‘When are you having another one?’ – does anyone else with kids get asked this question 30-40 times a day?
When we had one child, everyone wanted to know when the second one would put in an appearance.
As soon as we had Number Two, the World and his friend wanted to know when Crotch Fruit The Third would be introduced.
Now, with a Zafira full of fun, laughter, weird smells and discarded Happy Meal packaging, people genuinely tap on the window while I am driving, demand that I put the handbrake on, and then aggressively demand to know when my good lady wife will be hanging a doughnut once more.
It’s not just pleasant conversation now. It’s like these people whom I barely know want us to drop everything and procreate there and then, while making a mental note to pop back in nine months’ time, coo over our latest arrival, and threaten us with extreme violence unless we get cracking on the quintet.
When is enough enough? Why are you all so concerned about my wife’s repeated cycle of gestation one minute, before seeing our brood screaming in Tesco the next and tutting to yourself while mumbling that we should have put something on the end of it?
Once, just once, I would love to answer this question with, ‘I don’t know. When are you going to shut the fuck up and mind your own business?’