MM Comment


Kids always seem to ‘latch on’ to a particular person when they’re out and about, don’t they? Whether it’s in restaurants, on trains, or wherever, there’s always one – usually unsuitable – target of their ‘affection’. MM’s editor talks about her experiences as...


A Babe Magnet


Our blogger - Suzanne (#MMBlog) recently wrote about her experience on a train, when her four-month-old son vomited over the girl sitting beside her. Although the girl’s OTT reaction was basically uncalled for, I couldn’t help thinking back to my pre-mum days when I was always the target for little people. Like most girl, I always smiled at babies


in prams and bent down to chat to friends’ kids, but, when it came to kids wanting to misbehave or wanting to find someone to humiliate in public, the spotlight shone directly on me. I was, quite literally, a Babe Magnet. I remember one day standing in a very


long queue in the bank. It was close to Christmas and the bank was full of people who, like myself, were at the end of their tether with traipsing around shops in the rain and fighting their way through hordes of people. Like them, I was tired and hungry and,


like them, my feet were literally killing me. Unlike them, however, I was spotted by


‘little Jimmy’, who was about two years of age, as bored as I was and who had decided to entertain the queue. I, it turned out, was to be the ‘straight man’. I tried not to make eye contact. After all, I thought, there were plenty of little old


64 Modernmum


women and other young mums, who would be happy to join in and coo over him. But no, having probably spotted my lack


of eye contact, little Jimmy had decided that, out of the 40 other people in the queue, I was to be The Chosen One. And so over he came. Within a few minutes there he was,


trying to swing on my trouser legs – dribbling constantly I might add – to such an extent that my already-soaked trousers were now a delightful mélange of rainwater and saliva. As he swung, he sang Twinkle Twinkle


Little Star ad nauseam. ‘Come on,’ he encouraged me, ‘thing…’ This little ‘turn’ had given the queue


something to divert their attention from their boredom, so there was nothing I could do but smile – one of those smiles – and occasionally throw in a ‘aw, isn’t he sweet?’ The long queue just got longer…. It wasn’t the child’s fault, of course. All


kids possess a sixth sense concerning grown-ups. Little old ladies who coo at them and


desperately try to attract their attention fail miserably and are ignored. Instead, it’s the starchy businessman, who’s frowning and tutting behind his


Financial Times, who becomes the Chief Object of interest or, as happened to our blogger, the über trendy teen, whose reaction to the incident was to WhatsApp her equally disgusted friends with ‘multiple emojis and exclamation marks’. Or there’s me. Even now, as a mum


myself, I’m still No. 1 Target for little kids on the rampage. Take a train trip to Dublin a few months


ago, for example. One minute I was sitting quietly reading


my book – as you do – and the next the silence was broken by the arrival of a mum, dad and three very young children. A lot of Tupperware was produced and the carriage settled down to an acceptable level of chaos, and so I closed my eyes and tried to get some sleep. Fat chance. Between balloons hitting me on the


head and chocolate being rubbed onto my hands, I soon gave up and moved seats And what, might you ask, were the


parents doing while I was being manhandled in such a humiliating fashion? Restraining them? Tying them into


kiddie-sized strait jackets? Nope, they were watching on, smiling


and telling me how much the children ‘had taken to me’.


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