Satanic, maternal cult alive and well in Battersea

Whilst I am aware that the words ‘maternal’ and ‘satanic’ do not usually go hand in hand, at my local swimming pool (my most recent fitness drive) they certainly seem to. I’m the first to admit that I am not (as yet) the maternal type, but what I experienced today was really too much.

Wednesday 20th May 2009
What happens to perfectly normal women when they have babies? Do they leave their brains at reception? Do the mumsy hormones coursing round their bodies really require them to turn into saccharine, cooing losers? Babies are fine. I have nothing against them. Well actually that’s not true, I have nothing against them until they start balling and then shit in my swimming pool. However, for the most part, I have no grudge to bear against the dear little bundles of effluent.

BUT…

WHAT OH WHAT is the phenomenon of the mother and baby swimming class all about?? Anaemic, tired looking women (and one rather nervous looking man) grasp their little cherubs and force them to perform all sorts of pointless splashy, swooshy feats of water gymnastics. And, as if this wasn’t enough to spoil my lane-swimming, dolphin-like vibe, they then started singing. SINGING.

I can tell you that the effect of ten shiny, happy, oestrogen-high mothers with babes in arms all singing ‘twinkle twinkle little star’ complete with hand movements, is not at all soothing. It is sinister. They suddenly became members of some scary, breast-milky cult. It was all too much. I had to make a quick escape to the sauna (which, incidentally, only served to make the sound of them all chanting away in the pool even more spooky).

I’m sure the new Mums amongst you are now all sufficiently riled, but just a minute, before you string me up in the changing rooms from your mothercare baby harnesses, what would you say if I told you that the babies happened to agree with me? Yip. I distinctly caught the eye of one disgruntled infant and his expression certainly did not suggest endless babyish pleasure of any kind. If anything he looked resigned and a touch depressed. “Bloody hell, here we go again, Mum’s turned into the village idiot”, he was thinking.

I’m aware that a certain amount of cooey sounds and exaggerated expressions are probably required for small children. I’m not saying we should have them all dressing in black tie and knowing which fork to use by 3, but do we have to treat them like total idiots all the time?

The wheels on the bus go round and round? Please. What the hell has that got to do with water-based fun anyway (apart from the fact that I was beginning to hope said bus would veer out of control and plunge to its watery grave in a convenient ravine)?

Perhaps I was having a bad day but by the time I left I could cheerfully have tripped one of the little darlings over and poked their self-righteous “birth is a gift” mother in the rose-tinted eyeball.

So, my suggestion to my fellow thinking human beings, next time you see a small infant or toddler, say something interesting or controversial to him or her. They won’t know the difference anyway and you’ll at least have a bit of a laugh. After all, my Father read Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer to me as a bedtime story when I was a baby. He had fun and I was none the wiser. Where’s the problem?

Don’t answer that the mother-cult. It was rhetorical.