Daisy Donovan: Take It From Me

'Being with your child seems to be an access-all-areas pass to unsolicited conversation. Which I find unnerving'

Can I just establish that I love my tiny daughter with all my heart. HOWEVER, I am not sure... no, rephrase... I am 100 per cent sure, that I do not love being a "parent". I use quotes, because there are parents (people who have children) and "parents" – people who lose any semblance of being normal humans and find their parallel selves in a universe where all idiotrons are given a voice. And a gratingly loud one at that.

Why so? Why such a DISPLAY? Why call your children, with a smirk, "little monsters" to any passing soul? Why have 17 nicknames for them – I heard one mother whose son was, I hope, called Bob, call him "Bobsie", "Bobble" and "B" in seven seconds. But maybe I'm just a novice, and I haven't quite got to that stage yet.

I have no clue why pushing a pram makes you public property. I was on a bus the other day, watching some poor mum wrestling her buggy up the aisle while the driver pirouetted round roundabouts. Just as she was wedged to a stop between people, some lady announced, "Your child's hat is over its eyes, you know". It was clearly not an ideal state for a child to be in, but I'm guessing that for that woman, her child wondering where the world had gone for a fewseconds was not top of her priorities in the battle for a millimetre-squared of standing room.

I don't get it... We all eat. It's universal. We don't lean over to another table at a restaurant and say, "You should really tuck your napkin in your collar if you don't want Bolognese splashback". If I get splashback, and I didn't want it, then my mistake. I'll learn a "no splashback" technique next time. All by myself. Or I might ask a friend I trust to highlight the disadvantages of Bolognese to avoid a similar incident. But I wouldn't get stuck in with a stranger.

Being with your child, however, seems to be an access-all-areas pass to unsolicited conversation. Which I find distinctly unnerving. I know it's all a "we're in the same boat"-type pally-pally vibe. But again, do I talk to a girl standing with a man in the shop because, y'know, I have a boyfriend too? No. I maintain my distance, and merely observe "there is a woman and her boyfriend/husband standing in front of me in the line, I do not know them, therefore I will not strike up a conversation with them". Simple.

It has taken me years to find, love, and keep up with all the friends in my life. I can't bond just like that, it's weird. I sat in a café today with my aforementioned tiny daughter. She was in brown hues because I've sugar-crashed on pink. Anyway, two small boys and their dad come to sit on the sofa opposite.

"WHO IS THIS?" the father asks so loudly my chair shakes. What I now know is this is universal-parent-speak for "I am starting up a conversation with you about who might be the best local viola teacher for under-fives." All I did was think, "Who on earth is he talking to?" The father says, "THAT BABY IS VERY QUIET, ISN'T IT?"

The seven-year-old shouts, "HELLO, BABY WITH MASSIVE HEAD!" I wince. She does have quite a big head, but I thought that was my paranoia. Seems not. He carries on, "THAT BABY IS A TARRYOGON." (Or something of that ilk.) The little brother shouts, "HE IS". The "HE" is a teeny stab on top of the wince, but serves me right for the pink bypass. The mother appears, the seven-year-old yells, "HE LOOKS LIKE A TARRYOGON – DID YOU HEAR ME, BABY? YOU LOO..."

The mother butts in: "I THINK HIS MUMMY HEARD YOU BUT IS BUSY," and shoots me a filthy "You're no fun" look. So I feel bad, and say in my most upbeat voice, "What's a tarryogon?" And he replies brightly: "A GIANT-CRANIUMED PTERODACTYL, HE LOOKS EXACTLY THE SAME."

My only response is: "SHE looks exactly the same, SHE looks exactly the same."

In an attempt to do a 180 away from being that kind of "parent", I've developed a terrible urge to be like Kate Moss, not exactly the world's leading maternal light, one might argue. But I want edge. I want bite. I want to paint a gold star over my eye. I want to party for as many hours as I am old.

It turns out I'm not alone in my teenager-ish rebellion. I met a friend the other day who admitted she was so desperate not to be a "parent" that she was thinking of going to an orgy. If she could find one. But she didn't know where to look... and then if she did go, she'd probably be in a human sandwich thinking, "Did I sterilise enough bottles?"

Talking of sex, I paid a baby-sitter an extortionate amount so I could go to the cinema, which I used to do all the time for free. It was Lust, Caution, and all I could think during the lingering, artistic sex scenes was not "Such lust, they must display caution," but "Hurry the hell up, I get it, but if you take any longer I'm into the next hour." Cinema-going is not what it used to be.

Somehow, someday, I might work all this out but in the meantime I'm going to scuttle from braying "li'l monster" owners and pretend that I, too, can rock a gold star like Kate Moss. Even if it does slither down my face while I make shepherd's pie and cry that all the children in the world are just so "beautiful". You see, being a parent makes you weird.