Shit on my hands

BB

1.     Don’t let them walk on the road by themselves. Who woulda thunk it?  This tip is admittedly  directed squarely at my dear dad, who is woefully ill-versed in current child rearing practices (to wit, when I asked him to kindly remove the steak knives from the drawer that C most frequently paws about in, he turned to my mum and guffawed ‘How did kids ever survive childhood in the old days,eh?’ Indeed) . I had haltingly agreed to let him play with C unsupervised out the front for five minutes only to return to find him whispering sweet nothings into my cats ear ,and my child vanished. I found her at the end of the street. Admittedly my cat is very charming, so I can see how one might get distracted and allow a maniacal 19 month old to walk the streets alone.Err,no actually,I can’t. Dad,wtf??!@!!

2.     If you hope for people to view you more in the mould of  Carol Brady than Myra Hindley, it’s best not to announce loudly in a very busy pre- Christmas shopping centre ‘Darling, you are making me want to dip my face in a bucket of acid’, followed a few moments later by ‘Will you PLEASE fucking well behave yourself!’. Yes, I directed an F bomb at a cherubic toddler, in a shopping centre. I’m officially now Someone I Don’t Like. On the plus side, I appear to have shaken off those pesky middle class keep-it-nice type tendencies.

3.     It’s nice to have lots of lovely photos of your offspring, but limiting yourself to.oh, 6000 per day is perhaps a good idea.A little phenomena I’ve noted of late in the playground; parents ferociously snapping away, trying to get that perfect shot of little Zac zipping down the slide, while said child actually finds themselves in somewhat  perilous situation with slide. Note to snappers: maimed children don’t photograph well

4.     It’s great to go out ,dance like a dickhead,drink like a fish, and watch the sun come up, but don’t expect your kid to cut you any slack the morning after.My hard learned experience is this: the more you abuse yourself in a festive sense, the more your child will inexplicably assume the behaviour of a hung over derelict (i.e,you). Yes, C seems to have such empathy for me when I find myself in this state that she actually has her own little tiny baby hang over.She kicks,she yells,she demands dry crackers and cheese, she doesn’t know what she wants, she lies on the footpath.Hell,she even has an after-grog bog. I cop this on the chin and take it as punishment for being one of those pathetic sorts who is yet to realise I AM NOT A TEENAGER ANYMORE.Actually, I didn’t really drink much as teen, just smoked the odd bong and ate a lot of donuts.Ammendment: I AM NOT 25 ANYMORE.’Tis a truth universally acknowledged that there is nothing quite as wrenchingly tragic as a parent of a small child/ren on a bender,determined to relinquish every trace of  responsibility and turn their blood to ethanol.The number of pitying looks and ‘so where’s C tonight’ comments attest to the fact that this is a viewed shared by most everyone

5.     It’s hard to be a parent when your personal life is in a state of  turmoil. I had arrogantly assumed that nothing could stop me from being a loving and attentive parent to C, but of late a constellation of long-brewing dramas has tested me sorely and I have found myself quite literally gasping with relief when my daughter is out of my hair for any prolonged period. I’m keenly aware that I am not some superior version to my old self by dint of having reproduced.  All my old irritating tendencies and obsessions are still there,my confounding lack of knowledge regarding how adults should  conduct themselves is still there, my inexplicable sadness remains. She has given me the most stunning experience of love I will ever experience, but it’s made me none the wiser. I’m entering 2010 as a single mother,albeit one with a hugely devoted father very much on the scene,but still…I’m yet to hear anyone utter the sentence ‘Single parenthood is a piece of piss’. This has turned less into ‘Tip No. 5’, more ‘Vulnerable Drunkard Spills All’, so I might just leave it at that before I go on ahead and start fessing up to my habit of biting my fingernails and spitting them across the other side of the room.Oh dear. Chin chin to you all. Her name is Clementine.