Why don’t other mums care about socially distancing their kids?

With tensions running high in the local park, Charlotte Cripps recalls a time and place when it was less gentrified

(Illustration by Amara May)

Why is my local park suddenly heaving with yummy mummies? I never usually see them here – it’s always just the nannies. But since lockdown has eased, it’s like walking into a cocktail party. It’s not exactly a posh park in North Kensington but there are some very expensive houses in the surrounding streets. You only have to look on Rightmove to see the difference one street can make to the price tag and its inhabitants. It’s like yummy-mummy central. But why haven’t I spotted these mums before?

Were they at lunches, the gym, and nail bars before coronavirus hit? God knows, but they don’t seem to care about social distancing their children. As a result, I’ve been having terrible clashes with them about the two-metre rule. One mum stormed off when I applied antibacterial gel to Liberty’s arm after her child had licked mine like she was an ice cream. She told me it was offensive?

I was baffled, especially as I had been so nice earlier when her child had dive-bombed me. Having never met them before, I made a sweet joke saying it was “like the opposite of social distancing”. The week before, a little boy kept trying to push Lola off her scooter as they played chase and when I asked him nicely to stop doing it as we needed to socially distance, he burst into tears.

When his mum finally appeared and hugged him saying, “Breathe Atticus, breathe,” I wondered if she was a yoga teacher. But by then the whole park was staring at me as if I was guilty. Two old ladies said to me: “You should be ashamed of yourself, making a little child cry like that.” I said: “Didn’t you see him pushing my child off her scooter four times?” But nobody heard me. I was the enemy – the yummy mummies were ganging up.

It’s like Brexit – nobody seems to agree on the best course of action – but instead of leaving Europe, it’s social distancing. Some mums let their kids run wild, saying there is no point in trying to keep any distance – but why?

How different this little pocket of North Kensington seemed when I was in the midst of my love affair with Alex

Do they think coronavirus only happens to other people? “I have an 87-year-old dad I’m looking after,” I told another mum as I held back tears. “Well, you shouldn’t be out in the park with your children if you are shielding him,” she said.

I got over it. Perhaps they don’t have a clue about park etiquette because it’s usually left to the nannies.

How different this little pocket of North Kensington seemed when I was in the midst of my love affair with Alex. Were my rose-tinted glasses blinding me to the posh parents waiting outside the local private school, and the mums with their seemingly picture-perfect lives? In those days I had no children. Every moment was spent looking out for Alex. Would his Toyota pick-up truck swerve around the corner? Would he be waltzing past the café. The last thing on my mind was mums and their offspring.

I have warm memories of this little pocket of west London – even before Alex – when I lived 10 minutes up the road in a mews house in Westbourne Grove. And the only mum I knew was my own poor long-suffering one, who knew I was going off the rails long before I did. The area was vibrant rather than gentrified. It was about Notting Hill Carnival and all-night parties. But soon night was day – I was living in the Dracula zone. When I saw everybody going to work in the morning, I knew it was time for bed.

I thought the party would never end – but eventually there was no party. I was socially isolating, alone with my drink and drugs. That’s when I hit rock bottom. I remember looking in the mirror and thinking: “I’m going to die.” It was that simple.

Friends and family told me I needed help but I couldn’t see it. My sister Rebecca used to get her NA friends to call me up for a random chat. My mum even dragged me to a psychiatrist: I just couldn’t understand why. I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there.

Addiction – including eating disorders – must be the only illness in which you are the last person to realise you have a problem. But at that moment when I saw my face and sunken eyes – the deep unhappy look of somebody who is losing everything – I wanted to live. Finally, I was off the merry-go-round called denial.