Mothercare: Just Say No

Me, on exit

This week I faced my own personal Vietnam of pregnancy: I went to Mothercare.

Have you ever been in Mothercare? If so, and you have managed to emerge without weeping, clawing for air and despairing of the human race, you are a stronger woman than me. Here are the main reasons that I will be avoiding Mothercare like the plague FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.

1) The Shop Assistants
Let's be clear, Dubai customer service is poor at the best of times. Expect to approach most stores (esepcially beauty or clothing) armed with far, far more knowledge than the shop assistants. How I yearn for New York, where the women on the Estee Lauder counter can analyse your skin at 20 paces, and make skincare and make-up recommendations with one eye closed.

The staff at Mothercare take incompetence to a whole new level. Bear in mind that I am far from a typically maternal fawning woman, whose knowledge of baby equipment hovers around the low to zero level. And yet I still knew more about car seats than the indept twerp who attempted to serve me. I rest my case.

2) There's SO MUCH stuff
The Mothercare in Dubai Mall must cover the size of four football pitches if not more. To be fair, if this floorplan was full of clothes, shoes, cosmetics or capybaras, I'd be more interested. But the vastness of it overwhelmed me. Who buys this stuff? And why?

3) The Clothes Are Offensive
I should have known better than to stray into the maternity clothes section. What I found there rendered me speechless. Hideous outfits that my grandmother would baulk at and refuse to wear (she isn't nicknamed Joan Collins for nothing!).

4) It is FULL of Other People's Children
I know this is a tad ironic given that I'll soon have one of my own, but the children in Mothercare seem to be a special breed. An out of control, screaming, raging, mayhem causing breed. I swear my ear drums are still whimpering.

Never mind all the advice about what to eat/what not to eat/what to do with a baby/what not to do with a baby: mothers of the world, please share the most important advice of all: ENTER MOTHERCARE AT YOUR PERIL.