Lovely as my boys are, from time to time, I find myself having an ‘I don’t remember signing up for this’ moment.
Here’s the most recent batch:
Parenthood is…
- Being ignored by your teenagers on several social media platforms at once.
- Buying beetroot so your 7YO can have pink pee.
- Feeling excluded when teenagers talk in code, but then realising that it’s probably just as well you don’t understand what they’re on about.
- Never going into a teenage boy’s bedroom without knocking first.
- Pausing at the end of the road because you can’t remember who you’re on the way to collect from where.
- Catching yourself on parents’ evening wondering when teachers got to be so young.
- That look of bewildered terror on the face of your teenager when you give them a hug they weren’t expecting.
- Trying to keep the bewildered old person expression off your face during a game of Pokemon cards/explanation of Snapchat v Whatsapp, or anything to do with Minecraft.
- Alternating between wishing your kids would talk to you more and wishing they’d shut up.
- The gloomy realisation that you can’t go to bed until your teenager gets home.
- Googling the band your teenager just asked if they see before saying yes or no.
- The loving feeling that comes when your teenager saves his special spot for you to squeeze.
- Struggling to sustain festive spirit in the bounty that is two school Christmas Fayres on the same day
- Just realising it’s “wear something spotty” day and you’ve left no time/opportunity to organise spots.
- The moment you realise that you’re not cool enough for anything… except paying and driving.
- Feeling guilty when your child texts to tell you you forgot to put out dinner money today & now you’re miles away.
- Looking at the homework & thinking ‘that’s not how we did it in my day’.
- Wondering when exactly you became the kind of parent who goes round turning off lights and muttering.
- Not being able to have a gin or take your bra off on a Friday evening because you’ve still got children to drive around.