Sooner or later, we then find ourselves turning to the unavoidable vocabulary of parenting – you know, those tried and tested phrases which have been rolled out for generations.
My own personal repertoire includes the classic lines, "Erm, where d
o you think you're going? You ask before you get down"; "You made the mess, now you tidy up the mess"; "Right, I am counting to three. One…..two……hmmmm, I should think so too"; "What's the magic word?"
and, "Right, bye bye then, I'm going – you can stay there". I have come to the conclusion that it is actually a genetic impossibility, as a parent, to not use these lines.
Before we have children of our own however, it is very, very easy to judge and remark on others' parenting skills – or apparent lack thereof. We frown at the mother who allows her children to roll around on the floor of the chilled goods aisle at the supermarket while she umms and ahhs over which packet of frozen chips (frozen chips?!) to buy. We tut disapprovingly at the dad who has just bought his child an ice lolly at 11am on a Sunday morning. We look on in disbelief at the endless tantrums being displayed by children who are being forcibly removed from the toy shop by sour-faced parents and we are disgusted by the amount of mess being made by the children at the table next to us when we're trying to have a civilised Sunday brunch.
Then, one day, we become parents ourselves and slowly but surely, we find ourselves doing everything we tutted about so profusely a few years before.
Of course, even this takes time. Parents with ever-so-tiny-and-adorable new babies are often visibly shocked when they witness a full-blown temper tantrum of a four-year-old. You can just see them thinking to themselves – "That will NEVER happen to our child. She must be a very bad mother to allow that to happen". Well, I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but – it will happen, and probably a lot sooner than you think.
You see, all these "terrible" things we do as parents, are not terrible at all. They are just part of being a parent.
So, there I was in a restaurant in France last summer wiping up my child's vomit from under the table while my husband tried to retrieve the car keys which the baby had thrown behind the radiator.
There I was in the supermarket last Friday, deliberating over which roll of wrapping paper to buy, while my boys chased each other around and around the freezers.
There I was in the computer supplies shop paying for a printer cartridge while the boys played rough and tumble on the floor.
There I was, emerging from the toy shop, carrying a kicking and screaming toddler under one arm and a challengingly large box under the other while hissing at my four-year-old to stop asking for sweets.
There I was, on Sunday morning, sitting in the car outside B&Q while the toddler slept and while dad and the four-year-old went into the shop, when I saw a frazzled looking dad come through the doors carrying a screaming child under one arm and a halogen lamp under the other. He happened to be parked next to me.
There I was, listening through the slightly open car window, to the dad saying, "Next time you can stay at home with mummy then, because I am not putting up with all this crying".
There I was smiling. Partly because - for once - it wasn't me dealing with all this and partly because I understood exactly how the dad felt.
So, next time you see a hassled looking mother giving her child some chocolate in order to sit quietly in the supermarket trolley, please try not to judge too harshly. It will probably be me. And one day, it will probably be you.
