I’m five foot seven or 170cm, with a soft waist, wispy red hair and a face covered in freckles.
Apart from vapid teenage fantasies, I’ve never considered myself a model but I’ve accidentally become one over the past six years.
As our daughter grows up and our baby boy turns into a toddler it’s clear my behaviours and my husbands’ too are shaping our children. From being brave at the beach to giving lip during an argument, to the two of them he and I are monkeys in the zoo to be studied and frighteningly, copied.
Discovering this has been simultaneously freeing and tiring. Freeing because there are no more parenting golden rules I must follow, tiring because it means I need to be a good person. Before having kids you don’t really have to worry about that apart from having basic manners and morals.
Now I have to think about what I’m modelling all the time, like wearing sunscreen, a hat, eating my veggies, drinking enough water and reading books over watching television.
I also have to consider how I comment on myself, on others, speak to others and treat others when I’m around my kids. It’s important that around them I am aware of my actions, the activities I choose to do and my language (a huge departure from my foul-mouthed newsroom days).
I’m not a perfect human now and accept I never will be. I’ve discovered so many weak spots in the course of becoming a mum of two. But I am motivated everyday to be better for them, to be the best I can be in every way because ‘monkey see, monkey do’.
As printed in the Village Voice January 2024