It’s only when you have kids you realise what hard work it is

SOMETIMES I think children are just God’s payback for you being a little s*** to your own parents when growing up!

It’s only truly when you have your own kids that you realise what bloody hard work it is and how little thanks you get in return.

And yes we all love them to bits and wouldn’t swap them for the world (most of the time) but there are occasions when I think to myself – ‘ this is bloody karma for me being a brat when I was young.’

For all the times I lied to them about where I was (6 O’Clock mass when I was really smoking Carrolls behind the school wall), who I was with, (No I most certainly was not kissing the face off some complete tosser) and what I was doing, (drinking?? Me? No! whilst 5 minutes later puking out my bedroom window.)

I was hard work, probably no worse than your average teenager but hard work all the same. And when I had my own kids I had this wonderful unrealistic notion that my children were going to tell me everything because we had such a trusting and loving relationship. What planet was I living on?!

So now I have a teenager whose main form of communication is grunting and muttering under his breath. Every so often if I blackmail him with tea and viscount biscuits he’ll feed me titbits of his personal life, but I suspect highly edited, cleaned up versions of the actual truth.

He attended his first ball last week. Third year balls are apparently a thing now. In my day it was a hop or teenage discos. Now it’s balls.

He looked handsome in his dickie bow and shiny shoes but he refused to wear a jacket despite it being -1 degrees. We fought. He won and I turned into my mother.

‘Don’t blame me if you get your death of cold!’

Like Cinderella but much less chatty he returned at midnight, shirt hanging out, dickie bow in pocket. He was a bit giddy.

‘Were you drinking?’ I asked, making him breathe on me. ‘Obviously,’ he retorted drily, taking his shoes off. No detectable smell of alcohol. Oh Jesus maybe he was doing drugs!

‘Did you take drugs?’ I ask. ‘Yeah tons,’ was the answer I got, accompanied by an eye roll. ‘ There’s no need to be rude. I’m just checking. But if you have I’ll kill you!’ I’m really not sure how to proceed with this line of questioning but I reckon a threat is as good a tool as any.

‘Mam,’ he sighs. ‘I’m not doing drugs. But do you really think if I was, I’d tell you?’ He has a point. I try a different line of interrogation.

‘Well did you at least get a shift?’ He shakes his head, picks up his shoes and heads for his bedroom. ‘We are not having this conversation.’

Oh My God. Karma is a b****.

OCCASIONALLY HE’LL FEED ME TITBITS OF HIS PERSONAL LIFE - I SUSPECT HIGHLY EDITED, CLEANED UP VERSIONS OF THE ACTUAL TRUTH