What are your worst parenting mistakes?

Parenting is one of the tasking jobs on earth. Below to parents who live in London share their views

Lola Okolosie: Children and steep inclines are not a good match

It was the depths of winter, a time when daylight is so painfully short that getting fresh air seems like an annoyance when all you really want to do is cosy up inside. But, with a three-

month-old and an energetic two-year-old, it’s not an option. I’d been round my local park so much that I felt akin to a hamster running on a wheel. Bored by the flatness around me, searching for something vaguely suggestive of West Yorkshire’s hills, I arranged to meet a friend at east London’s hilliest park.

Children and steep inclines are, generally, not a good match. If it’s not a slow slog up accompanied by regular intervals of “I’m tired”, “carry me” or “shoulders”, it’s a toe-curling sprint down. Quite why, then, I chose to bring my son’s scooter without a helmet, I don’t know. It was the proverbial recipe for disaster.

In my defence, I had thought my stern and repeated “no”, mingled with the odd “go steady” would have tempered the excitement of a possible crash but the best laid plans and all that. In the end, the most I could do was to pull him slowly along with my left hand, with much reluctance on his part, whilst pushing the buggy and baby with my right. After getting frustrated at not being allowed to go at breakneck speed, my son finally revolted. In the moment it took me to put the buggy brakes on, he’d scarpered and was racing down the park’s steepest incline. I couldn’t move and not a small part of me was hoping he’d emerge, a mini stuntman, unscathed. It didn’t go like that. Instead he crashed close to the bottom of the hill, blood flowing freely down his face. More than six months on, he will periodically mention the time he “went too fast” on his scooter and hurt himself and I, again, remember my stupidity.

Sam Wollaston: My worst error of all? Becoming a parent in the first place

God, where to start? And social services don’t read this, do they? Because I’ve lost my children, forgotten them, forgotten to feed them, dropped them, put the wrong clothes on them, taught them bad words (inadvertently, promise, though it is funny, a cussing kid). And I’ve exploited them, for copy. I’m clearly not meant for this.

But my worst parenting error of all? Well, given the above that would probably have to be becoming one – a parent – in the first place. Procreating.

From my kids’ point of view obviously. They’re foul-mouthed urchins, with an idiot for a father. For the moment they don’t know any better, they think I’m brilliant, even if they are a bit hungry. But later they will be embarrassed, resentful, probably angry.

From my point of view, also. Sure, I wanted them, or thought I did. Maybe it was the gene thing, or a search for existential meaning. But I never properly thought it through. I imagined reading my favourite books to enthralled pyjama-ed darlings, our own family adventures in far-off lands, that kind of thing. In reality though, well if I do manage to get pyjamas on them, they’re soon off again.

They want the books I can’t stand, like Mr Men, and Thomas the chuffing Tank Engine. After which I’m too exhausted and depressed to read for myself. Children make you tired and boring. They make a mess of your house, your relationship most probably, your life. And they make you poor too. Really poor. Forget about those exciting foreign adventures, it’s Cornwall this year, again; pile in everyone, for nine hours of hell.

We’ll stop off of course … at a service station. Hmmm, now there’s an idea. Are they sure, about the family in France who left their daughter behind? Was it really a mistake?

Culled from guardian.co.uk