How to be a Parent. Without Being a Dick.

Parenting is tough.

Really f@*king tough.

You don’t imagine for a second when you’re pregnant that having a tiny baby to look after will take you to the brink of sanity, test you emotionally, mentally and physically, and make you eat whole Toblerones dressed like a tramp most days…. But it does.

However. That’s no excuse to be a dick.

Because being a dick. Is for dicks.

So here’s my handy checklist of ways you can just be a normal person who’s had a baby. And not be a dick:

  1. If no-one’s dead, you’re still laughing, and you’ve actually made it out of the house before midday once this week, trust me – you’re doing a f@*king amazing job. If you spend your time telling everyone that your baby’s favourite food is kale, they speak four languages, and by the age of 6-months they can proficiently use an iPhone… Then sorry. You’re a dick.
  2. When people come to visit, removing any actual faeces from the floor/your face and ensuring you have pants on is enough. If they’re good friends; they’ll bring cake, offer to stick the kettle on and piss off before it gets awkward when you’ve fallen asleep mid sentence. Pretending you live in a show home and wear a bra every day is for dicks.
  3. There’s plenty of funny, relevant and helpful stuff out there on the internet, however… Articles such as ‘Telling your daughter she’s pretty will f@*k up her life forever!’, ‘Kissing your children will turn them into sex-addicts!’ and ‘If you do controlled crying you are a whore and will die alone. ALONE!!’ …are all titles I just don’t need to be e-mailed or tagged in on Facebook. Thanks.
  4. Once a human-being has launched themselves at speed through your vagina, fitting back into your size-10-jeans is about as high up the priority list as making your own humous. Because no real-life people actually do this. Unless they are frickin’ athletes, celebrities or are talking bollocks out of their previously-taut-vaginas.
  5. Instagram is not real… it’s where people photoshop their lives into Amaro-filtered bullshit with flawless skin, children that never cry, pre-run trainer-selfies and pictures of tiny f@*king croissants. If it was real, it would mostly be wine, blotchy-teary-cake-faced-parents, and snotty toddlers with one sock on staring at CBeebies… (Incidentally, my Instagram feed is all of these things. #truestory)
  6. When you see someone’s toddler having an epic level-5 meltdown in public, do not do any of the following things: sigh, roll your eyes, raise your eyebrows, tut, make a sad face, go up to the toddler and in a strange patronising voice ask ‘What has Mummy done to you my poor little lamb?!’ because trust me when I tell you this – AT MANY POINTS IN YOUR FUTURE TODDLER-MUMMY LIFE THAT WILL BE YOU. So try quietly not giving a shit and getting on with your own life.
  7. When the lady at the baby-group starts asking for advice because her 3-day old baby hasn’t slept through the night yet… Just smile… You were there once… awkwardly assuming babies actually slept and other RIDICULOUS MAGICAL BULLSHIT. Hug some gin and look forward to the hourly wake up calls from your 9-month old later. Just because he feels like smiling at you. All night.
  8. I’m all for gender neutral – but sometimes the ‘anti-pink-police’ need to f@*k off. My little girl loves trains and can’t get enough of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles but sometimes, just sometimes, she actually DOES just want to play with dollies and dress up as a princess. And sometimes boys just f@*king like diggers. These things do not make parents satan.
  9. Parent forums exist so you can slag off your kids and cry with other parents semi-anonymously… But turning into a Mummy-McTwatty-Judgey-Pants, offering holier-than-now advice, and commenting on shit you have no idea about with the first link you found on Google is totally dick-ish. (Obvs feel free to share this post though… Wink, wink, nudge nudge.)
  10. Your online life is mostly about posting pictures of rashes, commenting of pictures of rashes and googling rashes. Oh and selling baby clothes for £1 and waiting in all day for people to not bother collecting them from you… That’s my total fave. I love that. Those people are definitely dicks.
  11. And finally. If you haven’t found any of this funny then I’m afraid you’re probably a dick.

So hey – despite the odd occasion where you just can’t help it, (I know… even I once tried to make humous…) let’s just try not be dicks. And have some wine.

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