Rebecca Tyrrel: Days Like Those

I have never been a competitive mother and Matthew is not a competitive father. We eschew competitive parenting. We are, in fact, gently amused by those people who set their children up in this way; we mock them, comfortable in the knowledge that we will never be like them.

Once, eight years ago, at a party, after hearing that a child called Artemis could say "trigonometry" before reaching the age of 11 months, Matthew suddenly disappeared from the room and rang me five minutes later. He was outside, in the car, pretending to be our baby-sitter, phoning to tell me that our own child of 18 months needed help with his algebra and we must return home at once.

But last weekend I broke all my own rules and I became not just competitive, but pushy, too. I let Louis, now aged 10, down, I let Matthew down and, most of all, I let myself down. I don't know what came over me.

It happened at a party to celebrate a baby's first birthday. The parents of the baby live in New York and rarely visit the UK, so they thought it would be a nice idea to celebrate their first-born's birthday here. It wasn't really a child's or baby's party; it was a grown-up event with champagne in the sunshine and delicious food, a marquee and a few children - mostly three- to five-year-olds, from my experience the worst age when it comes to competitive parenting.

"Keep your heckles under control," warned Matthew as we walked in, "and the minute we hear anyone boasting that their Ezekiel has been invited to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic, we're off." And then I remembered that we had left the presents we had bought for the baby in the car, so I went to fetch them while Matthew and Louis went on into the party.

If this hadn't happened, if I hadn't noticed on my return journey that the envelope containing the birthday card that Louis had written for the baby hadn't been sealed, if I hadn't read that card and felt so proud that my son had written such sweet, touching words of advice to a one-year-old, I wouldn't have turned into the alien woman that Matthew is still, over a week later, barely speaking to.

The presents were being piled on to a table in the sitting room as party guests filed through the house and out into the garden. I felt a little twinge of regret that the openings would be taking place after we had all gone home and I was worried that other gifts would be placed on top of ours and that Louis's card could easily get dislodged, fall on the floor and never be read. So, I asked the hostess if I could borrow some Sellotape to secure it. "He's gone to so much effort, bless him," I said in an only slightly competitive way. But she was greeting all her other guests and the baby was getting fractious so I was left to locate the Sellotape myself in a kitchen drawer that was easily accessible after the caterers had kindly moved a fold-up table, a large platter of salmon and a bowl of potato salad.

It was a lovely party, with more than a hundred people present. In they came, more and more, all adding presents to the pile. Every time Louis's offering got covered, I would pull it out and rest it carefully on the top.

"What are you doing," hissed Matthew at me. "I'm rearranging the presents because I am worried about Louis's card," I explained. "I don't want it to go astray. It is very important that it is read and appreciated." And then I carefully prised said card out of its envelope and showed it to Matthew, who agreed that it was indeed beautifully written - lovely sentiments, exquisite handwriting and so on - but not before offering to call Securicor so they could send round an operative to stand guard over it.

My mother-in-law wafted past and I showed her the card that her grandson had written. Her eyes welled with tears of pride.

At 3pm, when I was still keeping vigil by the table, the hostess asked if I was having a lovely time. "Oh yes," I said, "lovely, but I'm staying here because with my fair skin I daren't spend too long out in the sun." And it was then that she offered me some sun cream. She asked me to follow her up to the bathroom, handed me a tube of factor 50 and I seized the moment to ask if it would be at all possible for the baby to open Louis's present and card now. "You know what children are like," I said, "Louis gets so excited about giving."

I was all too aware of how this must have sounded, that I had made Louis out to be a particularly prissy five-year-old instead of the rather sophisticated, intelligent, self-aware, cultured... sorry... sorry, young fellow that he is. But I couldn't help myself.

And so, downstairs, Louis's card was opened and read out to the assembled crowd while I stood proudly by, my mother-in-law welled again and Louis scowled at me from the other side of the room. Matthew nudged me outside.

"But it was such a lovely message," I whined. "Your mother welled twice."

"My mother welled!" yelped Matthew. "My mother wells if she sees the Queen's face on a stamp. There are few activities known to humanity that don't make her well. My mother is a one-woman welling machine!"

"That was a lovely card, Louis," said the hostess as we left. "I shall treasure it, along with the one from my nephew, which is also very sweet. He is the under-11s UK chess champion, you know, but his parents keep very quiet about it."

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