Ten things they never tell you about the reality of parenting
1All parenting is based on a very healthy dose of compromise/ bribe/rewards. Anyone that says otherwise is a liar. The reality is they have their own minds. My six-year-old has meltdowns like a 13-year-old girl and my nine-month-old just screams all the time. On that basis, bribes and compromises are key. Or in Rose’s case, throw a Mini Cheddar at the problem and hope it goes away!
2 3Getting out of clothes and changing when a baby is sick becomes a skill – who can change and strip off in the bathroom and roll all the offending/covered clothes in to a ball for a washing machine without any of it going on the floor.
Likewise, as above, the reality of sick babies is hell. There is no despair than the despair of your baby being sick, in the middle of the night. Over everything. While the rest of the house sleeps, and you’re trying to change, strip off, and get dressed without waking anyone up, or without getting sick and phlegm everywhere. Whilst simultaneously soothing the baby, grab baby wipes, change them and get back to bed as quickly as possible. It’s like some weird Crystal Maze challenge. Except there’s no crystal. Just more washing!
4You end up having to become some sort of Mary Poppins meets Mister Maker when you’re tasked with school projects. This week was ‘Arty Maths Week’; the result was a ‘top hat’ hat made to order on Thursday night on instruction from Archie who wanted it to be the tallest hat like The Cat in The Hat but bright and colourful. So my kitchen was upside down with glitter, pipe cleaners, cardboard, an old baseball cap and a lot of stress between 4.30 and 6.30pm!
5There is nothing that can’t be fixed with a hot glue gun. (See the hat comment above). Projects – hot glue gun. Homework – hot glue gun. Random toys breaking off bits – hot glue gun. I even tried to use it on clothes before and it did the job for about a week.
6
There is no pain like the pain of putting your finger in wet hot glue from the hot glue gun (see above point).
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You soon realise that your kids will look like the best dressed, catalogue model children at every occasion. With clean hair, great shoes (or socks in Rose’s case), and they’ll always look ready for a photo. You on the other hand will nearly always resemble Thor when he lets himself go in Avengers Endgame. Your hair will be so greasy it’s 50% on the way to cleaning itself again, and your clothes will always have stains on them. I took Archie to football this week in a white T-shirt and only when we got there did he ask what was on my shoulder. It was, in fact, Rose’s bolognese that she’d wiped all over me when I picked her up. The worst part? At that point, I didn’t even care!
8Your new job title is PA. PA to their activities, doctors and health visitor appointments, parties and school things... I am so busy with Archie at the moment I don’t think poor Rose will ever get to go to an activity. The reality is, that you’re constantly working out who needs to be where at what time and with who!
9Everything you ‘think’ you’ll do, and everything you ‘think’ you’ll say before you become a parent goes swiftly down the drain when the reality of being one hits home. Pre-parent Robyn was a bit of a judgemental idiot to be fair, and only when having a kid did I realise that all the things I insisted “I’ll never do”, I did. Want a kinder Bueno at 8.30 on Christmas Day? Knock yourself out kid!
10The biggest reality is that all of the above – absolutely everything you go through – is worth it. And you won’t even care that you haven’t showered for four days. Because that is the real reality!