Spotting the house of Charlie and Lola creator Lauren Child is pretty easy in a square of impeccably turned-out houses. It’s the brightly painted one with a clashing door, standing out against so much sober Farrow & Ball. The windows are packed with quirky bits and bobs. And the front steps – emblazoned with chalk scribbles made by Tuesday, her five-year-old daughter – totally give the game away.
When she is told she has been rumbled from way down the road, Child laughs and then apologises for the amount of stuff crammed in the hallway and the open-plan kitchen. “Tuesday loves to do real cooking as well as pretending,” she says, gesturing to one side, where a treasure trove of kitchen paraphernalia sprawls out over the surfaces of a play kitchen. There is evidence of a small child – and her many interests – everywhere. “We like to be together, usually in here,” says Child.
Tuesday’s arrival came about after Child, who had always wanted to adopt, went to Mongolia as part of a Unesco project. She fell in love with the country and its people, and having researched other international adoption routes, decided to find a child there. Child stayed in Mongolia for long periods with local friends who helped with the process before she and her daughter, then two and a half, arrived back in the UK.
“Nothing could have prepared me for what parenthood actually feels like,” says Child. “Just our journey home was a baptism of fire.” As homecomings go, it does sound particularly tough. “We were in transit for 24 hours and Tuesday was beside herself for most of that time. When we finally got home, she was exhausted and fast asleep after kicking, biting and screaming for hours on end. I, however, was right on the edge,” she says.
“I never really knew what was going to happen on a day-to-day basis – things like bedtimes were hard as she wanted to be physically close to me all the time. I remember once I was chatting to someone she didn’t know and the only way she could cope was by cuddling me so fiercely that she was standing on my head. All the textbook advice – such as the importance for adopted children to have their own bedroom – was just not an option. She slept in my bed, full stop. To countenance anything else was impossible.”
Before Tuesday was even on the horizon, Child had also signed a six-book contract to write a series of novels about teen genius detective Ruby Redfort, a spin-off character from the Clarice Bean books. “I was absolutely shattered,” she says. With the fifth of those due out in November, she is now on the home straight.
Before Child became a parent, her childless status dogged her. “My job made it hard – I was asked constantly why I didn’t have children and whether I wanted to. I think people forget it’s a very intrusive and personal question – and fraught with judgment, particularly for women.”
She says she knew she wanted to be a mother when she was 30, but feels that she probably wouldn’t have done a particularly good job at that point in life. “I’m a bit more grown-up now,” she laughs. “For me, adoption was never a second choice. I just didn’t know whether I would have a child biologically and then adopt, or do it the other way round. I’d been thinking about it a lot, and it seemed logical to have a birth child first. But it didn’t happen,” she muses, clarifying that she adopted Tuesday as a single woman. Her partner of more than a decade, Adrian, has since become Tuesday’s legal father. “We are a family,” she says.
“If you feel there’s something missing from your life, it doesn’t matter what wonderful things you have – a good career, a partner you love – it’s about that missing element,” she explains, adding that sometimes, things being good in your life remind you constantly of what’s not there. “You feel a bit perplexed that your happiness can hinge on something you don’t have, and that all those other things aren’t enough to make you feel all right with the world. I didn’t feel right and thought I’d never feel right, without a child.”
When Tuesday came along, the agony of wanting a child did naturally fade, says Child. “Her coming along – this delightful character – was an amazing thing. Although it doesn’t make your life perfect – as any carer of a small child will tell you – there are just some new problems which come along,” she laughs.
Now, their lives are blossoming. Tuesday is at school, makes a mean chocolate cake, has started swimming lessons, loves riding on the back of Child’s bike through the north London streets and watching Miranda – and happily, Charlie and Lola – with her mum and dad on the sofa. “She’s a pretty average child. She loves school, she’s curious about everything.” They do talk about her journey in life, but only when she wants to, says Child. She would like to return to Mongolia to see old friends and show Tuesday her homeland again.
Child is back to illustrating, after a period of writing non-stop – something that makes her very happy. “I missed doing picture books, as the Ruby Redfort books don’t have illustrations. I realised that I didn’t feel like me.”
One Thing, the latest Charlie and Lola book, which celebrates 15 years of the duo’s existence, was written years ago, long before Tuesday arrived. It’s all about numbers and counting. “One of the first things you do with a child is count with them – the rhythm is natural and it’s an easy way to engage and chat to them,” says Child. This being Lola, however, it’s also about a child’s innate need to bargain and negotiate. Charlie and Lola are told they can go to the shop to choose “one thing”. “Immediately, Lola’s after more,” laughs Child. “I think that’s human nature, but children do it brilliantly.”
Child is happy that she has managed to pinpoint that particular essence of childhood. “It was when I had Tuesday that I realised that this was the book I wanted to illustrate now. Revisiting it, I felt pleased, because it was so right. Having Tuesday gives me more ideas as I can observe her so closely – not so much storylines, but little aspects of her behaviour. I love that playfulness that you’re seeing day in, day out.”
Child’s work spans more than 20 years and includes an entire family of characters that she has parented since their inception. Like Clarice Bean, her first and favourite character, many were spawned by her own family and friends. “Clarice Bean’s family represented the kind of family I was fascinated by – loud, busy, chaotic,” she says. “My older sister was Clarice’s aloof teenage sister, Marcie, and my younger one was her annoying younger brother, Minal Cricket,” she admits.
Child, born in 1965, the middle of three girls of teacher parents, had a happy childhood. “My parents were brilliant at letting us get on with life ourselves,” she says. “We loved that Mum was very relaxed about us making a mess – in the kitchen mostly. Most of what we did was on our own – because, in those days, ‘parenting’ wasn’t really a thing.”
Absentee parents have always been the unspoken premise of Charlie and Lola. “Their parents are always off-page. You know they’re there, but they’re never intruding into the world of the children. I created Charlie and Lola because I remembered all those times when I was just hanging out with my sisters. My parents were around, but they weren’t monitoring us apart from to tell us to play nicely, but that was it.”
Child concedes that there is now a truth that we have to be constantly entertaining or directing children, or feeding their imaginations. “I don’t think that’s a bad thing, but maybe partly because there’s so much guilt around what we should be doing to nurture them – doing crafts, going to museums, doing homework, taking them to parties – on top of working in or outside the home.” Being bored and learning how to cope with that is a good thing, says Child. “Staring into space is underrated,” she laughs. “It’s sometimes when you have your best ideas.”
Child’s partner once gave a good response to the eternal questions about how she could write for children without actually having any. “Adrian said that writing for children wasn’t about imitation, it was about imagination. I think you can apply that to being a parent. What’s interesting is that it doesn’t matter how many families I know, how many children I’ve met, they each have a unique experience. Me? I think I’m very lucky. The longer Tuesday’s been in my life, the better. I can’t imagine life without her.”
• Charlie and Lola’s One Thing is published by Orchard Books on 1 October
