My Open Apology to Parents
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.
- Children wake you at all ages due to many different issues, and not just as a newborn, as I used to think.
- Naptime actually means it’s your time to tidy the house and not sit watching soaps whilst drinking tea.
- 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!
- 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.
- You are more tired with a toddler than with a newborn – it does not get easier.
- 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!
- Keys left in doors can most definitely result in escaping toddlers.
- You do clean the house over and over and over but quite often it never looks like it!
- The responsibility of having a baby cannot be compared to that of a dog (I take it all back!)
- Toddlers have tantrums in the middle of shops and there is nothing a parent can do. It has bugger all to do with discipline.
- I should have never, ever have complained I was tired before, I knew so little of what tiredness truly is.
- 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 for judging, I am sorry for questioning what you do all day and I am sorry I didn’t help more. Every single one of you is a star!
Yours very, very sincerely a once naive young girl, now a worn-out Mum in her 30’s.
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