Some vital lessons about being a parent...

...Which I've learnt 25 years too late

Becoming a parent warps your brain. The person you were before bears no resemblance to the person you are after.

Before: I’d run around doing my job and all sorts of stuff - and I held all the information in my head.

After: Determined to get things done I’d write a list. At the end of the day I’d be appalled when one thing was crossed off: Buy eggs.

Of course you forget that you’ve been busy doing other things (ie, keeping small people alive). I’d still be furious with myself for not being ‘productive’. I knew one new mum who did an OU maths degree while pureeing all her own babyfood and ensuring that every edible thing was sprinkled with home grown herbs.

How would you compete with that? Now it wouldn’t occur to me to try. I’d just sink into the parenting soup, thinking, well, this is it! A bit like lockdown which had its downsides, obviously - like being dementedly under-stimulated and the sourdough starter going bad. But there was also a kind of acceptance and you didn’t feel guilty for just floating about.

Time alters in those early parenting years. The days are huge - sprawling endlessly - yet somehow there’s no time at all. Resorting to grabbing at food, you scarf down the kids’ cold leftover fish fingers, thinking this is the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten in my life.

Also, no matter how ballsy you were before, you become weirdly deferential to the Adults In Charge.

Once time, at primary school parents’ evening, the teacher - the Dreaded Mrs S - spouted quite a lot of negative stuff about one of my kids.

Eg, they weren’t great at sitting still. They were quite lively. They mixed up the letters ‘b’ and ‘d’ (at six years old, I should add). On and on she banged. In total shock - because I thought my kid was terrific - I detected the early warning sign of tears prickling behind my eyes.

But did I stop her and say, ‘Hey, Mrs S! You can stop right there. That’s quite enough of THAT!’?

No, I just sat there politely, as if she knew everything when in fact I doubt if she’d have understood a short story in The People’s Friend. And then, when she’d finally finished running down my kid I said, ‘Thank you very much!’ and went home.

Human biology is all wrong. I reckon. We shouldn’t be dealing with this stuff in our twenties and thirties - or even our forties - when we’re not yet fully equipped. No way are we ready for parental responsibility at that point! We should conceive post menopause, when we’ve done all our running around, losing our shoes in strange places and are finally ready for the challenges ahead.

This was me, having just had our twins. Thinking parenthood was all about baking biscuits with no idea that Mrs S was already squaring up to confront me a few years down the line.

Then came The Birthday Cake Years which I was also woefully ill prepared for. See the artistry that went into those fine creations?

Hard to believe, I know - but there were smirks of derision that I’d taken my inspiration from a processed cheese brand. I’d feel no shame now. I’d ‘own’ my decorating skills and ensure that entire parties were foil-triangle themed.

Another thing I’d do? Train my kids in vital skills from a very young age: eg, cooking entire family meals, grouting tiles, repairing a crumbling garden wall and lugging out a life-threatening oil-fired stove and installing gas central heating. Jobs that AI will never take from them.

Why didn’t I give them those skills?

Because I didn’t know! But a young friend has just had a baby and honestly, I can’t wait to turn up with his first birthday cake.

Love,

Fiona xx

PS Exciting news! In just TWO weeks my brand new novel, The Woman Who Got Her Spark Back, is out in the wild! You can order a copy here!