To all the people who became parents before me I give you this open apology, for I now know exactly what you have been through, why you are so tired and why being a stay at home parent is, in fact, the hardest job around.

1. Children wake you at all ages due to many different issues, and not just as a newborn, as I used to think.
2. Nap time actually means it’s your time to tidy the house and not sit watching soaps whilst drinking tea.
3. Stay at home Mums don’t get to sit in the garden all summer topping up their tan. More like you get a backache from picking up all of the garden toys out of the flowers beds!
4. Going into town with a toddler is not a nice trip out and Mums do not sit around in coffee shops chatting all day. I’ve now discovered that it is impossible to keep a little one still (and quiet) for long enough.
5. You are more tired with a toddler than with a newborn – it does not get easier.
6. Those of you who used to say you drink, go out, have hobbies just to still feel like you, I really didn’t get it back then, I really, really do get it now!
7. Keys left indoors can most definitely result in escaping toddlers.
8. You do clean the house over and over and over but quite often it never looks like it!
9. The responsibility of having a baby cannot be compared to that of a dog.
10. Toddlers have tantrums in the middle of shops and there is nothing a parent can do. It has bugger all to do with discipline.
11. How those of you with partners in the armed forces manage I will never know- I never used to hear friends complain yet I cannot cope when my hubby is home an hour late from work. I think if I was left for 4 months or more I may go insane.
12. You drink all those cups of tea and coffee just to stay awake, not so much for the enjoyment (because most of them are cold!)

To every parent before me, I am sorry and every single one of you is a star!

Yours very sincerely a once naive young girl, now a worn out Mum in her 30’s.

Em xx