No Sex, No Sleep : E-Book

Pat Fitzpatrick

• Herausgeber: Mercier Press
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 292

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

No Sex, No Sleep tells the unvarnished truth about fatherhood. Forget about magic moments and bonding, this is about puke, wet-wipes and enjoying the sex life of a hermit. Pat Fitzpatrick wants to tell new dads what they can expect in the first few years of their child's life, and give them a right good laugh along the way.  The book is based on Fitzpatrick's popular 'Dad's View' column and covers everything from buggy shopping, the labour ward, naming your child, bringing them home and dealing with the in-laws, to later issues such as choosing a school, time-outs, toilet training and much more.  Written in short, digestible chunks No Sex, No Sleep can be picked up and put down as the mood takes you, and will make an ideal present for a first-time dad. It will also strike a note with any dad with small kids, or any mom out there who wants to know what their man is really thinking. Which is not much, other than I'd love to go to sleep for a month.

Leseprobe

MERCIER PRESS

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© Pat Fitzpatrick, 2018

ISBN: 978 1 78117 532 3

Epub ISBN: 978 1 78117 533 0

Mobi ISBN: 978 1 78117 534 7

This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

For Rose, Freda and Joe

Introduction

First of all, congratulations. You’re going to be a dad. This is going to change your life in ways you can’t imagine. Some of them are even good!

Jokes aside, a new child is going to rock your world, physically and emotionally. I want to give you a full flavour of what it’s like, the lows as well as the highs. Most of the stuff I read before my kids came along focused on the amazing aspects of fatherhood. Looking back now, I wish someone had told me it isn’t all leisurely walks with the buggy and trying to get them to say ‘Dada’ as their first word.

Your living room can be a lonely place at two in the morning, when you are pacing around trying to put your son to sleep. There is a sleep-deprived temptation to feel down about this and think you must be doing something wrong. You aren’t. At some point in the next year you will end up walking the boards with a cranky child on your shoulder. It’s part of your job.

As for losing the will to live in a restaurant because your kid has just spilled its second glass of apple juice on your pants – that also comes with the territory. Feel like crying because you’ve had two hours’ sleep and you can’t find your car keys? Snap. (Everything is lost, all the time, when you have kids.) Wondering if you made a big mistake and you’d do anything to get your old life back? It happens, but not for long.

Here’s the thing. Kids are amazing. Mine are the best thing that ever happened to me and I wouldn’t hand them back for the world. (Not even for a naughty weekend in Berlin.) I’m sure every dad will tell you the same thing about his little home-wreckers.

But they’re tough at the same time. I remember a friend telling me that his kids were fantastic, it was just a pity he was too tired to enjoy them. That’s how it can feel sometimes. As if you are a spectator, thinking, this is amazing, but I really need to go and have a lie down.

I want this book to help you enjoy your kids as much as possible. For starters, you should know you are not alone, that we all struggle when there are kids under our feet. More than anything, I hope this book gives you a laugh. It’s worth pointing out that I have written large parts of this tongue-in-cheek. That’s another way of saying, don’t sue me if you follow some piece of advice and your toddler gets stuck in the washing machine.

Honestly, I know as much about fatherhood as any other dad. I’d like to thank my amazing kids, Freda and Joe, for their patience as I learned on the job.

Above all, I’d like to thank my out-of-this-world wife, Rose, for teaching me pretty much everything I know about parenting. If it was left to me, my kids would still be wearing nappies and eating baby rice on their first day of college. Rose has done most of the planning when it comes to child-rearing; anything I did was just following orders.

One more thing. She asked me not to discuss our sex life in this book. So the title, No Sex, No Sleep, applies to other couples, not us. (If you must know, we’re at it like rabbits.)

1 Year Zero Things You Need to Know Before Baby Comes

1.1 What I’d Tell my Friends

Ask any new parents what it’s like to have kids and they’ll tell you it’s ‘life-changing’. And then they’ll lie down for a sleep in the middle of the road. Because as understatements go, life-changing is up there with ‘you might feel a little bit tired’. Everything you thought you knew about yourself, your relationship and the real joys of five minutes alone is about to change. So it’s as well to be prepared.

The problem is that nothing can really prepare you, because nothing compares to the first few years of parenthood. I remember feeling a bit bitter towards my buddies with kids, because they didn’t warn me that the arrival of my daughter, Freda, would be like a tidal wave tearing into a small boat. Now that I’m on calmer shores, I can see that they were actually telling me, but I just didn’t want to listen. When I told one friend about plans to write a novel once Freda was born, his reply was, ‘You do realise your life is about to fall apart?’ I thought he was just trying to scare me for a laugh.

To be honest, it’s the conversations I had after the kids arrived that made the difference. That’s when my friends told me that it’s tough until your youngest reaches the age of four; that it’s not unusual to feel beaten down by the whole thing; that they found it hard going and there’s nothing wrong with that. What we rarely say, because it hardly needs saying, is that we wouldn’t even think of rolling back the clock. Because a few years of sleepless nights and red-raw nerves are a small price to pay for the pleasure of even five minutes with your kids, let alone half a lifetime.

But it’s still worth knowing what’s coming down the road. If I was trying to give a friend a flavour of life with new kids in the house, here’s what I’d tell him.

You’re Planless

Here is the problem with your plan for the child – you haven’t got one. At least not compared to your partner. This will probably be used against you.

She is engaged in a project that makes the Apollo Space Program look like something they cobbled together over lunch. Your contribution was to sit through half an episode of Supernanny, while trying to keep a sneaky eye on Spartak Moscow vs Anderlecht on your phone. Worse again, you got caught.

It’s not like you missed the fact that your partner was planning ahead. She started dragging you around buggy shops four hours after you stopped using contraception. Four months into the pregnancy, she started planning the meals she would use to wean the child off solids. That’s planning a year ahead; you’re not even sure what you are going to do tomorrow.

She did try to include you in the planning process by buying you a book called Aaaaw, You’re Going to Be a Dad. You didn’t read it. As a result, your plan is a vague notion of a trip to Old Trafford for the child’s fourth birthday. You might be better to pretend you have no plan at all rather than admitting that.

In the meantime, I recommend you read through some online parenting advice forums. At least then you can get involved in conversations on baby-led weaning, wonder weeks and growth spurts. (You can put almost everything down to growth spurts. They’re very handy that way.)

You’re Not Tired

The single biggest mistake a new dad can make is to tell his partner that he’s tired. Here is how that pans out. Him: ‘I must be the tiredest person in the whole world.’ Her: ‘Oh really??’ Him: ‘I withdraw that statement, based on the mad look in your eyes.’ Her: ‘Good idea.’

Don’t even go there. She spent eighteen hours pushing out that child in the labour ward. You just rubbed her back and said, ‘Push away like mad, Ciara, you’re doing great work.’ You also found the time to get to level 400 in Angry Birds. Telling her how tired you are will introduce you to a whole new kind of angry bird. If you need to talk fatigue, I suggest you join DWAAC (Dads Who Aren’t Allowed Complain). We meet every Tuesday night in the local hall. Pop down and tell us about your sleep deprivation, if you are allowed out.

You’re Not Too Old

I reckon every man is too old to become a father. (I was forty-five when our eldest was born.)

The only males who have the energy to chase around after a toddler are nine-year-old boys. And society takes a fairly dim view of fathering a child before you get into your teens. (Unless you want to get on Jeremy Kyle. Although he probably wouldn’t be interested unless you had that child with your cousin.)

So, don’t worry that you waited until your late thirties or forties or whatever to have a crack at fatherhood. It’s not like you were any better prepared for it in your early twenties. Unless the best way to prepare for fatherhood is drinking all weekend and a kebab addiction. Which it isn’t.

Your House Is Too Small

The First Law of Having a Child: the amount of stuff you accumulate can and will spread to fill any space. I have carried out a quick, shoddy investigation into this and can now exclusively reveal the main culprit – seats. The average baby is the owner of three bouncy chairs, 1.3 buggies, four different types of booster chair and at least two car seats. That’s a lot of seats for a tiny person with only one arse. There doesn’t seem to be anything you can do about this. Except maybe reserve a skip now and see if they’ll give you an early booking discount.

And Your Floor Isn’t Suitable

Is there anything cooler than an old house with its original floorboards? Yes. Not spending three hours a day trying to prise bits of discarded baby rice out from between those boards would be great for starters. As for trying to pick up bits of broccoli thrown over the side of the high-chair … well, that depends on whether you want your baby to hear you using the f-word after every meal. (You’re almost certainly looking at the c-word when it comes to old porridge.)

Here’s my advice if you have gorgeous old floorboards in the dining room: laminate them. Unless you want Junior to be the first kid ever to be suspended from crèche for calling someone a you-know-what. Which isn’t a great ambition for your child.

You’re Too Tall

Forget about the sleepless nights. They’re a cake-walk compared to the real test that lies ahead. That test would be the bending down. Let’s face it – the last time you bent down was to pick up Hoggy when he fell flat on his face during your stag do in Budapest.

That’s all about to change. For at least the first year of her life, your daughter is going to do all her best work in an area between zero and 10cm from the floor. If you think getting down there twenty-three times a day should be easy, wait until you try to get back up. Welcome to your glutes. I never thought I’d be going around recommending this, but you need to take up yoga.

You Have Fat Fingers

There is one certainty about fatherhood – your hands are too big. It’s ironic really, because your chunky man-hands could well have been a major plus point in attracting a partner.

Now, those hands are your downfall. You’ll only really appreciate it when it’s time to change that first nappy in the hospital. This is your moment, where you show the world that you plan to be a hands-on father. Except you can’t get your shovelly fist down the sleeve of the onesie, to ease in Sophie’s tiny little arm. (They never show this in idyllic nappy ads, where it’s all smiley young dads, with their American teeth.)

And when you eventually jiggle the poor child into the onesie, you can’t get the shagging fasteners to close. This is usually where Jack or Sophie gets to hear their first curse. And their second and third. Worse again, your mother-in-law is probably there in the maternity ward to witness your foul-mouthed, big-handed cock-up. ‘Jesus, Pat, I never knew you had such a short temper,’ says she, not helping one bit.

You Will Be Jealous

Having young kids can turn you into a pitiless Green-Eyed Envy Monster. You watch a report on people displaced by floods in Slovakia and think, ‘At least some of them might get a full night’s sleep.’ Or you pass some poor alcoholic drinking on the street and think, ‘Isn’t it well for some, cracking open the vino before lunch?’ The worst of all? A friend says she got a hankering for a McDonald’s, so she went out and got one. Just like that. She went out the door. The bitch.

You Need to Watch the Drink

It was traditional in the past for a father to take one look at his new child and retire to the pub for a minimum of three days. Great times. Unfortunately, you are now expected to help your partner during the first few days of your child’s life. This usually involves buying eight packs of the wrong kind of nappy in the supermarket. You will get in so much trouble for that.

There is only one thing that could make this worse. A hangover. So, try to keep it to two bottles of beer when you get home from the maternity ward after the birth. Trust me, that’s still going to seem like some kind of mad party compared to what lies ahead in the next six months.

You’re Not Alone

Here’s another thing worth doing while drinking your two bottles of post-maternity ward beer. Take a selfie of yourself relaxing on the sofa, alone in the house. It will be the last bit of time you will have to your selfie for the foreseeable future. Trust me, the slightest hint that you have nothing to do will get you a list of jobs faster than you can say, ‘But I washed the bottles yesterday!’ Your partner will not understand that we men are wired to sit and do nothing for hours on end, so that we can recover from chasing wild animals and that. Or maybe we’re just lazy.

You Don’t Know How to Dress Girls

Sorry guys, you don’t. The problem is a lot of newborns seem to release a hormone in Dad that convinces him he is some kind of fashion guru. ‘Why should it only be Mom who knows a good outfit?’ says you, matching a stripy green top with pink tights. The result is a lot of little girls who look like they are coming from a fancy-dress party, where everyone went as Lady Gaga crossed with a clown.

Your partner’s reaction will be, ‘Jesus, what did Daddy dress you in, you poor child?’ (This is how couples criticise each other, by talking through their child. My favourite one is, ‘Will Mommy ever hurry on?’)

My advice is to force your partner to always leave out clothes for your daughter by dressing the poor girl incredibly badly the first time you get the job. You should find this comes naturally.

You’re Done with Foreign Holidays for a While

Going abroad with an eighteen-month-old is about as relaxing as taking a double dose of laxatives before heading in to sit a Leaving Cert Irish exam. Remember that forty-seven-year-old guy sitting on the plane with his child the last time you went on holidays? Well, he was only forty-two when he arrived at the check-in desk, two hours earlier. That’s what trying to get an eighteen-month-old through an airport can do to a man. By the time he gets back from holidays, that guy will look old enough to retire. It’s never worth it. Try a staycation until they are over two. (There are some days in Ireland when it actually doesn’t rain.)

You’re Not Hot

The good news is that you will get a fair bit of attention from hot women when you are out walking the baby. The bad news is that none of them are looking to start an affair with a sleep-deprived guy who hasn’t managed to find time for a shower in three days. A lot of guys don’t appreciate this. If you find yourself waving your little girl at a woman in Tesco and shouting, ‘Look, look, she has my eyes’, then you are probably one of them.

My guess is that a genuine Yummy Mummy spends as little time as possible with her own kids. She isn’t going to be interested in yours. That said, there are plenty of places where you can meet women who like their kids. The swings at the playground are a particular favourite. As long as you don’t turn to the hot mom pushing her kid next to you and say, ‘Do you like swinging?’ There’s a thin line between harmless flirting and Dirty Dad. You’ll have crossed it with that question.

You Need to Do Your Sums

The most important thing that a newbie dad should know? There will be a ‘Time Away from the Child’ meeting every Sunday night. This is where your partner tots up the time you spent away from the baby that week, compares it to the time she spent away from the baby and concludes that she is entitled to a fortnight in a 5-star spa retreat. That’s tricky, and not just because you’ll need a second mortgage to pay for it. Your problem is they don’t allow kids in these 5-star resorts. Welcome to the longest fortnight of your life.

You Love Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding is a tricky business for dads. Don’t worry about feeling useless during the first few months. At least you’ll be asleep. The problem comes at weaning time. Or, as moms like to call it, ‘All Yours’. You are handed a hungry, angry little man, who is basically a stranger because he has been latched on to mom for six months. The odds of him taking a bottle from you are about the same as the odds that he will suddenly start speaking Portuguese. As for the chances that his first words will be, ‘Just drink the fucking bottle!’ – they’re pretty high.

You’ll Fear the Playground

Some advice for when you bring your kid to the playground – beware the swings. You are there until your child decides otherwise. That means you are stuck talking to the parent pushing next to you, with no chance of escape. That’s not so bad if she’s a Yummy Mummy, but as I said above, you’ll probably make a fool of yourself because you haven’t had sex or sleep for three months. The problem arises when you get stuck with a parent who hasn’t talked to another adult in two weeks. It’s nearly always a new dad who has become obsessed with poo. And it’s fair to say he’s full of it.

You’re a Big Eejit

This one is aimed at the moms out there. It isn’t easy being a dad. The kids want us to behave like a cross between Homer Simpson and Dougal from Father Ted. We love that, it’s like being back at college. Unfortunately, you moms expect us to switch into adult mode when the kids aren’t around. The truth is we find the transition a bit tricky at times. Is there any chance we could have a thirty-minute No Fault window after the kids go to bed? If you could find a way to overlook the fact that we repeat everything you say in a stupid accent and call you Marge during that time, it would be great. Thanks in advance, Marge.

You Are Easily Distracted

Women get a mental upgrade when they give birth, which gives them an internal project manager. Men? Not so much. One minute you are on your way to get a fresh pack of nappies out of the press. The next minute you are outside, painting the shed. You try to remember what triggered this change of tack; before you know it, you are cutting the grass. At this point her indoors comes outdoors and asks why she never got her nappies? And what’s the story with the half-painted shed? Anyway, that’s enough about distraction. Any man who started reading this paragraph has already gone off to empty the dishwasher.

You’re Heading for Heartbreak

This is what happens when you have a girl. At some point between the age of two and three, your daughter will turn around and say the worst words any dad can hear (other than ‘I have poos and it’s too late’). Those words are ‘Get away, Daddy.’ All those years of being rejected by females won’t help you prepare for this. The best reaction is to pretend to cry in a comical fashion (see ‘You’re a Big Eejit’ above). The worst reaction is the genuine one, where you say, ‘Nobody loves me’ and burst into tears. Nobody wants Daddy to be that in touch with his feelings. Least of all you.

You’re Taking the Clio

Most men have the same response when their partner announces a pregnancy. ‘Fantastic news, we’ll need a new car.’ That’s the good news. The bad news is, the new car isn’t for you. Within six months it will belong to your partner. (She will mark her territory by putting one of her make-up bags in the driver-side door pocket.)

All the safety benefits you used to promote the idea of a new car, will now be used against you. ‘I’m not risking my kids in that old banger,’ says she, taking off in your brand-new Hyundai 4x4. And you’re left driving around in a fifteen-year-old Clio. It’s as humiliating as it sounds. This is the thin end of the wedge when it comes to car issues with kids; there’s plenty more which you’ll read about later on in the book.

You Need a Beard

It’s a great way to swing some Me Time. A normal barber trip gets you about thirty minutes out of the house. This can’t compete with the three hours your wife manages to squeeze out of a visit to the hairdressers. Any complaints will be put down with, ‘You didn’t have to push a baby out.’ (Unless you did, in which case well done you.)

A beard is the perfect way to buy more time. Here is how it works. 1: Grow a beard. 2: Tell your wife it takes four hours to get it trimmed because she has no experience of maintaining a beard. (Unless she does, in which case I’m sorry for your troubles.) 3: Go to a barber that does decent beard trims. It will be packed with beardy dads, so you’ll have to queue for ages. 4: Read a seven-year-old copy of Golf Digest. You’d be surprised how enjoyable that can be when you don’t have a toddler trying to torture you into giving him another rice cake. 5: Sit back and let a jovial Turkish gentleman pamper you for half an hour. It is actually better than sex. 6: Don’t say this to your partner.

You’re a Bad Listener. Got it?

Here is the essence of New Dad in two simple steps. 1: Your partner tells you to do three things. 2: You forget one of them. Some scientists argue that new fathers are programmed to ignore their partners so they can listen out for wild animals approaching the cave. Those scientists are probably New Dads, desperately looking for an out.

We all know the real reason is that there was a piece on the radio about Cristiano Ronaldo moving back to Man United, at the same time you were being told the thing that you promptly forgot. (It was to put a new packet of wipes on the changing table, by the way. It always is.)

I wouldn’t admit the Ronaldo to United excuse unless you fancy a move of your own, to the spare room, with the baby. The real problem here is that a lot of men show signs of being a good listener before the first baby arrives and scrambles their brain. That leaves you defenceless when you can’t remember the direct order about the wipes.

There is a simple solution. Once the pregnancy test gives a positive, you need to stop listening. With any luck, your partner will accept over time that you are just a bad listener and will focus on your positive attributes. If your listening skills are what she likes most about you, then I would say it’s game over.

You’re Not Owed a Thing

Remember those Friday nights you babysat your brother’s kids, in the hope that what goes around comes around? Bad news. There is no Karma in babysitting. All that happened is your brother remembered he has a social life. He is about as likely to give up a Friday night to mind your kids as he is to watch Bridget Jones’ Diary while eating a tub of ice cream.

The result? Now that you have kids, your Friday night revolves around Graham Norton and frozen pizza. The moral? Never babysit during your child-free years. In fact, never stay in during your child-free years. Get out there while you can.

You Won’t Believe the Cost of Childcare

They say the Scandinavians are cool and calm characters who don’t get phased by anything. Well, you should have seen the look on their faces when I told them the cost of childcare in Ireland.

The latest figures suggest you can expect to pay between €1,000 and €1,500 a month for a full-time place in a private crèche. The government allows two years of free pre-school from the age of three; but that only gives you three hours a day, with two months off during summertime.

An early childcare subsidy, introduced in 2017 for kids up to the age of three, will give back €1,000 a year to most parents with kids in full-time care. (The subsidy rises for parents on lower incomes.) But given the annual cost is still up around the €15,000 mark per child, that’s an awful lot of people paying an awful lot of money.

You might be able to persuade your own parents to take up the slack. (29% of respondents in a recent survey said they use relatives for childcare.) It can be hard to get retired parents to mind your kids now, though, because they seem to spend most of the year in Lanzarote. (Particularly after a grandchild is born, I think you’ll find.)

Be careful if you are selecting an au pair. Your partner might be feeling a bit body conscious after giving birth. (Luckily the Daily Mail is there to help boost her confidence with photos of celebrity moms in bikinis.) You don’t want to be looking at the profiles of candidates on an au pair site and insisting she should at least interview that Spanish girl who looks like a cross between Penelope Cruz and Sofia Vergara. I actually heard of one mother who was so riddled with jealousy that she drove her au pair to the airport with a one-way ticket back to Madrid.

Worse again, I’ve heard from some dads that their au pairs don’t give them the time of day. You’d think they’d give poor Dad the odd look, for all the jealousy and trouble they cause. (I’m messing. For any au pair reading this, please don’t give Dad the eye. He’ll just go out and buy skinny jeans and a pair of designer skate-boarding shoes, and it will all turn very messy.)

You Will Eat Junk

You probably thought you’d spend the hour after the kids go to bed chatting through the events of the day with your partner. But it’s impossible to talk when you have two Yorkies and half a tube of Pringles in your mouth at the same time. Kids. They turn you into a junk junkie.

You’re in Luck

This is the only bit that really matters. All being well, at some point just after the birth the midwife will hand you the baby swaddled in blankets, so you can look after her for a minute. You think you’re going to be prepared for this, but you won’t be. It will feel like your head is going to blow off with the euphoria. This is the only real job you’ve had all day, other than not getting upset when your partner goes ballistic after you brought a sharing pack of Doritos into the delivery ward. So, breathe slowly for sixty seconds and take in the best thing that ever happened in your life. And don’t drop her.

That Said …

It’s tough. Having kids is tough. Freeze frame the magic minutes in your brain, because there are times when you will need them. A friend of mine recommended mindfulness as a way to live in the now and appreciate the good times when they are happening. I was too tired to read the mindfulness books, so I just made a point of reminding myself every now and again to stop and watch the kids, forget about everything else. I recommend you try something similar. Because the arrival of a new child will knock the stuffing out of you, making it hard to enjoy the moment. I should have warned you earlier, but I was afraid I’d put you off and you’d carry on enjoying your childless life, which is making me mad jealous.

You have no idea how annoying it was listening to you banging on about your amazing city break in Antwerp. Particularly since we were just back from a weekend in Peppa Pig World ourselves. They play the Peppa theme tune there, all the time. You don’t even know what I’m talking about, because you don’t have kids. I’m on the verge of tears just thinking about it.

Enough of the foolishness. Hopefully this has given you a flavour of what happens to you and your life when baby arrives. If it seems a bit downbeat and negative, then that’s deliberate, because I felt it was important to counter the ‘kids are life-changing’ crowd, who seem to think it’s all sweetness and light. (Or maybe they are away a lot on business and someone else is raising their kids. You can’t rule that out.)

But I’ve honestly experienced more joy in the first five years of fatherhood than I did in the forty-five years that came before it. That’s the thing about being a dad. Life gets tough and amazing at the same time. Here are some of the things I enjoy the most.

1.2 The Best Days of Your Life

Release the Eejit

As I said earlier, men are basically eejits. We have to hide this in adult life or else no one would sleep with us or give us a mortgage. But inside every one of us, there’s a ten-year-old boy giggling at a joke he heard about a Chinese dentist. And then your first child comes along. Not only are you allowed to release your inner eejit, it’s actually your job as chief entertainer to act the eejit. All of a sudden, it’s okay to run around in public singing, ‘The first mate’s name was Carter, by Christ he was a farter.’ It’s great to have that kind of song back in your life again. Just make sure you have the kids with you when you decide to give it a blast in public. Otherwise, it’s a really bad look. (Unless you’re with a bunch of blokes, in which case knock yourself out.)

You’re Hilarious

Small kids will laugh at anything. And given that you are Chief Eejit, they will spend most of their time laughing at you. It’s good to know you still have it on the sense of humour front. Just don’t get carried away and tell your partner you are thinking of putting that on your Tinder profile. That’s not funny to someone who hasn’t slept in a fortnight. You’ll just end up trying to make your kids laugh, every second weekend, at a McDonald’s halfway between their home and your mange-ridden bedsit.

What I would say is this; there are times when your kids will come up and demand your attention. You might want to shoo them away because you need some space or you’re wrecked. Before doing that, try this. Make a funny face and a dinosaur sound. Look at their faces. Maybe you don’t feel that tired any more.

Sorry Old Man

It’s the middle of the night. Your three-year-old wakes for the fifth time because her toy fish, Nemo, has gone missing in the bed. (It’s her version of Finding Nemo. Never show them a movie.) And then it occurs to you. Your dad went through all this with you and never said a word. You think about calling him up to say sorry for all the mockery and self-righteous arrogance you put his way during your teenage years; you might even go all in and tell him that you love him. You decide against it because it’s four in the morning; he’ll probably think you opened the second bottle of wine, and you with small kids to mind. From then on, you see your own dad in a new light. Not that you’ll ever tell him. Sure, it would only go to his head.

Seriously though, having kids of your own is a great way to reconnect with your parents. Particularly if they’re not too old and could be tapped up for a spot of childminding.

Stretches

All those guys out doing Tough Mudder and Extreme Marathons to try to hide the fact they’re forty-five? Total waste of money. There is no better full body workout on the market right now than looking after a child up to the age of six. Your ageing muscles will thank you for clearing up two bags of Mega Bloks, four times a day.

Fancy taking up white-collar boxing? No need, just have a little boy and he’ll beat the living crap out of you for free.

As for walking up and down the stairs seventy-three times a day because you keep forgetting stuff? Congratulations. That’s quite a low number for someone trying to survive on eight minutes of sleep.

I’m not suggesting this is enough exercise. Kids will make sure you don’t slouch around on the couch; it’s up to you to supplement this with regular exercise outside the house once or twice a week. You’re not just tuning up your body with that. You need to get the endorphins flowing, away from the kids.

I play squash and go African Drumming once a week. (On separate nights – it’s almost impossible to dig a shot out of the back corner while playing a samba beat.) Those hobbies work for me, because I’m letting other people down if I shy out of them. If you haven’t got one or two things like that in your life, I recommend you go find them. You need an out.

Career

People think that having a child can put a halt on your career. That’s wrong for two reasons. The first one is the one you share with everyone. ‘I have to do well at work now that I have kids,’ says you. Go on, you big hairy caveman, providing for your family.