There’s an article that İ’ve been trying to write for over a month. Each time I sit down to type I am battling to get my fingers to move across the keys. Yet the topic is close to my heart and the words should flow freely but they don’t. I feel guilty even approaching the subject and I keep thinking about the repercussions should it be published. The idea for the piece was inspired by Helen Kirwan-Taylor’s almost legendary piece in The Daily Mail in July 2006 ‘Sorry, but my children bore me to death!’. She wrote then; ‘To be honest, I spent much of the early years of my children's lives in a workaholic frenzy because the thought of spending time with them was more stressful than any journalistic assignment I could imagine......While all my girlfriends were dropping important careers and occupying their afternoons with cake baking, I was begging the nanny to stay on, at least until she had read my two a bedtime story. What kind of mother hates reading bedtime stories? A bad mother, that's who, and a mother who is bored rigid by her children.’ 

Much of what she wrote rang true and I have avoided writing about my daughter (except in passing) in order to avoid becoming a baby bore regaling you all each week with minute developments in her facial or visual-spatial control. As the months have gone by though what I have become aware of is that the chances of my becoming a baby bore are slim because though İ have mixed feelings about admitting such a thing publicly, I find babies boring. 

I imagine that many of you are already appalled that I could write such an unnatural thing. I could fill the rest of this page with assertations of how much I love her and I do love her, but that doesn’t alter the fact that I find the tasks, all mercilessly necessary to ensure the well being of such a helpless creature, onerous and largely unfulfilling. Breastfeeding was a labour of love, regular bouts of sitting either hunched in bed or prostrate in an armchair for what amounted to hours every day gave me backache and wore me out. I managed till three and a half months but was glad when we went over to the bottle. Rather than miss the intimate bond between mother and infant that it can lead to I was pleased to be able to share the task with others. Nappy changing I don’t mind as Gül Peri is delighted by her own poos and enjoys the little trips to be held under a running tap. Night feeding is a chore, İ was never a party animal and 1.30am and 5am are both dismal times to be awake. Playing and singing are the best of a bad bunch. 

These feelings appear to be incorrect, most women and some men have a natural affinity for babies. I am surrounded by people who want to coo at her and hold her and who treat every gurgle and hand wave of their own children as a momentous event. I’ve yet to meet any other new mum who thinks baby care is tedious. I had a suspicion before she was born that İ might not be all-singing all-dancing in the realm of infant appreciation having had little interest in the young children of others and i wondered how it would be with my own and whether the motherly hormones cause a shift in character. Certainly a change in priorities has taken place, her needs for food, sleep, entertainment etc come before my own but there is no drive within me that thinks it is vital that I provide all these things. Her dad, her nanny and her grandparents are all equally able to care for her. İ’m very much in favour of the African adage that it takes a whole village to raise a child. 

While Sezgin felt a strong sense of ownership towards Gül Peri from the moment she was born and the bond between them is intense I felt i had given birth to a little stranger. I don’t own her, I’ve just been entrusted with the guardianship of another human being who i must try to make a happy working member of the human race. I carry out the vital tasks because I have to not because İ want to and İ am inordinately pleased that she started to crawl at six months because it may mean that she will walk and talk and become independent that little bit earlier. 

Even as I write these paragraphs I wonder what Gül Peri will think if she reads them when she grows up. Will she despise me for my bad parenting? She will be living in a society where small children are absolutely doted on and I stand out a mile from the ‘average’ mother. Will she think I am abnormal? Will she feel ignored or deprived? Or perhaps she may turn out like me? 

At seven months old my relationship with her is developing and as she gets older and communication between us is more reciprocal I am sure that the ways that we spend out time together will become more stimulating. This baby stage is OK but I am hungry to meet the young adult with ideas and opinions. İ will continue to deal with the monotony of ‘care’ but remain more committed to the idea of our relationship being that of two individuals rather that that of parent to baby.