Do you remember when those notorious plant killers, Mum and Dad, decided to overhaul our childhood garden? I’d successfully campaigned for my own garden bed and after meticulously digging even rows, I deposited my floral seedlings. One by one, I built a protective mound of soil around each. Utterly besotted, I even gave them names.

Jamila (right) and her sister, Miriam, as children.

The next morning you pulled my hard work out of the ground, roots and all, and presented them to our mum. Your soil-stained, chubby little fist clenched around the bunch. A grin plastered on your four-year-old face; so eager, excited and unaware of the fallout that would follow.

It is with this in mind that I offer some sisterly advice before the arrival of your first baby.

The transition from pregnancy to new motherhood is accompanied by an abrupt shift in emphasis from mother to child. Anthropologist Dana Raphael writes that in some cultures they say, “a woman has given birth”, whereas in ours, we say “a child had been born”.

The difference is subtle, but betrays a total disregard for “matrescence”. You’ve likely never heard that word before (Microsoft apparently haven’t because they tell me it’s a spelling error). Matrescence describes........

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