Nobody warns you that becoming a parent means handing your dignity to a small person who cannot yet use a fork. They will look after it about as well as they look after a sock. You will not get it back. Here are the humiliations, ranked, mildest first.
7. Being Corrected on Dinosaurs
You say “look, a T-Rex.” A four-year-old sighs like a tired professor and explains it is a Carnotaurus. They are right. You have a degree, a mortgage and a lower back, and you are losing to someone who calls spaghetti “basghetti.”
6. Singing on Demand
In the supermarket. At full volume. The song is about a bus. Strangers are looking. You do the actions, because the alternative is a meltdown in aisle four. You are not proud. You are a hostage who has learned the choreography.
5. The Public Announcement
“DADDY DID A BIG BURP AT HOME.” Said in a quiet café. To the whole café. Every head turns. You cannot defend yourself. It is true. It is also the most anyone has said about you in public in four years.
Parenthood is losing every argument to someone who thinks the moon follows the car.
4. The Negotiation You Lose
You negotiate contracts at work. You have just agreed to three more minutes of cartoons in exchange for one shoe. Not two shoes. One. They wanted it in writing. They got it in writing. Your boss has never got that much out of you.
3. The Bodily Fluids
You once caught something in your hand without thinking, and you were glad. That was the day your old self was formally declared missing. Nobody has looked for him.
2. The Honest Drawing
A family portrait for school. Everyone looks lovely. You are a grey smudge holding a phone, labelled “tired.” It is on the classroom wall. Other parents have seen it. The teacher called it “very observant.”
1. The Love
The most humiliating thing of all is how completely they’ve got you. They fall asleep on your shoulder, mouth open, slightly sticky, and your whole tough, sarcastic personality leaves the building without its coat.
You sit there for forty minutes with a dead arm, not moving, because you’d rather lose the arm than wake them. They will not remember this. In forty years they will choose your care home based mainly on the parking.
Absolutely mortifying. You’ll do it again tomorrow. They will not return the favour.