Why Do You Look So Haggard? Children, That’s Why!
Whoever said kids keep you young was mental, and definitely not a parent. Maybe mothers stay youthful in a ‘we run around all day doing stupid things and are up all night with a bottle in our hand’ way. But from my experience, kids make you old. And there’s no going back.
If you look at pictures of me in my teens to late twenties there really isn’t that much difference. Okay, so I dressed better the older I got and my hair may have lost a few inches along the way, but my face was the same. You know, unburdened. Then take a look from thirty years old until now, my baby bearing years, and I look…well…fucked. And not in a good way. In fact it’s like looking at a Before and After plastic surgery ad, but in reverse.
Let me walk you through the various stages of decay…
Bags
Big bags, and not just the kind you lug around all day full of everything your little one may need (mine is like Mary Poppins’, I can even fit the high chair in there). No, I’m talking under eye bags. Before being a mum I wore mine with pride, they said ‘check me out, I haven’t slept for three days because I’ve been shagging and dancing and having a wild old time, but with one night’s sleep my eyes will be perfect again’. Now I spend more time slathering on Touche Éclat under there than my builder spent plastering my kitchen, but I have a bigger trowel.
Lines and wrinkles
I used to like the tiny, hairline cracks around my eyes. They spoke of sunny holidays and squinting up at the sky while holding a cocktail in one hand and a book in the other (remember what reading was? The relaxing kind and not just mummy blogs or child rearing manuals?). Now my lines are deep tracks of despair. I have the ones around my mouth which some refer to as laughter lines, but I call ‘screaming lines’. Then the two hatchet marks between my eyebrows which are from my ‘what the fuck do you think you are doing?’ expression, and the horizontal ones across my brow created by my wide eyed ‘I can’t bloody believe what I am seeing’ face. In fact I am getting such a varied collection of lines that my pre-schooler has given up practicing her alphabet and spends her time gazing at my face instead, trying to make out words among the markings.
Stretch marks
You go tiger, you earned your stripes. Bollocks! You didn’t ask for them and you don’t want them, plus you spent hundreds of pounds on creams that told you you wouldn’t get them. For those of you mums that don’t have stretch marks (yes, we hate you, so best not to admit it) you can play a fun game. Take out a lovely new balloon from a packet and marvel at how flat and shiny it is. Then blow it up as big as you can and make a tiny pin prick in it. Come back a week later and take a look. Not so flat and shiny any more, right? Now go and put a pair of lacy thongs on it and tell me it looks pretty. Go on, call me a lovely brave tiger again, I dare you!
Muffin Tops and Love Handles
Who named them after nice things? Come on, own up!
Muffins are delicious, love is pretty okay too, but that roll of fat hanging over the top of my skinny jeans (yes, I know, the warning was in the jean’s name) is not lovely, cute or cuddly. Tummies were not invented for tucking into extra high knickers. Don’t get me wrong, I will jog and eat salad as good as the rest of them, but this rubber ring look I have going on is my kids’ fault. First they stretched it, and now they drive me to the cake and wine. I warn them that if they don’t want one of those huge mums that kids point and laugh at then they should behave and not make me reach for another sugar and alcohol shot. Guilt is good for kids, got to keep the therapists in business somehow.
Grey hairs
I have two, one for each child. I’m lucky because I’m Mediterranean (we prefer to experiment with bulges and droopy jowls before we reach greyness). But you should see my husband. The last few years has seen him go from jet black to salt and pepper. And you know what? The bugger looks even sexier for it. How’s that fair? How, how, how!?
I should probably end this rant with the ubiquitous ‘but my children are worth it’ line that every mummy writer adds to make others believe that their words are all in jest, and in order to avoid vicious cyber trolls that will just add to our ever-present mummy guilt. But I’m not going to. Instead I’m going to say that I shall dedicate my life to my children’s education and making them really smart. That way they will grow up rich enough to pay for their mummy’s 60th birthday face lift present. They owe me that much at least. And if they don’t take me seriously I will exercise my screaming lines and eat another cupcake. That will teach them!
