O is for other... as in other boys and other people's mothers.

YOU know the mantra. You've heard it all their lives. It has provided a constant background to your dealings with your children. But by the time they get to 12 years old or so, the background muttering is yanked up to full volume and deafens you at every opportunity.

"Other boys have designer jeans/ £100 trainers/ their own computer/TV in their bedrooms/£20 a week pocket money..."

"Other mothers make chips for tea every day/do their sons' coursework/ let them stay home alone at weekends/don't make them do the washing up/tidy their rooms/write thank you letters..."

Do you believe all that? Of course you don't.

And yet...

Motherhood can be a lonely business. When you start out and you have this tiny little scrap to look after, people are tripping over themselves to help. There are midwives and health visitors and clinics. There are playgroups, nurseries, mother and toddler groups.

You are desperate for reassurance - but there are usually plenty of experts and other mothers to provide it. Entire conversations between new mothers, rational women who used to work, drink and fancy Sean Bean, can centre solely on the colour of the contents of their child's nappies. Gross, I know but at least there's someone else to share the horror.

Even through their primary school days, even if you're working, you still see other parents. If you don't meet them at the school gates, you see them at sports days and concerts and nativity plays. There is plenty of contact and quite often they live close to you anyway.

Then they go to secondary school and, what's more, by this time, the chances are they're bigger than you.

Everything has changed. And just when you're faced with this huge alien being, the experts have vanished. What's more, you don't get to meet so many other mums so often.

And, sadly, they don't do creches for teenagers.

So when your boys say "other people's mothers..." there is, you can't help yourself, that little niggle of doubt.

Maybe other mothers really do all the things your son says.

So ask them.

You must know one or two. Or if visiting boys are collected by car - go out, speak to whoever's brought them or taking them away. Accost mothers at parents' nights, at football matches, when you're waiting for the school trip to come back, even in the pub or Safeway.

Don't be proud. Chances are that they too will be so desperate to compare notes with other mothers that they will almost fall on your neck in gratitude and certainly be more than happy to talk about their sons.

Or you can even telephone strangers if you like. One mum rang me years ago. "Is it true, " she asked nervously, "that your son is taking £500 pocket money on the school skiing trip?"

I think my hoots of helpless laughter answered her question pretty quickly.

But, which ever way you do it, it's well worth speaking to other mothers because it means that next time your son starts whining "other mothers..." you can stop him dead in his tracks.

"Oh no," you say. "Tom's mother doesn't. Neither does Dick's. Nor does Harry's. None of them. I know. I've spoken to them. So you are not the only freak in your year."

That should keep them quiet, oh, for at least ten minutes.

It's a wonderful feeling, this confidence. Gives you the strength to stand up to your strapping son and his stroppy ways.

Of course, the other thing O stands for is "out". As in "Where are you going to?"

And when you ask again, "Where?" you know what you'll be told:

"Other people's mothers don't keep checking up on them all the time."

Well they do actually. But they probably get the same answer.

Published: 12/06/2003