Like hurtling along a highway well beyond the speed limit, without a seatbelt and no brakes, only to realise it’s not actually a highway at all, but a narrow country lane with high hedges on both sides and plenty of blind corners. Winnie the Pooh is driving, your airbag is a soft toy called ‘Joey’ that you had when you were 3 years old, and your driving soundtrack is a medley of the ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ and ‘I want to ride my bicycle’ . It’s the adventure of a lifetime, where your Peter Pan complex crash lands in a shower of fairy dust and dirty nappies, and you emerge from your chrysalis with butterfly wings made from ‘sudden and serious responsibility’ into a whole new you… clueless parent extraordinaire. I love it, but my god is it hard work .
Of course my kids are wonderful and I never thought I could love anyone that much, but it’s not all coloured pencils, Play Doh, and the sound of children’s laughter.
I perform a health and safety assessment everywhere we go, silently scanning the zone like some kind of weird robot. My biggest fear where we live are the Agave plants, which have (no joke) life threatening spears instead of leaves. The worst ones are the young plants which are just the perfect height to skewer an unsuspecting child.
Sometimes I go days without an adult conversation, with anyone, my wife included. We find almost no time (except when sleeping) to be a couple, and I find even less time to be just me. A luxury I very much took for granted as a single man.
However frustrating it may be at times though, I couldn’t imagine it any other way… except perhaps with a few more hours in the day to run around on the beach, hike through forests and sit around the table drinking hot chocolate and drawing pictures of our favourite animals. In those moments, when I look in to their eyes, everything else becomes insignificant interference. My children force me to be present in the moment, and remind me that perhaps there is nothing more important than right here, right now . I love my wife, and I love my kids, and that’s what matters most to me.
Stuart Westwood 