Not So Secret Journal

As a mum of 6 amazing and understandably beautiful children, (because genetically I don’t do ugly kids), I thought that it was my duty to share with you all, some of the day-to-day questions I get asked.

 Some of these questions, may to most of you seem like fair game, but believe me when I say the first few times, I heard them, I laughed, but after the 959^th time of asking, I’m now demanding payment for stupid questions.

I tend to find that when people know or find out you have multiple children, e.g. more than 3, people have these burning desires to know certain aspects of your life. Which again is perfectly acceptable, I too would probably want to know why a person would willingly choose to have more than 1 child let alone 6, and I too would want to ask certain questions, but seriously STOP!

So, I felt that I should share the top 10 (ish) questions I get asked on a regular basis, oh and the answer changes depending on my mood that day.

1. Do they all have the same dad?  I bloody love this question, and the specific answer you will get will depend on my mood for the day.  Because seriously what an actual stupid question and what the hell does it matter. The answer is yes, they do, but seriously why ask.

• Are they all yours? Again, another award-winning question.  All families are beautiful, whether you have a blended family, or you adopt, whatever, families however they’re created are beautiful, but I gave birth 6 times and all of them insisted on coming out the baby chute, so now a tiny bit of pee leaves my body when I jog, sneeze, or cough, and when I laugh that’s a different pee status. I feel like I should have been knighted for the work I did for mankind.

• Where do you put them all? I Love, Love, Love this question, again this all depends on my mood, but when they were younger I may have suggested they all sleep in the chest of drawers in my bedroom or if the mood took me I’d say we lived in a shoe.  What an absolute fucking ridiculous question to ask. Beds is the answer, they all have their own beds (just like normal people do) and I even let them pick their own bedding, and I change their little beds weekly, bloody mother of the year me.

• Where they all planned? Stunning question and one that should come with a free punch in the face. Who cares!!!!!  Out of the 6, I would have to say 1 was planned the rest came as little surprises, a bit like kinder eggs, but harder to look after as they came with zero instructions, but then again, the instructions that come with kinder eggs sometimes require a PHD.

• Do you have a TV? This one makes me laugh so much, because when I reply that we have 3, they say “don’t you have any other Hobbies?” like having sex is a hobby. I mean, I’ve heard about those types of clubs.

• What do you drive a bus? I love this one, mainly because I had a 7-seater car when they older 4 where younger, but now we have 3 adult kids and 3 smaller humans, the older ones no longer want to be seen with us, unless its for a lift home from town at 3am, then they’ll make an exception, but it’s dark then and they technically won’t be seen with us.

• You must have a lot of patience? Absolutely not, its not like I’ve given birth to 6 kids at the same time, they have age gaps and we’ve never really had more than 3 kids under the age of 10, so juggling babies would have been harder, but I find calling them little knobheads under my breath is completely acceptable and as a parent it’s my duty to keep them all in line.

• What will you do when they are all in high school, you will have to get a job? Boy I bloody love this one, assuming I have never worked whilst I had the kids is my biggest bug bear.  I worked part time with 2, then back with 3, childcare got too expensive with no 4 so I stayed home and worked from home. I was working part time when no 5 came and went back to work as I had help from my grandparents, then when I had little no 6, apparently I became a lazy bitch (as people assume stay at home mums are) and was a stay home mum. I work harder now than I ever did in the office, sometimes I want to go back for a little break, but then realise I still have to come home and do the housework, because no other bugger will do it to my standards.

• What do you do all day now they’re all in school/work? I’m certain people have never actually sat and listened to a stay home mum, I swear to God people think I sit around all day and eat biscuits, granted I have the body that looks like I do but by god I don’t actually sit down until around 9pm. After school runs, food shops, dog walks, and keeping on top of the endless washing, I swear to God we have people living here that I don’t know about.

1. You must be minted all that family allowance money?  I laugh so hard at this one because people are actually stupid, you see when we didn’t have kids, we had a fixer upper house that was like a sponge and took all our money fixing it up. Then we had kids and they all became little individual sponges that needed things like clothes (because kids grow) new shoes (because they play footy at lunch and destroy them) they need feeding (have you tried to feed a teenager for less than a tenner recently), then don’t get me started on the hobbies and other shit I get asked for money for. So, unless our numbers come up on the lottery we aren’t minted.

So that’s us, as a family, we work hard, the kids play harder and we work together as a little team. So please stop asking people such stupid questions, because whatever a family looks like, they are all beautiful in their own unique ways.