I loathe smug people, parents in particular. The dictionary definition of the word is as follows: “Smug: arrogantly self-complacent or self-satisfied”. Not exactly traits you aspire to have, are they? Yet so many people become unbearably smug when they have children. I think it goes back to the ‘Life tickbox’ I’ve written about before. Good education? Tick. Good job? Tick? Engaged? Tick? Married? Tick. Try for baby? Tick? Get pregnant? Tick? Plan number 2, 3, 4. Tick, tick, tick. Followed to its logical conclusion, the last questions are: Pension? Tick. Retirement? Tick? Death? Tick.
I have desperately tried not to be a smug mummy. Dh and I have our self-congratulatory moments but we’ve always tried to have them in our own home, at night, in hushed tones, with the curtains closed and the doors locked so that no-one can hear us.
However, it appears that I’m letting some glimmers of smugness seep out. The problem with people you know (good friends in particular) reading what you post online is that they will a. Tell you they read it, and b. Be very honest about what you write. It appears that I was a little too smug in the posts about O and S’s christening. I’ve just read them back and while I didn’t lie about any of the events of the day, I may have slightly implied that R and G are generally a bit more fabulous than O and S and I didn’t mean that to come across at all. It’s just that, as R and G are older and therefore more interactive, they were a little more entertaining. O and S are extremely lovely but they sleep a lot more than my two.
Maybe I need to accept that being smug is part and parcel of being a parent. You’re so proud of your offspring that you desperately want to convey to everyone you meet how fabulous they are and therefore you have to convert them with religious zeal into complete agreement with you.
I am incredibly chuffed with my girls. Dh and I marvel daily at their fabulousness. I hope we don’t annoy people with it too much. I have moments (brief ones, I promise) where I think I’m just a little more fabulous than people who have singletons because I had twins and that has to be AT LEAST twice as hard as one baby but I’d hate to be called smug, even though I clearly am. A little bit...