As a Jewish vegetarian, I’ve never had the desire to see how any sausage is made. But indulge me while I show you how this one is done. I arrived at work today at 9am, looking – I think – mostly normal, in a sweatshirt and trousers. Except this outfit is one I’ve now worn for three days straight, because I lack the energy to think of another trousers-top combination. One of my children was up in the night with a temperature, and while he got back to sleep easily enough, I anxiously stayed awake, certain that he had scarlet fever (spoiler: he did not). When morning finally came, these are, in no particular order, a fraction of the questions I had from my twins in the two hours we had before leaving the house:

“Where is Peppa Pig”?

“Why can’t we have cake for breakfast?”

“Where is Daddy Pig?”

“Where is the cat?” (We don’t have a cat.)

“Where is Mamma Pig?”

Then there were the nonstop jangling questions in my head, ranging from “Have I written thank-you cards to everyone who came to their third birthday party this weekend?” to “Is that poo on my hand?” And I haven’t even mentioned the diplomatic challenge that is waking, feeding and dressing two toddlers while waking, dressing and feeding myself.

“Ready to write your column?” one of my colleagues asked with a breezy grin.

“Raring to go!” I replied, already dead by 9.15am.

“No one gives you a medal for being a parent,” one of my friends warned me before the boys were born, and I knew that. I’m not the first woman to have a baby! But most mornings I now think, usually around 9.15am: give me my goddamn medal.

Much has been written about Serena Williams at last weekend’s US Open final, by people who know far more about tennis and umpire biases than me. But one complaint about Williams that I’ve heard repeatedly is something I do know a little about: talking about motherhood in the workplace.

“I have never cheated in my life. I have a daughter and I stand for what’s right for her,” Williams snapped at the umpire, Carlos Ramos, after he docked points from her. There have been a lot of negative responses to this. “We do not live in Gilead. Motherhood is commonplace, not deserving of special privileges,” one sports writer wrote. (Is Gilead the bar for what women can object to now?) Worse, some thought Williams was suggesting that motherhood gave her some kind of moral superiority, making her an Andrea “as a mother” Leadsom of the tennis court.

But Williams wasn’t saying motherhood made her a saint – just that she tries to set a good example for her daughter, something she has spoken about often. Nor was she using her as an excuse, although, my God, Williams of all people – who nearly died in childbirth – would be entitled to. Yes, motherhood is commonplace – you’re not the first to have a baby! – but she is not comparing herself to other women, only to other athletes at her level in her sport, who are all men. As she rightly pointed out in her Vogue interview earlier this year: “[Federer] produced four babies and barely missed a tournament. I can’t even imagine where I’d be with twins right now. Probably at the bottom of a pool.” (That’s right, Serena! Join me!)

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Things are different for women, and it is not unfeminist to admit that; it is acknowledging a pretty basic reality. Their bodies are the ones wrecked by pregnancy and childbirth, and in most cases they remain the primary caregivers. If Federer’s wife, Mirka, still played tennis, would she be winning grand slams after two sets of twins, as her husband has done? A certain type of man loves to pounce on this and say it proves feminism is a lie, but I’ll tell you a story about that kind of man: when one of my friends was four months pregnant and wracked with morning sickness she asked a chap on a bus to give up his seat so she could sit down. “I thought you girls wanted equality,” he smirked back, not moving. She promptly threw up all over him and his laptop.

If people don’t want to acknowledge how life-shaping female biology is, then women are slightly to blame here. I, like a lot of women, try not to talk too much about my kids, because I don’t want people to think I am now limited by them. And I’m not: I still do everything I did before they turned up, now plus everything else.

But I also feel a little sad that so many of us indulge in this charade, pretending we’re not mentally possessed by our children, because we are. Williams has jettisoned that pretence, talking about her daughter both off and, now, on the court. She gave birth a year ago and has already made it to two grand slam finals – I think she’s allowed to mention she has a child. Hell, she probably had to wash some poo off her hand, too. No one’s asking for a medal here, just an occasional break.