The M.I.L.F

“Whoring”: A term that refers to meeting and going on ‘dates’ with other mums whom you have met through baby related websites

I have this friend who I’ll call ‘Cupcake’. She has three children, her youngest being about 3 months old. She, like me, has been whoring and collected a whole new set of mum friends. Her favourites are the naughty ones, “Perhaps, it would be quicker to ask me which drugs I haven’t done?” was a particular favourite. But Cupcake has, what I refer to as, a high-friendship-threshold. She is just too nice, to too many people even if she ends up feeling shitty as a result.

One of the women she has met is incredibly beautiful, incredibly thin and incredibly rich. I’ve called Cupcake’s friend a few things in my time but for our purposes you’ll know her as ‘Vanity Fair’. It is very easy to dislike somebody you have never met. It is especially easy to dislike somebody when they have made your friend feel shitty. Yes, there may be a hint of superficial jealousy at the heart of my feelings. I am, after all, only human and utterly fallible.

When they first met, Cupcake and Vanity Fair were clearly from different worlds. The one thing they did have in common was that they were both pregnant. Though at first their relationship was a little strained, good old Cupcake persevered. I questioned her logic but Cupcake couldn’t really put her finger on why she was pursuing the friendship.

Over the following weeks Cupcake and Vanity Fair kept meeting. Vanity Fair couldn’t help taking every opportunity to reiterate how privileged and utterly fabulous her life was. I wondered how this woman was going to cope once a baby gatecrashed her life? I told my friend that everything would be different once the baby arrived. I pictured Vanity Fair with wild hair, dark circles under her eyes with teeth that hadn’t been cleaned in two days, weeping whilst holding her baby. After all, labour day was fast approaching.

So, whilst Cupcake, like a goodun’, squeezed out number three, in three pushes, with a wail unlike anything I have ever heard before; her friend Vanity Fair, recovered after an elective Caesarean whilst the doula, the nanny, the cleaner, dog walker, masseuse and her husband kept her world turning. In her high-ceilinged, Georgian apartment she invited the other whores to tea, ordering in the city’s best pastries and holding court with her clinking china, manicured nails and perfectly groomed, totally unruffled, back-to-a-size-eight self.

Cupcake’s household, in comparison, included a hormonal teenager, a three year old boy constantly on a scooter, a husband, a new baby, a leaking washing machine, a pile of washing that never went down and a pile of bills that were constantly going up. She couldn’t afford a manicurist and it would have been pointless anyway seeing as this requires nails. Understandably, every time Cupcake and Vanity Fair met up, Cupcake couldn’t help coming away feeling a little bit shitty.

“I know why I’m doing this” said Cupcake one day “because it’s my problem, not hers. It’s not her fault that she is thin and gorgeous and rich. It’s about how I feel and I’ve got to get over it.” Cupcake would never call herself a feminist but I respected her enormously for the way she had rationalised this situation with her friend. Cupcake now approached her relationship with Vanity Fair with a renewed vigour and all went well for a while.

A few days later I received a phone call.

“Ok I’ve had enough.” said Cupcake “we ended up going into Topshop. Of course Topshop is like Primark to her. She clears the rails of everything in a size eight. We go into the changing rooms together. It was one of the worst experiences of my life. I had about four items. When I tried them on they all looked wrong. She on the other hand looked fabulous in everything and bought everything.

The only thing that I tried on that I liked was this little playsuit thing, but smart - quite classy. She tells me she already has it in her wardrobe, in a size bloody 8 of course, then tells me that when she last wore it she was walking down the street in her heels, with the pram and her husband and people were shouting “MILF! MILF!” at her.”

So I’m standing there in this playsuit which I thought looked quite cute, thinking about what she just said when she turns and says to me “I know you don’t want to hear this but have you thought about trying it on in a size 16?”

I could feel Cupcake’s pain. I wanted to hold her and squeeze every inch of her, size 16 or otherwise. Then she unleashed herself and roared.

“I just fucking want someone to shout MILF! MILF! at me!”

The moral of this story is: don’t hang out with people who make you feel shitty - especially when you have just had a baby. Save your energy for breastfeeding and opening wine. If you are very talented you might be able to do both of these things at the same time.