Julie Jay: Glam mums in the playground inspire me to start matching my socks at least

Comedian Julie Jay. Picture: Domnick Walsh 

Julie Jay

COMEDIAN

The playground has become the new nightclub, not because I’m going there to get the shift, but simply because I never know where to stand.

In the last budget, money was allocated to our local playground, and while I’m appreciative, I think I would have preferred if the Government had just written us a cheque, given that anytime Ted and I brave the slides and swings we are nearly always the only ones there.

So unnerved have I been, on more than one occasion I have almost called the guards on myself as the whole thing has a whack of breaking and entering.

As much as we love to support local, when Ted and I fancy a little mingling, we put on our best dungarees and head for Dingle city lights, where the much-bigger playground is sure to drum up the crowds.

The parents huddle together like a team at half-time, clutching coffee cups and swapping stories on the best way to clean up vomit, and other salacious issues.

Generally, it’s me going from parent to parent, asking the best way to get the smell of sick out of a car seat, much like I used to go from corner to corner of the local disco requesting a shift, and still receiving an equally tepid response.

I play being the cool parent until Ted attempts the big slide and suddenly all those terrifying Holby City episodes come flooding back.

I want him to be brave, but oh, my nerves. I usher him towards more baby-appropriate play spaces, but everything seems a deathtrap when your heart takes the shape of a two-year-old with curly hair and big eyes.

Being on the road with Ted a lot means we have explored many a playground in our time, and the Mammy Mafia is always easy to spot — you know the type, fake tan giving just that right hint of sun-kissed glow, highlights perfected, and activewear on point.

Looking good as a mammy makes you feel like yourself, the ‘you’ before smallies arrived. One thing I really want to work on going forward is to make a bit of an effort to be me again. I’m not saying I’m going to be rocking a debs dress and an upstyle anytime soon, but these glam mums inspire me to try to start matching my socks at least.

The Mammy Mafia in any town may seem outwardly difficult to penetrate. But I find the question ‘I don’t suppose you have any wipes?’ is the 2022 equivalent of that old noughties chestnut ‘Is that your-wadi or mi-wadi?’ when it comes to instant ice-breaker.

Gone are my disco days when I would nominate a friend to approach a group with the opener ‘will you shift my mate?’, a question that could be met with any conceivable kind of response — from scoffing to outward hostility to the even more terrifying ‘go on so.’ Nowadays, social cliques are much more permeable given that we are all here, in the trenches together, and everyone is just muddling through.

One massive difference between playgrounds over nightclubs is that there’s no queue for the toilet — the revellers go whenever and wherever they want (the babies, that is, not the parents). I don’t see this as a good thing: nightclub toilets were always where I got my biggest confidence boosts, earned my most treasured advice, and built my most sturdy bridges with friends. And there is something akin to that to be found by the swings, when Ted throws a bit of a strop at being told we have to go. In those moments, it can just all suddenly feel too much, overwhelming, nearly.

Ted is rarely uncooperative, but as he objects, a mammy I have known since my teen years and is always impeccably dressed comes up to me and says: ‘Parenting is hard, isn’t it?’ And in that brief exchange, we are back in the ladies loo, swapping lipstick and bigging each other up before braving the dance floor once more.

It is in these exchanges, when we really see each other, that we can take anything on: a toddler tantrum, a romantic rejection, a barman telling us we can’t bring our drinks onto the dancefloor despite me being fully sure I’m not going to drop it — ‘oh, whoops here let me mop that up I don’t know how it slipped out of my hand.’

There’s no Amhrán na bhFiann to the end of playtime. We are subject to the whims of our tiny progeny who are as impossible to argue with as 19-year-old me when suddenly hit by an overwhelming desire to get chips.

At the playground, we break away and promise the same time again tomorrow. There is a lovely understanding, a bond almost, in leaving together, and this time if anyone is getting sick, it definitely won’t be me. My disco days are well behind me, so you know, progress etc.