers would surely look at me and think, “there she is now, the woman who gave us life”, before deciding on a tackle, so all would be well and MumBappe would delight and impress all who played with her.
[ No child should come away from school sports day feeling worse about themselvesOpens in new window ]
It wasn’t long before one of the players on my team offered me up for a free transfer. Nor was it long before I discovered that my 6ft-plus-ers would look at me, not care one iota that I was the woman who gave them life and plough through with the tackle anyway. And that I would regret my life choices in not wearing shin guards.
For the purposes of leaving you in absolutely no doubt, I scored. More than once. The little boys in goal didn’t stand a chance. And I celebrated accordingly, because you snooze, you lose and all that jazz. Yet in spite of my obvious footballing prowess, there were repeated calls to switch up the teams. The loudest calls coming from my team-mates. I have noted all their names. I’m not one to hold a grudge but I shall remember this when they come trick-or-treating at Halloween.
And so it came to pass that the incessant calls were heeded and a decision taken to mix up the teams. Two captains were designated. One was my son, the birthday boy. A look of intense concentration crossed two young faces as they considered their options.
The first captain made his choice. It was then the turn of the second – a boy utterly obsessed with football, competitive to a fault almost and also my son. “Mum,” he said.
“What? Are you mad?” a young child asked, clearly not considering Halloween. I strode over and stood beside my boy with all the confidence of a Real Madrid mum.
“MumBappe,” I said, nodding knowingly.
They put me in goal.
[ ‘Parenting and work takes up every minute I have. I’m losing myself’Opens in new window ]
It was a 10/10 birthday, according to the main man. He loved every bit of it, he said. I’m not sure there’s anything better, as a parent, to hear on your child’s birthday.
It’s made me think too, as those pesky kids continue to grow up far too quickly for my liking. Us mums need to get in the photo more. And to get in the game. To make the memories for ourselves, as well as for them.
He picked me...