Mum’s talk... by Sarah Reid


When we found out we would be having a second daughter, my husband and I blinked back a few happy tears and laughed out loud at the news.


In the months that followed, I’ll admit I kept laughing - at the idea of my poor, outnumbered husband and how he would cope in years to come with clouds of perfume in the bathroom and spotty boyfriends in rustbucket cars.


But little did I know that I too would be outnumbered, and so much sooner than I could have imagined.


It was claimed recently that women speak around 20,000 words a day to men’s 7,000. I have no idea how this was verifi ed but I am convinced that if the researchers had spent any time at all with four-year-old girls they would have stuck another zero on the end of that fi gure.


From the moment my elder daughter wakes up, she is in an almost constant train of chatter which ends only when she falls asleep (and sometimes not even then…) Instructions, questions,


general life commentary – it


follows no pattern yet she fl ows seamlessly from one topic to the next. And if there is ever a - gasp! - moment’s silence, she will hastily fi ll it with a single phrase (can I? will you? okaaaaay?) repeated rapidly until I respond.


I have, more than once, strapped her into her car seat and closed the door, only to realise too late that she was in the middle of a story. Consumed with guilt, I climb into the front where I realise she is still recounting her tale, unconcerned by the fact I have just slammed a car door in her face.


And so my one-year-old panics that she too 58


is clearly meant to fi ll the entire day with her thoughts and observations, yet is constrained by a limited and monosyllabic vocabulary. No matter, she makes do with what she has and now holds her own with just a voluble “Ya ya ya ya…”


All the while my head is spinning with the competing monologues. It’s no wonder that when my husband arrives home from work I feel the need to get caught up on my own 20,000 words in the name of adult conversation.


Hmm, I suppose we might both be a bit outnumbered actually.


Lost for words?


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If you liked Mum’s Talk and think Sarah could help you or your business, call 07841 827 322 for an informal chat.


More than 10 years’ experience writing and sub-editing for national newspapers, magazines and websites.


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