One of the things that really irritated me as a childfree adult was being told that I could not possibly understand something - love, tiredness, forward planning, laundry, whatever - because I did not have a child.
As a parent, I'd like to reassure all childfree readers that there are only two things I "understand" now that I didn't before. These are:
1. The impulse to talk about poo. I've resisted the urge to post online about the contents of Jamie's nappies. His business is his business. On the other hand, as with all babies there are days when a particularly remarkable nappy really is the most interesting thing to have happened that day or when dealing with it without needing to nuke the site from orbit is truly an achievement, and at those times it is an effort to hold on to social proprieties.
2. The challenge of the nice cup of tea and a biscuit, an interesting combination of relaxation and stress. If you can pull it off, there's few things more restorative than a hot cuppa and a biscuit while the baby sleeps. But the tension is high, as one wrong move could wake the baby, resulting in a shortened nap, a screaming child, no biscuit and a cup of tea which, by the time the screams are quelled, has gone almost undrinkably cold. It's like the most incredibly mundane yet incredibly frustrating computer game ever.
As a parent, I'd like to reassure all childfree readers that there are only two things I "understand" now that I didn't before. These are:
1. The impulse to talk about poo. I've resisted the urge to post online about the contents of Jamie's nappies. His business is his business. On the other hand, as with all babies there are days when a particularly remarkable nappy really is the most interesting thing to have happened that day or when dealing with it without needing to nuke the site from orbit is truly an achievement, and at those times it is an effort to hold on to social proprieties.
2. The challenge of the nice cup of tea and a biscuit, an interesting combination of relaxation and stress. If you can pull it off, there's few things more restorative than a hot cuppa and a biscuit while the baby sleeps. But the tension is high, as one wrong move could wake the baby, resulting in a shortened nap, a screaming child, no biscuit and a cup of tea which, by the time the screams are quelled, has gone almost undrinkably cold. It's like the most incredibly mundane yet incredibly frustrating computer game ever.