Mum's the Word!

Here’s irony for you. I was extolling the virtues of all matters recycling but a few weeks ago, and I now find myself being forced to confess that I own a gas guzzling planet-damaging atmosphere thrashing sports car.

A bit of a paradox but hey at least I’ve admitted it, and anyway we all own pollutants of some kind or another, and even if you don’t have a car you’ve probably sat in one.

The reason for my confession (and yes I do feel better for getting it off my chest thank you) is that after much discussion and heartache, my husband, along with everyone else in the world, has confided that he thinks I need something more practical. Why?

Is it because I have taken up playing the harp? No. Have I started running a mobile burger business? No. It’s because I now have two small children and all the corresponding paraphernalia that goes with them.

It seems that my sexy three door V6 2.7 litre road muncher is no longer an appropriate mode of transport. And don’t I know it.

Someone I don’t even know actually dared to comment that I might want to get a more ‘suitable car’ and I only just stopped myself from retorting that she might wish to do the same about her face. Childish I know. Quite why she felt she could comment is beyond me, but then I suppose humans have always rounded on the odd one out, and in the vast sea of people carriers my car does stick out somewhat. Tough.

I love my car

Anyway, here’s the thing. I love my car. I adore it. I worked very, very, very hard indeed to be able to buy it (that’s another thing, why do people assume my husband bought it for me?) and I get a little thrill every time I drive it.

Admittedly I don’t drive as fast as I used to now that I am a sensible mother, and I do get a bit upset with the muddy footprints on the leather upholstery and the never-ending smell of spilt ribena, but I still love it.

My fascination with fast sporty cars has been with me since childhood when I could name all the cars as they whizzed by my house and called my goldfish Diablo - an appropriate name actually as it ended its life quite diabolically down the side of our cooker after I dropped it!

In my defence I have clocked up many days and probably weeks sitting on motorway sidings waiting for the AA to tow my old cars to a breakers' yard and then take me home. My AA membership became more of a motorway taxi service.

I used to sit and dream of the day I would have a car that would not only not require the equivalent of the North Sea in water to get me home without overheating, and not only have indicators that worked and wipers that didn’t inexplicably go on strike in the driving rain, but would be eye-poppingly beautiful.

Probably red, yes definitely red, certainly have a very very big engine and definitely never ever break down. It wouldn’t leave hubcaps spinning in the road, and it wouldn’t have a choke. The list of things my dream car would be was almost long enough to while away the wait, but usually I’d get time to dream up ways of paying for it and then I’d get depressed.

Pleasure

Now I know cars are only machines that go from A to B, but to me there should be pleasure in that journey. Some people buy designer jeans (do not understand), Gucci handbags (ditto) or cosmetic surgery (actually I’m beginning to warm to that one) but for me it’s having a speedy beastie that does 0-60 in about 7 seconds.

So, what are my options? It’s bewildering. SUV, MPV, SAV, CHAV (just kidding) every possible acronym you can think of means big car for families. But basically I can either go for a Chelsea tractor or, horror of horrors, a People Carrier.

People Carrier, just writing it brings me out in a rash. Now before I get deluged with e-mails from disgusted People Carrier owners, please let me explain that it isn’t that actual cars that I dislike.

OK I wont pretend I get excited when I pull up behind a Picasso, I’d rather look at the back end of a DB9 anyday, but the actual cars themselves are not offensive.

No, what is offensive is that they seem to have become the uniform for all mothers and the fact that I don’t own one is, it would seem, somehow upsetting the mothers that do, as if I am threatening the delicate balance of LAB (Life After Babies).

Perfectly normal women who probably used to like all things snazzy and whizzy undergo some horrible transformation after a spell in a maternity ward. Suddenly, because they have a seven pound baby to transport they decide, or society dictates, that they now need a bl**dy great bus to get about in. WHY?????

Please tell me why? Babies don’t need big cars! They don’t even need cots for the first few months! We happily stuff them into little more than gingham cat baskets at bedtime and think we’re doing a great job! They can’t even go in a proper bath without getting scared, so do they need the scale equivalent to them of an Airbus 330 to go and feed the ducks? No they do not. It is absurd. Crazy! Madness!

Obsession

Yes - I know they have pushchairs, but they too are getting so small now that pretty soon you’ll just buy nappies with wheels on. And unless you’ve been blessed with a multiple birth I see no reason at all for this obsession with getting a minibus.

It says ‘Look at me, I have kids you know, look there’s a sticker in the back to say ‘little person on board’. Bet you wish you were a complete grown-up like me don’t you?’

And those damn stickers really get my goat, I mean I can understand the whole parent and child parking space thing but when I see ‘Little Princess on board’ I want to heave into my ashtray and since there are no statistics to prove that drink drivers sober up when they squint at one I find any suggestion that they make you safer quite laughable. 

I can get pushchair, baby and three-year-old in my car perfectly well. No one can escape as there are no rear doors, and I can pretty much reach either of them if need be (though dangerous of course) from my position in the front.

Actually it’s getting two adults in the back that’s the problem as there’s very little headroom. Mainly because my car doesn’t want four adults in it because that would slow it down and that’s the whole point! And anyway, why would I take four adults out? I’ve got two children to think about for goodness sake! My days of touring to the coast for the afternoon are, I pray, 30 years away and by then the whole ghastly People Carrier will be a thing of the past. And I’ll be driving a new Maserati.

Loathed

The much loathed Chelsea tractor amuses me. Yes, I am amused by the gargantuan dimensions of them, which are usually inversely proportional to the driving skills of the person behind the wheel. Poland was invaded with less armour-plated metal, and yet once the babies come along people think that they need one in order to park the wrong way round and on top of a parking bollard outside Mothercare.

They’d do this anyway of course, it’s just that driving a Sherman tank makes them think it’s acceptable. Well it isn’t. How can you take anyone seriously when they need a step-ladder to get out of their car? It’s easier to get into a Fire Engine, and that’s all I have to say about that.

My girlfriends think I should hang onto my sports car. One of them almost cried when I said it was going and I felt as if I was letting the sisterhood down.’You’ll lose your identity’ she wailed. And yes, she’s right. I will.

I will be conforming to what makes everyone else feel OK, and I’m afraid that’s the big mental block for me. Why should I?

Warned

Apart from the obvious reasons like the damage to my vertebrae and the possible brain damage from hitting my head (I swear it gets lower) on the door frame, not to mention the stigma my kids have when they climb out of my go cart compared to their friends’ double-decker moving multiplex cinemas. APART from that there’s no reason is there?

I think I’ve changed my life to accommodate the little ones quite enough and as long as they are safe and cosy I am determined to hang onto the last vestige of what I used to enjoy before they were born.

I will not give in to the practical car brigade, I will not. So if you see me hurtling along please know this, I do have little people on board and I will chase and definitely catch you if you cut me up or in any other way endanger our lives.  I am not missing any other parts of the transformation called Life After Babies. You have been warned.