Having children has been an eye opener for me. Finding out Santa was a fabrication in my youth was hard to deal with but really some of the lies I have been told since then regarding children are borderline obscene.
Take this popular urban myth; ‘your life will be richer when you have your own family’
This one was clearly spread by the parents of the Oxo kids and their large financial advertising contract. For the rest of us it is simply horse shit. I drive a car that I wouldn’t have even parked next to pre children, if I ever came across a fifty pound note I would simply pop it in BB’s play till as I wouldn’t have a clue what one looks like. Spare cash which was once donated charitably to Karen Millen is now evenly split between two swimming teachers, a football coach, a ballet dancer and the Head of school.
And then the wise words that ‘your children are your legacy’; so far my legacy involves indecent exposure at a school play, an awful lot of poop, and lots of unnecessary breast exposure.
’Breastfeeding helps you lose weight’. I have stuck to this diet for twenty months; am still nursing, am still fat. It’s a lie people, try eating less and running more, it is far more successful.
One of my favourites, ‘childbirth hurts, but you forget the pain immediately afterwards when you hold your baby for the first time.‘.
Horse shit.
I remember every cruel bite of a contraction, the heat that tore through my belly and set my womb on fire. I also remember the relief of an epidural which meant I went back for more. To quickly dispel another myth, just because you got the good drugs first time round does not mean you automatically get hooked up again. My supply was switched off, I won’t be going back to that delivery suite.
And finally, for those of you with pre school kids, it does not get easier when they go to school. School runs interspersed with nightly reading, homework, helping out with swimming rotas, volunteering in class, paper mache on weekends and not to mention the fourteen weeks of eternal holidays means it is just a new form of hard work.
Don’t get me wrong, if I had my time again I would still have the little darlings, but I would take advantage of the money I had BC* and buy more gin, it makes the fibs easier to bear, I would also take out share in Tena lady and Toys R’ Us – they are never going into recession whilst the world keeps re populating.
Feel free experienced mothers to add the whoppers you were told below; together we can educate the world!
*BC – Before Children