Today I hosted a play date for my 10-month-old and her pals - her diary is infinitely more diverse than mine these days. I’m not sure whether she learnt any new tricks (other than endorsing her status as queen bee of her own play mat) but what I learnt is that to covet is nature, not nurture.

My daughter has a lot of toys, most of which she doesn't usually deem worthy of anything beyond a cursory glance before being tossed nonchalantly aside. When alone, that is, she’d much rather shred my unread magazines or eat my boots. But when faced with the possibility that said toys might pose the remotest interest to another baby, the covetous switch was flicked and she endeavoured (with a surprisingly determined vigour) to reclaim each and every toy with the possessiveness of Gollum and his Ring. And she wasn't alone - it seemed the only toys in favour that day were those in favour with everyone else.
 
Inherent desirability ultimately escalates in line with how desirable something is to someone else. In fact, the greater the number of people who desire an item, the greater its desirability; conversely, desirability instantly declines when the masses deem it unworthy of desire. Wait list for a table at Nobu case in point. And would Hermes' infamous Birkin and Kelly be quite so lust-worthy if the wait lists weren’t twice as long as the human gestation period?
 
It seems that this is an instinct that is only honed, not waned, with age. We simply become more adept at fuelling the number of sources of covetable items, and we also become better at sating those desires. We are a marketing dream - fuelling the fantasy lifestyle we covet, driving a never ending spiral of 'keeping up with the Joneses', emulating that initial baby battleground.
 
I remember once trailing a woman around a sample sale for almost an hour, waiting and hoping for her to let go of that last pair of Louboutins (open toe, snakeskin slingbacks, very flattering on the ankles). Ironically I had tried them on five minutes before she picked them up and hadn't particularly cared for them, especially as they were a size too big. Now I was so obsessed about having them I was considering literally snatching them from her while her attention was diverted elsewhere. I know that had she let them go my crazed obsession would have diminished just as quickly as it had arisen. And likewise she probably was only hanging onto them like a lioness to a carcass because she could sense me sniffing around like a woman possessed. It's likely she ended up buying them purely because I wanted them, and it made her think she wanted them more as a by-product of that. Bizarre how the mind works.
 
So it appears we might be that bit older, with a few extra teeth, a little additional knowledge under the belt, and minus the nappy, but at the core we’re still just that baby fighting for that rattle.

Here Is The Writer : Mrs A

Mrs A is a soon to be ex-banker, currently on baby leave. She endured eight years in the City as a stockbroker before a timely exit to deal with matters of a maternal nature. Just as she began debating the merits of 'to return or not to return', the R word laid to rest that dilemma. Now she revels in the relative safety of being able to watch the credit crunch from the removed perspective of a civilian, while continuing to harbour her closet handbag habit. Click here to read more on her blog.

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