CAMBRIDGE AGENDA November 2003   

This month Liz Fraser takes the spotlight off children to focus on the parents. It's all a question of hats, apparently ...

It's seems strange to me that, mention the word " parenthood", and one automatically thinks only of children. Surely that would be "childhood". Parenthood, on the other hand, is not only about raising and caring for our children, but also how to be parents , both in relation to the child and as two adults in their own relationship.

Here's how it goes: two individuals spot eachother one night in a crowded bar, their eyes meet, and it's lust at first sight (the love bit takes a little longer). After satisfying the lust, there follow a number of years of being a young, carefree couple: evenings out, lunches with friends, morning sex (and lunchtime, afternoon, early evening, or whenever they fancy it), travelling the world, lying in, Sunday papers, drunken curry nights and so on.

And then - BOOM! They have a baby. In the vast majority of cases, this event brings the following changes: conversations are now exclusively about baby or child-related issues; going out becomes rare, brief and highly planned (much like the sex in fact, which is now scheduled between "put baby to sleep" and "wake up for next feed"); friends without children stop calling or visiting; any previously shared interests or hobbies are shelved until the kids leave home, and nothing is ever spur-of-the-moment again. In other words, the couple, as it was before, no longer exists.

Becoming a parent is still most enriching and 'happy-making' thing that can happen to anyone, but it mustn't obliterate the person who existed before. If it does, by the time the kids leave home there won't be anyone left - just an empty shell. Wear your Mummy and Daddy hats during the day, but put them away in the evening and be the child-free couple you once were.

Because, despite what your teenagers will tell you, parents are real people too.