My Child and Other Mistakes: The hilarious and heart-warming motherhood memoir from the comedy star

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Something you don’t think about, when you’re going to NCT, is that suddenly your relationship is totally different. I remember in the newborn days, something I hadn’t anticipated, I felt like I really missed my husband, because you become like ships in the night. You are on shift. One is on, one is trying to sleep. And I was like, ‘You're in the same room, but we barely ever talk,’ and that was really, really hard, that kind of adjustment.” My Child and Other Mistakes is the honest lowdown on Motherhood and all its grisly delights, asking the questions no one wants to admit to asking themselves - do I want a child? Do I have a favourite? Do I wish I hadn't had one and spent the money on a kitchen island instead? Resilient children are able to make age-appropriate decisions about the things that affect them. All parents want to protect their kids – it’s part of the job description, but when we try too hard to protect them from life’s bumps we can do more harm than good to their developing resilience. Before I had my daughter, I was told by some local parents that if I wanted to secure a spot at one of the neighbourhood’s good nurseries and not one of the places that was essentially a primary-colour painted gulag, I should really have started putting my name on waiting lists shortly before I sat my GCSEs. Trying to make up for lost time, I began to look at places for my unborn child when I was seven months pregnant.

My Child and Other Mistakes by Ellie Taylor | Waterstones My Child and Other Mistakes by Ellie Taylor | Waterstones

The first day I left my daughter at nursery and she didn’t cry gave me a sense of elation that I imagine football fans experience when their team wins and they push over a tram to celebrate. I was beside myself. I couldn’t believe what I’d just witnessed – she had waved goodbye and then just walked in. Just walked in. That was it. Where was the quivering chin? Where were the wails of torment? Where were the pangs of guilt deep within my shattered soul? I rang my husband, ‘Darling! She didn’t cry! She must have forgiven us! She must like it!’ I shrieked, euphorically. ‘Great news!’ he said, ‘She’s finally learnt to internalise her unhappiness like the rest of us!’ Even at the worst of my initial nursery anxiety, I have always tried to bat away the temptation to be drawn into the ‘mum guilt’ narrative that I despise. It’s either un-gendered ‘parental guilt’ or it can sod off. It is not for mothers alone to navigate the burden of a work/child balance. If you, like me, ever feel a sneak of self-reproach edge in, I urge you to try and tough-love yourself out of it. Remind your brain, as utilitarian as it sounds, that each of us has a role to play in a family, even our children. For my husband and l, our job is to work and pay bills, and for Ratbag, her job is to go to nursery and bloody well do Baby Shark. I should probably caveat this review by saying that I just didn’t find this book that funny. Sorry. There’s no doubt that there’s a wide audience for Taylor’s style of comedy, I’m just probably not it. So why read the book? Well, because I am mother to a 5 month old and am currently at the stage of craving anything that makes me feel ‘seen’. Taylor’s book is naturally predominately lead by her own experiences of pregnancy, childbirth (in this case via C-section) and being a mother, however, she does also pull anecdotes from other mothers and parents that have been part of her life and these add further depth (and occasionally some comedy) to the narrative.In the end we settled on a brand-new childcare centre that was big, bright and had cameras in every room, meaning I’d be able to watch Ratbag steal maracas from the mouths of other kids from the comfort of my own home. In My Child and Other Mistakes, Taylor chronicles her ascent into adulthood. I don’t mean the passing of the years that makes us a grown up but the decisions that we make that validate that in modern society such as getting engaged, getting married, having kids.

My Child and Other Mistakes: The hilarious and heart-warming My Child and Other Mistakes: The hilarious and heart-warming

The ‘stuff’ sneaks up on you. It begins deceptively slowly – a harmless if garish playmat appears in front of the sofa. “That’s ok,” you think, “It’s just one item.” In fact, it’s a nice hint of ‘child’ in a room that otherwise screams ‘functional living space for two adults who like watching The West Wing’. It was never preachy, never ‘everyone should be a mum’ or ‘I’m so brave because I am one’. It was always an understanding voice, offering silly anecdotes or helpful advice. But still there was earnestness. I’ll end with my favourite quote, which while written in a chapter about PPD, I think is very useful for anyone struggling to hear: I felt so honoured to hear such personal, vulnerable details. It was a real privilege to be brought into those feelings.

NO MAJOR SPOILERS

Expanding on how tough having a newborn was, Ellie said, “I had quite a bleak time with it all. I think, probably now, I had a touch of the old postnatal depression. It’s so hard. You do a lot of baby classes and you learn how much a little six-week old should sleep, and how to swaddle a baby, but you don’t learn that, especially for a woman, it’s a massive mental, psychological, physical adjustment. You become a completely different person. I think trying to get used to that, with all the hormones flying around, and trying to work out how you now exist in this world, when this life has been lifted from you, is massive. My stomach is spongy and quivering, like a panna cotta that’s been out of the fridge for too long. My body has decided that it’s best if it keeps hold of some of the four stone I put on when pregnant, presumably for a rainy day. Just as John Lennon imagined a life with no possessions, I imagine a weekend without having to pause Sunday Brunch while I clean up another human’s faeces. Your ambition I think it’s had 20 Emmy nominations. It’s gone wild. It’s so funny. It’s got so much heart, as well. It’s so sweet. That’s all done, the second series starts tomorrow.” In this very funny book she writes candidly about her own personal experience exploring the decision to have a baby when she doesn't even like them, the importance of cheese during pregnancy, why she took hair straighteners to the labour ward, plus the apocalyptic newborn days, childcare, work and the inevitable impact on life and love and most importantly, her breasts.