Julie Jay: Seeing my friend with her newborn has left me wishing for a parenting redo

Being a parent is essentially just wishing over and over for a chance to do it all over and do it differently but also accepting that the chance will never come

Picture: iStock 

PART of being a parent is embracing change because, like life itself, nothing in parenting stays static. Just when you think you’ve gotten the hang of a phase — toddler, newborn, perimenopausal — you’re onto the next one with absolutely zero ability to go back and do it better.

It is so hard to close the chapter on anything as a parent because, if given the chance, we would all probably do things a lot differently if we were to do it all again — and that’s just our choice of haircut.

The impossibility of a do-over is never felt more keenly than when I see new parents and their newborns out and about. This week I visited a friend who only eight weeks ago had her first little girl, and she seems infinitely more organised than I ever was or am, despite me being five years ahead of the game.

I watched as she effortlessly moved the baby to the sling with minimal fuss. I didn’t get the hang of slings until they were so big I was basically giving myself scoliosis by doing so.

She had muslin cloths galore and a car seat and buggy combo that blew my mind — the wheels neat, perfect for tiny babies, unlike my inherited contraptions, which never felt fully fit-for-purpose with my own babies. 

Too big, too clunky, too hard to assemble; my inability to find an appropriate baby carrier meant my confidence was often too low to bring my first baby out and about. 

And because I never quite mastered it with my first, I felt even less confident getting my second newborn out and about, not least because I presumed everyone would judge me for still not knowing how to manage all the moving parts.

Spoiler alert — nobody cared. And so it was that I hid at home with my child like a Hollywood starlet avoiding the paps for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

Visiting with my friend, her home was organised, tidy, and decorated so funkily that I could easily imagine daddy DJ in the corner, on the decks, pumping the remixes for their daughter’s first birthday. 

Yes, the child’s daddy is a DJ, and the proper kind, not like an ex of mine who declared himself a DJ when he was really just a man who owned an iPod shuffle, which he would sometimes whip out at parties.

Driving away from my pal and her new person, I had to bite my lip, thinking back to how much I got wrong the first time round, and knowing I have absolutely no plans for baby number three, I will never be able to say I did the newborn stage well.

I simply have to accept that I didn’t have it together for either of my kids, and move on mentally. Because wishing for a do-over when it comes to parenting is like going to the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis and wishing for an appearance by Dua Lipa — it is a waste of everyone’s time, so just enjoy your Ard Fheis soup (inevitably vegetable) and move on.

How is it that a brand-new parent can make it look so easy? Did she get more advice? More support? Or did she simply, on an essential level, know what to do in a way that I never did or still don’t?

Of course, I do think covid played a factor. 

Isolated and not working, it was hard to ask for help and for tips as new parents and we didn’t know anyone at all in our new community, which, though it proved to be a really supportive place, was hard to penetrate in the middle of a pandemic when it was illegal to be within a 20-metre radius of a stranger.

My do-over

Deep down I know that if I had the chance to go back in time, it wouldn’t be all rainbows and impossibly clean muslin cloths. 

It would be late nights and early mornings and trying (and failing) to get the baby to stop crying when you succumbed to peer pressure and went for lunch with friends two weeks postpartum with your second child, despite being delirious with exhaustion and with your boobs leaking into the chowder.

It would be the constant fear that you’re doing it wrong, but doing it anyway. The tiny comments that ring through your head as you lie awake at night — comments that were probably intended to be helpful but instead feel like confirmation that you are just not up to the job.

A remake is never a good idea — just ask Timothee Chamalet, whose attempt to redo Charlie and the Chocolate Factory will go up there with fur gilets as quite possibly the worst idea of all time.

In case you are a reader who is young enough to be able to list Harry Potter as a favourite childhood read (yeesh) and don’t remember fur gilets, imagine a fur coat. Now imagine a fur coat that has been ravaged by wild dogs and just a cropped fur sleeveless vest is left. 

This was what we convinced ourselves constituted a coat in the noughties before thankfully the forever missed but never forgotten high street store AWear brought us to our senses.

I know if I could go back in time and redo being a first and second time parent, I would make loads of mistakes, only new ones and, if I’m being honest, probably some of the same ones too. 

As we accept the impossibility of a do-over, we can embrace its even better cousin — a do-better, as we take our lessons and try to apply them to the next stage of parenting. 

Now excuse me while I dust off my DJ decks because if we can’t have a redo, we can always have a remix.