Would you like a side of child with that?

A while ago I vowed to become a better family member and staying true to my word I arranged to go and see my brother. I was duly booked in to the diary for a month in advance. How privileged I felt. (Stop it, you're supposed to be nice person!) Anyway off the boyfriend and I went to York this weekend to see my brother and his family, including my youngest nephew, who's about 18 months old.

Now I’ve been an Auntie since I was 13 years old which is good because it’s been fun being a young aunt but has also meant that I’ve had the best natural contraceptive you could ever get. Seeing my sister pregnant and dealing with my nephews was all I ever needed to see to bring it screaming home to me that kids. are. hard. work.

Now , from time to time, my mind turns to the babies. I have friends that now have them and when my brother and sister were my age they both had children. Maybe I’m getting ready?

Nope.

My brother and his wife are shadows of their former selves. They’re having a nightmare with my littlest nephew who is currently refusing to sleep through the night, having the most horrendous temper tantrums over the smallest things and just generally being a pain in the backside. They admitted that at the moment they can’t go out anywhere because they couldn’t inflict him on anyone to look after. And if they do go out they can’t drink and have a bit of a laugh because dealing with him plus a hangover is a no-go.

This all rang bells with me. Last week as I lay dying on the settee wanting to peel my skin off because I felt so bad it did actually cross my mind. What would you do if you had a child right now? How would you cope? The answer is not very well, considering that a trip to Asda on that day nearly led me to have a nervous breakdown.

I’m also not sure that I’m ready to become one of those parents. You know the ones I mean. The ones who can only talk about their child and believe that you are as fascinated by their bowel movements as they are. The boyfriend and I sat through what felt like 4 hours of holiday footage at my brother’s which consisted of my youngest nephew eating ice cream, dancing to a song, sitting about....now I love him to bits but that’s a little bit too much for me. And you run out of encouraging noises to make after the first 20 minutes.

Add those feelings together and I think I have my answer really don’t I?

Not. Ready.

Also how could I ever think I could be ready to pro-create when I have trouble managing these two furry people?! They’re actually kind of similar, I have enough trouble with them keeping me up at night, and wrecking the flat generally – if this is a simulation I think I’ve failed!

(But then I could probably bore people senseless with videos and pictures of these two....)