Baby talk

I've always wanted a family.

But I wasn't sure it would happen. And I think that might be why as someone with no kids I found I just didn't talk about kids much. Not even to my friends with children. The longer you go without pro-creating the less you are sure it will happen. Years - and partners! - come and go with no pitter patter of tiny feet.

And as time goes by the less people talk to you about it. The less they say "you'll be next" when someone gives birth. Until eventually they don't say it at all. Over 30 with no kids it becomes "when are you going to get started?” A few more years and the subject not only doesn't come up, it gets carefully skirted around.

And then your wife clears off. It becomes a positive no-go zone!

On top of that, of course, there's the fact that these days so many people are terrified about having to protect their kids from the media-concocted paedophile on every corner: always a stranger and always a man. You almost feel you can't ask about friends' kids for fear of being perceived as the bogey man. It's depressing.

But recently my subconscious reticence to engage in children chit-chat has started to fall away. Not consciously, but without even noticing. My friend Paul at work has two young boys under two and has just discovered child number three is on the way. Over the last couple of weeks I have found myself chatting to him about his kids more and more. It's been a liberating experience. I realized just how much I must have been chatting to him about them when yesterday he concluded with "You should go and get yourself one".

I am really looking forward to telling some people at work. Paul and Dave for example, who both have young kids. (And I think Paul's wife is about 14 or 15 weeks pregnant so she's only a 2 or 3 weeks ahead of Hayley.) And it will be strange to tell other people who have known me for the best part of 20 years during which time I have seen them start families, raise them and now have started to help send them out into the world. My God, they must wonder what I've been doing with my time!

But most of all it will be a relief to not have to keep my mouth shut! Several times I have nearly let it slip. And as the day has approached when I can tell people, I have felt a grin spreading across my face. It's going to be great to be ungagged and to let people know what I've been grinning about.