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Friday 21 January 2011

Parenthood – the biggest game of life - Guest Blog - Lisa Blackler.

Having a baby will be easy, right?  Every girl played dollies as a child.  What fun to dress it up, push the pram and sing it a lullaby.  Once it’s asleep you can go off and play with your other toys, right?
Well that fantasy is shattered within hours of the birth!

But is parenthood a game?
Perhaps it is the most serious game you will ever play.  It has things in common with many familiar games:

·         Looking after a tiny baby can be like playing 20 questions – why are you crying?  Does your nappy need changing?  Are you hungry?  Are you too cold?  Are you too hot?  Are you in pain?

·         With a toddler you move on to a game of charades as you have to guess what the heck they are trying to tell you without the use of fully functional human language.

·         Ages 4 -7 are one long game of Top Trumps – a repeating cycle of threatening punishment and having to follow through when the threat is not believed...and then needing a bigger threat to top it with next time...
·         Pre-puberty is Guess Who time.  “Mum, guess who has a new computer console/baby brother/pet iguana?”
·         The teen years are a combination of the strategic elements of chess,  the deductive skills of Cluedo and the delicate skills of Kerplunk.

The only problem with it all is that nobody ever explains the rules to you at the start.  Not that it would makes a difference anyway, because your child will change the rules all the time anyway.

Lisa Blackler, Mum of 2 girls, owner of www.honestymarketing.co.uk  Twitter.com/LisaBlacklerL

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