Small talk survival guide

Small talk in the playground or at toddler groups is an inevitable ritual when you’re a mum. Yet the small talk is all a lie – you need to dig a little deeper to find the truth. So here is a guide I hope you find useful (and I wish somebody showed me when I first became a mum.)

Question: “What do you do?” Translation: “Stay-at-home mum? Ahhh thought so…”

Question: “What does your husband do?” Translation: “How rich are you people??“

Question: “Where about do you live?” Translation: “Are you in the posh area??“

Question: “That’s cute…is it from Joules?” Translation: “Please tell me it’s from the eBay Joules outlet store otherwise we are in completely different leagues.”

Question: “Any plans for the weekend?” Translation: “Don’t care – let me tell you about the fantastic family day out we have planned followed by the drinks we’re having in the evening with our huge number of friends.”

Question: “Blah blah blah, I mean the cleaner comes that day anyway, blah blah…” Translation: “Yeah that’s right bitch, we’ve got a cleaner. Jealous much?”

Question: “So are you doing anything nice for your birthday?” Translation: “Let’s see/hope/pray this person has a non-existent social life like me…”

Question: “Are you thinking of having any more kids?” Translation: “Because I don’t want to be alone in this…”

Essentially, mum chit chat all comes down to comparison. We are insecure and equally jealous creatures, constantly comparing as every other person you know seems to have it better.

They may live in the posh area but pay a stonking mortgage they can barely afford. They may do nice things for their birthdays but that’s to makeup for the lack of nice things the rest of the year. They may have a cleaner, but that’s because their just lazy… (I’m joking. Kind of. I’m just jealous.)

Small talk is a polite way to validate ourselves. And to find out where the other mums live so we can look up it on Prime Location and figure out how much money they have and compare it to our own crappy house.

Come on now, let’s be honest.