About the idea

mob n. female of the species who breeds male member(s) of society; mother of boy(s)

You know you’ve joined the MOB when you hear…

‘My, are they all yours?’

‘Bless you!’ (Occasionally)

‘Poor you!’ (Frequently)

‘Lucky you!’ (Once)

And of course, the ultimate: ‘So… are you going for a girl?’

With three small boys and a bigger boy husband, I’ve been on the receiving end of all of the above. And as the outnumbered female, I sometimes find myself gazing at the many males in my life and wondering ‘why?’ It would appear that I am far from alone.

Following the publication of the Guardian piece, I was inundated by messages (well, OK, there was a substantial trickle) from other slightly bemused, intermittently exasperated and always exhausted Mothers of Boys. ‘It’s so good,’ wrote one lovely lady, apparently huddled in the kitchen, breast-feeding her youngest son while her eldest boys helter-skeltered down the stairs, ‘it’s so good to know that it’s not just me.’

I realised then that there might be more to the MOB than met the Saturday supplement. Cue, therefore, wine-fuelled evenings billed as ‘research’, with mothers of only boys and only girls and bits of both… evenings amongst friends that planted the seeds of a book, watered my tweets on twitter and provided plenty of manure for this very blog.

So whether you’re a MOB, a MOG or a Perfect Pair, a Father of Boys FOB or a Granny of Boys GOB, or whether you’re none of the above and are here because you like dinosaurs and pink, I’d love to hear from you. Welcome to the MOB and welcome to my blog!