Things they never tell you after you become a Mum

Tetyana Denford - 16 Mar 16

I was sick in my handbag one day. On the tube. Yes, that actually happened. And I realised that I had my kids to get back home to and I couldn’t manage my social life anymore like I used to.

Hang on. Let me backtrack.

6 years ago, I had had two children in quick succession and after 5 months at home, I went back to work 4 days a week. They were close in age, so I was still getting up for night feeds and I was getting myself dressed and out the door to get to work by 7am. I was exhausted and surviving on adrenaline fumes and caffeine, mostly.

I was invited out to a “work lunch” to celebrate a new client win. Great, I thought. Lunch. Lunch is good. However, I’m an American. And I translated “lunch” to… well, literally… “lunch”. Food and stuff, and then back to work. But that didn’t happen. “Lunch” was a visit to a local pub at 12:30pm, no food, and after 5 glasses of wine and a shot of some blue liquid, I stumbled out of there at 5:30, realising that I had a 40 minute train journey back to Greenwich to relieve our beloved nanny. I had to get there by 6pm. There was no way that was happening. I was absolutely plastered.

On the train (a packed one, at that), the world was spinning and my vision was blurry and I felt that very familiar lurching, horrible feeling in my stomach that signalled to me that I was about to throw up. Violently.

And I did. Straight into my black leather (very expensive) handbag. Awesome.

I made it home by 6:30pm, stumbling through the door and apologising to the nanny for being late. She looked at me and smiled (she was *totally* judging me) and I remember a distinct look of pity as she was putting her coat on.

She left, I somehow did bath-time, got the kids to bed and passed out. The next morning I had THE MOST HORRIFIC HANGOVER OF MY ENTIRE LIFE. I felt like my brain would pop out through my eyeballs. And it was also my day off, which meant I would be looking after my two children and trying to stay upright and keep food down. My husband obviously laughed at me before he left for work. “Yeah.. good luck with that” were his parting words. That day my oldest (3 at the time) was saying “why you walking ’round like an ol’ lady?” I kept looking at her and pleading helplessly, “shhhhhhhhh oh I wish you could make me a bacon and egg sandwich”, begging for something heavy to fall on me and knock me out temporarily so that I could have a nice nap. That day was brutal. Having a hangover and being around small children, I’m convinced, is the world’s worst torture. As you get older and more sleep-deprived, your hangovers get progressively worse. When I was in my 20s, I never had hangovers. Nowadays, it takes me about 3 days to recover after having only one big night.

My point of this story? No one, NO ONE warns you about these things. They tell you how amazing it is to have children, and how they’re such bundles of joy and kisses. They tell you to baby-proof your house from sharp corners and steep stairs. They tell you that your boobs are magical vessels of milk and nutrition. They tell you that your body becomes this voluptuous baby-making machine and is Venus-like. Yes, I’ll agree that it’s all wonderful and life-changing.

But, here’s what they don’t tell you about what happens after these magical creatures pop out into the world:

You say things like “don’t lick the car” and “is that poo or chocolate?” with alarming frequency. (Honestly, I am way  too comfortable smelling strange-coloured stains.)

You wee a little when you laugh too hard. (Hey, let’s be honest here. They’re called Kegels and we can’t be bothered.)

You inevitably end up shouting at your kids too often even though you said you wouldn’t. (You better name your child something that you *really* like because you’ll be saying it 572 times a day.)

Those silver lines on your boobs and your belly? There are no creams on this planet that will get rid of them. (Own your stretch-marks, ladies. You made a human.)

You will learn to hate glitter. Like, actually recoil at the sight of it. (Arts and crafts are fun, until you find glitter in your armpit 3 weeks later.)

You have an audience. Always. For everything. (They especially like to ask you really important, complicated questions when you’re sitting on the toilet, and point at your saggy bits.)

If you’re out for a “big night”, prepare yourself in advance. (For the next day: Set up movies, stock up on snacks and dig out some new toys that you were saving for a birthday to keep the kids occupied so you can lie comatose on the couch. It’s called SURVIVAL.)

For roughly 7 years, your house will have a faint smell of poo. (Nappies, bathrooms, doesn’t matter how and where they do it, the whole house stinks. No joke. Invest in good candles.)

Sometimes you will absolutely look at your child and think ‘who the hell are you, and where did you come from?’ (Totally normal. They’re weird little aliens that eat us out of house and home and demand that we use whatever money we have left to buy them shoes that light up. It’s bizarre.)

You will survive on 3-4 hour’s sleep, on average, for the first 7 years. (And it’s somehow possible. Even those days where they get up at 5:30 and by 3pm you start hallucinating from the exhaustion. But you can push through it.)

At some point, your child will hit their head on the floor, fall off the couch or fall down the stairs. No amount of baby-proofing can prevent that. (It’s okay. Doesn’t make you a bad parent. They are resilient things that will survive and probably demand a snack 1 minute later.)

You’re *not* going to read books and colour with them all day. Television is perfectly fine, and important for everyone’s sanity. (The Lego can wait. Have a cuddle and relax,even if you’ve already memorised the Thomas The Tank Engine theme tune.)

You can still produce milk from your nipples even after stopping breastfeeding for over a year. (WTF is that? So weird.)

You’ll lose old friends and make new ones. (Some friends can’t “get” the whole ‘oh you have kids now and can’t go out much’ thing, and that’s okay. Drinking at home and gossiping with your new mum friend is the new trend anyway.)

Having kids doesn’t mean you’ll automatically grow up. (You *still* have no idea what you’re doing. But now, you have more people around to watch you screw up.)

Your parents didn’t have a clue with you, either. (So, take all their “advice” with a grain of salt and a smile and do it however you want to do it.)

Trust your instincts. (Take all those parenting/motherhood/understanding babies books that you’ve read and throw them in the bin. The most important thing is to trust your instincts because you have a happy and healthy baby in front of you, and only YOU will know, ultimately, what works for them when they’re screaming at you for absolutely no reason.)

And when all else fails, put the television on and have a cuddle. That’s generally good advice for everyone.

Tetyana Denford

Tetyana is a Ukrainian-American mum of three, married to an Englishman, living in NY. She's written for Elle and Vogue magazines, and her first novel 'Motherland' is available at Amazon. She hosts a YouTube show called The Craft and Business of Books, translates for Frontline PBS news, and writes freelance.

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