Most people around will look at a baby or child in the vicinity, and their eyes light up, they rush over and go “d’aww, look at his widdle feet! Isn’t he the most precious little creature in the whole of the world?” Or they’ll find some other feature of said child to squee over, before engaging the parent in meaningless blather about baby clothes and schools and suchlike, whatever the hell it is parents talk about. Indeed, some creepy old crones seem to have a baby sixth sense, and go slithering over to the terrified new mum to coo and caw and offer some unwanted, but probably needed advice.
I personally do not find children to be the endearing bundles of joy the world perceives them to be, I in fact find them to be utterly repulsive. Especially babies.
I’ll start with them.
Not only do babies (if you are female) leech off your body by sucking out all the nutrients that you as a human need, causing you to be exhausted, in pain from backache, tummyache, swollen ankles and stuff, unable to eat your favourite, nutritious foods because it might damage the kid, then they ruin your figure and self esteem (if you care about things like that) by making you fat and saggy, in both tummy and breast department, AND they utterly destroy your sex life for about a year. If I was a man, I wouldn’t want to be having sex with a pregnant female, because there’s a child involved too. Just yuck. And, after the woman’s pushed this watermelon sized, slimy sprog out of the most sensitive area of the body, she’s just a bit too sore for sex, because, you know, she’s had to push a watermelon out her vagina. And if it doesn’t stretch enough, it’ll tear. Like ripping cloth. If that doesn’t happen, the lovely doctor will cut your vagina open for you. While you’re conscious. nd that’s just the pregnancy/birth bit.
Ultimately, babies are noisy, leaky, smelly, spewy, shitty, selfish little fuckrats. All they care about is themselves: when they get fed, when they get changed, which person they want to barf or piss on next. Fuck everyone else; it’s the baby’s way or the highway.
Once this thing that looks like a purple potato has emerged covered in the gloop from Satan’s left nostril, it sets about wailing and shrieking and screaming. And if it doesn’t, and you’re thinking hooray! Peace and quiet! I can go to sleep and forget about the fact my vagina looks and feels like it’s been mauled by a rabid fox with a fondness for serrated knives!
Nah.
The sodding nurse gives it an almighty whap to make it holler. This noise doesn’t stop for around a year or two, depending upon when the kid learns to talk. Then it’s incessant babble, but I’ll talk about toddlers in a bit.
Aside from the screeching, the horrid little leech latches on to your tits and sucks them dry. Nothing is more disturbing to me than the thought of some little parasite draining me dry from my breasts. The very thought makes me want to walk the plank in preference. To me, someone’s mouth being anywhere near a nipple is considered to be more sexual than anything (or jokey if you’re taking stupid pictures with friends…don’t ask) so a child doing it? I can’t get my head around it. I know it’s natural and all that cack, and tits are there for babies, but that is SO not my thing. I don’t like people touching (or trying to touch) my nipples at the best of times. Just fucking yuck.
Once the rat has finished sucking you dry, leaving you lopsided (if it’s not greedy, don’t worry, it’ll drain both soon) it’ll shit itself. If it’s not done that yet, it’ll come. First, you’ll need to wind the kid to stop to getting tunnyache, like the nine months of it for you mean nothing. Guaranteed, this will result in vomit. Babies vomit a lot. I mean, at least twice a day. They seem to vomit just to annoy you. Sorry, but when I burp, I don’t puke everywhere. Even when I’m overfull with beer I rarely puke. It’s bad manners, especially for the person who’s got to clean it up. That’s you, young mother!
But yeah. Shit. Babies, like vomiting, tend to shit one hell of a lot. Expect to change your kid’s nappy about 10-12 times a day. And I don’t mean the 12 hour day you’re used to, I mean full on 24 hour day. It’s going to smell like rotten potatoes. If you don’t know what that smells like, go find a small potato, and leave it to rot in a room/cupboard you don’t go into often. When it’s rotten, go in there and have a whiff. If you haven’t thrown up, it’s not rotten.
The tot’s tush sewage will also be black, tarry and sticky. Good luck getting it out of any material you have around the house; sofas, carpets, the dog etc. You’ve got to wipe its arse (the moment when most kids decide to pee all over an unsuspecting grown up, a look of glee on its malevolent little mug) and powder it, because if you don’t, and you don’t change its nappy ASAP, you’ll have the joys of nappy rash! Hooray! More screaming from said kid. You’ll need to let the air get to its butt, so no nappies for a week, resulting in you running around with a baggie and a mop for all those little accidents.
So, ultimately, you’ll get no sleep, as when the kid’s awake, it’ll be screaming, shitting, feeding and vomiting. Sometimes all at once if you’re lucky. If you get one of those rare moments when it’s not doing any of the above, you’ve got to either give it a bath, or stimulate it with toys or speech, you know, to build a relationship. Why you wouldn’t want to build a relationship between the baby and a cliff by now is beyond me, but parents keep doing it.
Then, mercifully, the thing will go to sleep. You can sleep too!
Just kidding.
If you want to be a good parent, and have no help from anyone else (as is the case with a lot of single parents, sadly) you’ve got to keep the house clean, sterilise everything, cook your own food if you’ve got time to eat, do some shopping, sit down for a bi… Oh, the kid’s awake again. Good luck!
If by some miracle you manage to get through babyhood without committing murder or suicide, I commend you. Well done! Now come the joys of toddlerhood, or The Terrible Tantrum Extravaganza, as I like to call it.
The Sims 3 got this right, toddlers need to learn how to walk, talk and shit in a toilet instead of their pants before they become children and get ridiculed for shitting their pants and crawling about, babbling nonsense words.
So, after many falls, injuries and more screaming, your toddler can walk! Congratulations. It just makes it easier for the little fuckwit to get into trouble. The fireguard by the fire to stop the kid crawling into it? As a biped, it can lift that thing right off and get hurt. The iron lifted high out of reach of a crawling baby? On two legs, it can reach up and squish its own face because it can pull the cord down. Frying pans, books, the cat’s tail, anything that can be grabbed, will be grabbed, and if the desired item moves away, it can now be chased, leading to general chaos. Any kind of dangerous situation your kid can get into, it will get into. Children seem determined to injure themselves in as many ways as possible, as if there is some kind of competition going on at PlayGroup: Who can be the most severely hurt before we hit three years old? Extra points if you lose a limb. You’re going to have to spend every waking moment ensuring it doesn’t jump out a window or under a car or off a cliff, that it doesn’t get stuck under a bed, behind a cupboard, in the oven… At least you don’t have to carry it any more.
Now for the talking. With some luck provided that neither you nor the child are as stupid as your average chav, your child will pick up talking fairly easily, provided you do it right. The thing is, once it starts talking, it won’t stop. Imitation and irritation go hand in hand here, as the brat will attempt to say everything you do. Like a parrot, but less cute. Okay, misspoken baby words can be seen as adorable by many, but to me, it’s a source of noise I can do without. If you can’t hold an intelligent conversation with me, shut the fuck up.
Once it understands the basic concept and meaning of some important words, your little bipedal shit sack will use them only to their own advantage. “Want.” “No.” “Give me.” “Hate you.” To name just a few choice words and phrases a toddler will employ to get what it wants. Indeed, if these demands are not met, a disaster beyond imagination will occur.
It’ll throw a tantrum.
You know those times you’ve been to the supermarket/coffee shop/brothel, and some horrid little delinquent is screaming blue murder because its parent won’t give it a solid gold tippex bottle or something of the like. You look at them and think “Davy Jones, why doesn’t that inconsiderate parent shut that little brat up? I’m trying to enjoy a quiet shop/cuppa/shag here.”
The parent stands there, defeated, and gives in, ending the tantrum and trying hard not to drop kick the smug look off the horrid thing’s face as everyone in the vicinity shakes their collective heads.
Well guess what new parents! That’s you, standing there in your unwashed hair and scraggy clothes, wilting in the glares of fifty odd shoppers, enduring their mutters like heat seeking sharks and wishing you could be swallowed up into the floor (because you’d get some sleep then, at least) because your disgusting little deviant is screaming and roaring like a gorilla on fire, with a contorted look of red-faced, bug-eyed constipation rage on its warped little phizog, screeching like a banshee for all to hear, hurling itself on the ground until it gets its own way.
And you give in, don’t you? It’s so much easier to buy the chocolate or t-shirt or pony than to discipline the child, because you’re so… damn… tired. Trouble is, if you give in to tantrums, your ghastly little demon spawn will learn that by having a tantrum, it’ll get what it wants. Toys, food, whatever; at home, out and about, wherever. It’ll start doing it to your friends, if you have any left by this point. Your best girl friend has a new coat, and is trying to drink some red wine or other staining beverage? Your kid wants it? He or she will grab the glass, spilling the wine, ruining coat, carpet and friendship for life. Then it’ll scream because it got wet and didn’t get its own way.
The proper way to deal with tantrums is to ignore them. DO NOT give in, no matter how tired you are, no matter who is looking at you funny, you put down your shopping/coffee/prostitute, you go out of the establishment, do not speak to the child, you put it in the car and stand outside for a few minutes, or until it’s stopped crying. You then sit it down, get down to its level, and say you don’t want to see it behaving like that again. Then you kiss and make up. If it behaves, buy it a small treat, and say they’ve got it for being good. Alternatively, before you go out, say “If you are good, I’ll do ________” something nice. If they’re bad, they don’t get it. No matter what. Remember, tantrums and attention seeking/deliberately annoying behaviour will get worse before it gets better.
I hate kids, but I know how they work.
Toddler toileting. I don’t really need to say much, because toileting means no more shitty nappies to change, and no more trouble for you, provided your kid knows how to wipe its own arse.
And now, on to children.
My dislike of all things baby/child related decreases as the child ages, as expected. The more able they are to hold an intelligent conversation with me, the more I can put up with them. I still greatly dislike kids though, as all they seem to do is answer back, think they’re funny, don’t eat properly, play up and talk bollocks. They have no concept of danger, as no one under the age of fourteen does (this age is increasing as people become obsessed with YOLO and SWAG). They irritate the fuck out of me.
There’s not really anything more I can say about annoying kids without repeating myself. Okay, kids can be charming. Some of them are clever, and have been raised properly by their parents to be decent members of society. These kids I can deal with. Sometimes they come out with something so ridiculously stupid or insightful that it’s funny. And while children, toddlers and babies are all incredibly selfish, at least they don’t judge people for being gay, or black, or disabled.
A Pirate's Life For Me 