A clearer point of view

I had one of those special mummy moments today, when you just have to sit back and marvel at the beautiful insight of children.

On seeing two men kissing in the park, Ruby gave me a big smile and said, “Look, Mummy, those men love each other.” It didn’t occur to her that there was anything different about the scene, or that it was comment-worthy for any  reason other than to note the affection between two people.

As much as I try not to, I worry regularly about how I am going to explain to Ruby why our family is the way it is, or, to be more specific, about why her father is not in her life. It’s a conversation I am anticipating having, with varying levels of depth and understanding, many times over the years. Inevitably, she is already aware that other people have fathers, and relatively often she inexplicably comes out with the phrase “Mummy and Daddy and Ruby,” in all sorts of odd contexts. Sooner or later I assume that this will morph into an awareness that she does not, to all intents and purposes, have a father, which will in turn lead to questions. They are questions which, rationally or not, I am dreading.

What worries me is finding the right balance of telling the truth without either confusing or hurting my daughter. I don’t want to lie to her, but I also don’t want to leave her feeling that she was unwanted or rejected, and, as much as I may sometimes feel like it, I will absolutely not be slagging her father off in front of her. In fact, I would rather leave him out of it altogether if at all possible.

Although it has preyed on my mind intermittently over the past few years, I had one of those lovely shining moments of clarity today in the park with my baby watching a gay couple kissing and seeing nothing more than the love, and realising that the answer was right in front of me. I am lucky enough right now to be living in one of the most diverse cities in the world, in a society where relationships and families come in as many packages as you can count, and at a time when my daughter is as unencumbered by learned preconceptions as she will ever be. I am not living in suburban England in the 1950s when having a child on my own at 21 would have made me a virtual outcast.

I am proud of the parent I have become. I am proud that I am raising a child on my own without giving up who I am, and that I am doing it without even the most basic level of support from her father. And, today at least, the explanation seemed incredibly clear in its simplicity: some people have a mummy and a daddy; some people have two mummies, or two daddies; some have many brothers and sisters and some live with grandparents or uncles. The fact that my daughter has only one parent is not a disadvantage; it is simply one of the many things that makes up who she is, and, like a couple kissing in an East Village park, the only thing worth remarking on is the love, which is abundant and unfaltering, and completely unlimited by the size of our little family.