10 things

My brother who has 2 girls and a boy and I were commiserating about the stresses our children bring into our lives. His 11 year old doesn't hand in homework, doesn't brush his teeth and keeps library books for a year. His 9 year old hasn't eaten veg since 2005 and has poop stoppered up her that's hardened and giving her cramps. His 3 year old broke his favourite collectors' item Batman figurine.

I told him that he was giving me much hope about the things that I had to look forward to. Then he told me about the sweet things his older two do for one another and the little achievements of his youngest. His point and the point of all those dumb, insipid pro-family ads is that parenthood is rewarding.

I have no doubt it is. But we tend to concentrate on the bad while we're in it and we wax lyrical about the good when we have about 20 years hindsight to put between us and the aneurysm-inducing incidents that our children put us through.

So I decided to make a list of 10 reasons having kids are great and 10 reasons why having kids adds white to the hair.

I will begin with the bad.

1. Having children means your body will no longer resemble what it did pre-pregnancy. Even if you lost all the pregnancy weight. The boobs look sorry and deflated after breastfeeding, the nipples look like they've been chew-toys, which they actually have and the belly makes you realise why people go for tummy tucks and why Woffles Wu is so rich.

2. I finally went to for a facial after more than a year and the beautician scolded me for the fact that my skin was dry and the dark rings round my eyes made me look like I was on meth withdrawal. When I explained I had 3 children under the age of 3 and one who was 2 months old, she looked sympathetic but told me if I didn't start sleeping, those rings would become permanent.

3. Whatever free time you have, instead of going shopping or having tea with friends, you decide to take a nap.

4. Going out with friends for dinner takes a great amount of planning. You can't decide at 5 pm that you want to go to Samy's for fish head curry and just go.

5. Kids get sick ALL the time. And even if it's just a little bit of a cough or a touch of fever, you're paranoid that it will turn into something major. And everything you read about in the papers about kids from learning disabilities to unusual genetic diseases, you fear your child might have.

6. You dread the day they become teens and you fantasise about shot guns and chastity belts. Even if they are boys.

7. You are constantly broke. With diapers, formula, school fees, school bus fees, I'd be lucky if I could buy myself a t-shirt.

8. Conversations with the husband that used to revolve around movies, holiday plans or friends very quickly become about what funny/ annoying/ frustrating/ endearing thing the kids did in the day.

9. "No" seems to be the word of choice and you learn how to eat/ sleep/ read/ think/ watch tv over the loudest decibel-ed tantrums.

10. Mediating tantrums, issuing ultimatums and threats (that HAVE to be carried out) seems to be all you do in a day.
























But now, the good bits.

1. That baby smell.

2. When they come to you for a cuddle or give you a face splitting grin and fling themselves on you when you step into the house.

3. They snuggle up to you at night to fall asleep and connected to this would be watching them sleep.

4. When they play with one another, get along grandly and are tickled funny by one another's antics.

5. When you realise that whatever you teach them, they've actually internalised and they surprise you at the strangest moments.

6. You take them out and realise that the simplest plan you had for them to just run around and go nuts was just what they wanted.

7. They forget quite quickly that you were angry with them and they were angry with you. They love you unconditionally.

8. It is pretty cool the first time they call you Mommy.

9. In moments of quiet, you get to gaze at the child who is probably asleep and look lovingly at the spouse (who is not pissed off with you or you with him at that moment) and go "we made this".

10. You appreciate your parents a lot more and wonder how come they never killed you or sold you to the rag-a-bone man.

The bad list probably sounds more convincing than the good list. It's easier to write about the bad. The good is usually the stuff the Hallmark cards are made of and there isn't any other way to make it sound less cheesy.




















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