The String Bag and Octopus Guide to Parenthood

Preparation for parenthood is not just a matter of reading Sheila Kitzinger and decorating the nursery. Here are eleven simple tests for expectant parents to take to prepare themselves for the real life experience of being a mother or father

1. Women: Put on a dressing gown and stick a bean bag down the front. Leave it there for nine months. After nine months take out 10% of the beans. Men: go to the chemist, tip the contents of your wallet on the counter and invite the pharmacist to help himself, then go to the supermarket and arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office. Go home pick up the paper and read it for the last time.
   
   
2. Before you go ahead and have children find a couple who are already parents and berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of patience, appallingly low tolerance levels and how they have allowed their children to run riot. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behaviour. Enjoy it - it will be the last time you have all the answers.
   
   
3. To discover how the nights will feel walk around the living room from 5pm to 10pm carrying a wet bag weighing about 8 - l0 lbs. At 10pm put the bag down, set the alarm clock for midnight and go to sleep. Get up at 12pm and walk around with the bag again until 1am. Set the alarm for 3am. As you can't get back to sleep get up at 2am and make a drink. Go to bed at 2 45am. Get up again at 3am when the alarm goes off. Sing songs in the dark until 4am. Set the alarm for 5am. Get up at 5am and make the breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.
   
   
4. Can you stand the mess children make? To find out smear marmite on the sofa and jam on the curtains. Hide a fish finger behind the stereo and leave it there throughout the Summer. Stick your fingers in the flower bed - then wipe them clean on the wall paper. Cover the stairs with crayons. How does that look?
   
   
5. Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems. First buy an octopus and a string bag. Attempt to put the octopus in the bag, so that none of its arms stick out. Time allowed for this - all morning.
   
   
6. Take an egg carton, Using a pair of scissors and a pot of paint turn it into an alligator. Now take a toilet roll tube. Using only Copydex and a piece of foil make a Christmas cracker. Last take a milk container, ping-pong ball and an empty packet of Cocoa Pops then make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower. Congratulations you have just qualified for a place on the Playgroup Committee.
   
   
7. Forget the Peugeot 205 and buy a Sierra. And don't think you can leave it on the driveway spotless and shining, family cars don't look like that. Take a choc-ice and put it in the glove compartment and leave it there. Get a 20p piece, stick it in the cassette player. Take a family sized pack of chocolate biscuits, mash them down the back seat. Take a garden rake - run it along both sides of the car. There - perfect.
   
   
8. Get ready to go out. Wait outside the loo for half an hour. Go out the front door. Come back in again, go out, come back in again, go out again. Walk down the front path. Walk back up it. Walk down it again. Walk very slowly down the road for five minutes. Stop to inspect every cigarette end, piece of chewing gum, dirty tissue and dead insect on the way. Retrace your steps. Scream that you have had just about as much as you can stand until the neighbours come out to stare at you. Give up and go back home again. Do it all over again. You are now just about ready to take a small child for a walk.
   
   
9. Go to your local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a pre-school child - a fully grown goat is ideal. If you intend to have more than one child then take more than one goat. Buy your groceries without letting the goats out of' your sight. Pay for everything the goats eat or destroy. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even consider having children.
   
   
10. Hollow out a melon, make a small hole in the side, suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side. Now take a bowl of soggy Weetabix and try to spoon it into the swaying melon whilst pretending to be an aeroplane. Continue until half the Weetabix has gone, tip the rest in your lap making sure that a lot of it ends up on the floor. You are now ready to feed a 12 month old baby.
    
    
11. Learn the names of every character from the Care Bears, Postman Pat, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. When you find yourself singing "I wanna be a Care Bear" at work, you finally qualify as a parent.

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