Waaah, there's an enormous dead rat over there in the corner of the yard! Waahh, its head is several inches away from its body and there is blood all around. Waaah, I'm only noticing it AFTER I've finished putting out the washing, and Conrad has been roaming freely around me for 15 minutes. Waaah, I thought that was just innocent dirt all over Conrad's hands, and now I have to worry that he's been playing with, and therefore eating, rat entrails…..
"I'm going inside now!" I say brightly. Conrad makes no response, absorbed in the sight of leaves floating in rainwater. "Come on, darling," I entreat, holding out my hand and ignoring all the parenting rules not to break babies' concentration. And then, with a tone of panic: "Would you like some breakfast? Breakfast? BREAKFAST?!!??" completely throwing the parenting rulebook out the window by bribing him with food. Just get him away from that fucking rat!
There is a time and place for perfect, conscious, respectful, politically correct, gender neutral, lahdidah parenting. And there is a time to just get that baby inside, lather up those hands, soap that mouth (yes, i really did!), lock the back door and wait for the man of the house to wake up and deal with decapitated rodents.
