I have a friend called Claire. She has no children. In fact, she has absolutely no desire to have children. Truth be told, I don’t even think that she likes children.

 

She is the quintessential party girl, usually getting in at around the same time I am waking up of a morning. She spends her pay checks on shoes and reads the paper from start to finish without interruption.

She does not watch Dora. In fact, I’d hazard a guess that she doesn’t even know who Dora is.

 

You might be wondering why a mother of three would want to be friends with someone who doesn’t like children and whose life bears absolutely no resemblance to my own. The reason is simple: she forces me remember who I am without children. Me. Not me, the mother or me, the wife. Just me.

 

The person that I was before I had children is still in there somewhere. (She is probably buried under a mountain of dirty laundry, but she’s there.)

 

Continue reading the full post here, at Mouths of Mums.