Did you not read my previous post?!

I’m very sorry, but I can’t possibly adult today

So, writing from within my lounge fort, tiara tipped at a natty angle, I present the case against the defendant (Anne Pank), having children.

Behold Your Honour, exhibit #44.

This woman is a giant fraud, a child masquerading as an adult.  How could I successfully raise little people, when inside my head I am effectively still a little person myself?

My days are so up and down during different times of the year, (depending on the weather, the work period, my dwindling periods, whether someone looked at me on the metro funny, or the girl in the cafe did or did not recognise me), that it would be easy to mistake me for petulant teenager gripped by the onset of raging hormones.  That being the case, it would be impossible to maintain any sense of consistency of mood, which is so important for children.

And like a teenager, when I’m in the down, and so tired, I don’t want to get out of bed.  So quite often, I don’t bother.  The only response I’d be able to muster for any query from the munchkins during this time, would be, ‘For heaven’s sake, I don’t knnnnoooow.  Yes I’m your mother, but I can’t be expected to know everything.  *pouts, folds arms huffily.  Go back to bed darling, mummy’s not prepared to responsible today.’

This year, I’ve made a real life request for some of those lovely ‘adult’ colouring books, to be in my Christmas stocking this Yuletide, and I genuinely think I may throw a spectacular tantrum worthy of the terrible twos, if they do not manifest.  With that kind of example as a mother what hope would there be?  It’s a genuine concern.

I’d be the one caught with my hand in the biscuit tin and a chocolate-smeared face, denying having my hand in the biscuit tin and eating all the chocolate.  My children would look sternly at me, fold their arms in the manner of someone exasperated, and maybe even tap their foot impatiently, before silently pointing me in the direction of my room, advising me to ‘think seriously about what I’ve done, because no-one likes a liar’.  (Or a biscuit/chocolate snaffler).

Sometimes you (I) just want to eat those random juvenile food combinations for no other reason other than I want them, and you can’t stop me.  Case in point, I’ve just eaten a bowl of cornflakes as a chaser to having munched my way through the left-over crisps, ham and cheese, from entertaining at the weekend.  I may have a glass of wine and then a hot chocolate.  If they did the molten-lava hot, cheese-filled Findus Crispy Pancakes here, I might have even had those at some point, with a dollop of red sauce on the side. Because……………..because, why not?  Other popular tea options include: Coco Pops, Tuc biscuits with Philly, a jar of olives/pickles, toast, toast with tuna pate/Marmite/Bovril/lumps of cheese.  The list is endless.  None of these I think you’ll agree, constitute a healthy balanced diet.  But, they are foods that any teen worth their salt, would be proud to swallow in defiance of the lovely roast chicken dinner their mother had prepared.

If I had my way, there’d be days where I’d go to work in wellies, Wonder Woman knickers, with a teddy bear ears hoodie, sporting a toy stethoscope round my neck.  And maybe a clipboard.  Because it just makes perfect sense in this fraudy adult child woman teen brain.  And I’d involuntarily gravitate towards the nearest puddle for a bit of splashage, to arrive at the office mud splattered, offering a somewhat Gallic shrug and a ‘wwhhhaaaaaat?’

It’s safe to say, I’ve been successfully doing a smashing job at pretending to adult since the day I left home at nineteen.  But to my mind others are adulting much better than I am, everyone is much adultier than I’ll ever be.

Anne Pank, frauding adulthood since 1989.

And that is my ‘reasons why I don’t have kids’ #44