Little Miss Judgy Pants

Little Miss Judgy Pants is one of those people who thinks she knows best about everything to do with raising children because she has an NVQ.

Little Miss Judgy Pants doesn’t actually have any children but she does do babysitting.

Little Miss Judgy Pants thinks most people who have children don’t really know how best to deal with them.

When Little Miss Judgy Pants sees parents struggling with a tantruming child in the supermarket, she tuts and shakes her head.

When Little Miss Judgy pants overhears parents talking about how their children never sleep, she rolls her eyes.

And when Little Miss Judgy Pants sees parents giving their children chocolate spread sandwiches and a fruit shoot for lunch, she considers reporting them to Social Services.

Little Miss Judgy Pants knows that when she has children, she will be a perfect parent because she has a lot of knowledge and skills in child care.

Little Miss Judgy Pants has it all worked out.

Due to her exceptionally high level of expertise in all things related to the care of children, Little Miss Judgy Pants’s children will:

Latch on with ease from day one

Not get colic/wind/reflux

Not be left to cry for ANY length of time

Sleep in their own beds

Sleep through the night

Not be fussy eaters

Not have tantrums

Not exhibit ‘weird’ behaviour

Not be anxious or insecure

Not watch TV

Not eat junk

Little Miss Judgy Pants knew she would never:

Feed them food from a pouch or jar

Shout at her children

Lose it with them in public

Give in to whining, fussing, bad behaviour

Lie to her children

Use her phone/ipad/computer in front of them

And she would always:

Stick rigidly to the routine

Be consistent in her approaches to behaviour

Make sure all foods are healthy, nutritious and home made

Plan age and stage appropriate activities every day

Oh yes, Little Miss Judgy Pants just knew that her parenting skills would be exceptional and her children would be perfect.

***

One day, Little Miss Judgy Pants had a baby.

‘Oh dear!’ Said Little Miss Judgy Pants. ‘This is actually really fucking difficult.’

And Little Miss Judgy Pants felt very silly and great pangs of embarrassment and guilt swathed over her as she remembered all the times she had offered people with children her ridiculous and pointless advice. All the times she had smugly patronised a parent friend with her ‘know it all’ comments. All the times she had silently scoffed at others, thinking their child rearing techniques to be inferior to hers.

What a twat she had been.

Worst of all, Little Miss Judgy pants felt like a total failure because she could not live up to her own completely unrealistic and unachievable standards.

It turned out that Little Miss Judgy Pants was just like all the other parents.

They were all doing their best but not one of them could ever be perfect because as Little Miss Judgy Pants said – Parenting is ‘Actually really fucking difficult.’

And guess what?

For once, she was right.

The End