My daughter’s father and I didn’t manage to have a conversation about what having a baby meant until a week after my due date. We weren’t a couple, and he had drifted in and out of my life during the pregnancy in an emphatically non-committal way, but with an overdue baby big in my belly we got to talking. Pacing my apartment, he said, “What’s on your mind?” then fixed me with the imperious blue stare I now get every day from my girl, and unloaded.

When I told my parents I was pregnant, I prickled with shame. But I was looking for responsibility – and an escape