I’M CONDUCTING AN INFORMAL non-binding survey. There are only two questions, and they’re for potential mums and dads. Here they are:
- Why on earth do you want to become parents?
- Do you have any idea what you’re letting yourself in for?
I should state, up-front, that I have four grown children – and I kindly allowed each of them to live to adulthood. Along the way, however, every romantic maternal notion that I may have held was blown out of the water during a multitude of sleepless nights.
Despite all this, I know we had some great times because the kids occasionally tell me about them. And now it’s all come full circle.
My son phoned me recently to wish me happy birthday. He and his wife and baby live in Australia. They’ve been flat out setting up a business, but were finally able to have a weekend away up the coast in a lovely quiet little bay.
Unfortunately things didn’t quite work out the way they’d planned …
On the first day away, their toddler’s small sniffle developed into a full-blown cold. In her misery she rejected her mum, and could only be consoled by falling asleep on her dad’s chest with her head under his chin.
He told me he’d just survived two nights of being marinated in snot. And they spent the entire weekend holed up in a motel, comforting their distressed wee girl.
I just thought you may need to know this before you conceive.
FRANCES HALL IS A GRAPEVINE STAFF-WRITER. ‘SCRUBCUTTERS’ ARE RADIO SPOTS – PRODUCED BY CBA, AND HEARD BY 180,000 PEOPLE EACH WEEKDAY, ON THE NEWSTALKZB NETWORK.
