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

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I guess an important preface is that I am an Ellie Taylor fan, and not just a fan but often accidentally the same person. Thinking and speaking in such similar cadence made this such a perfect read, everything made so much sense in my brain because it was explained just as I too would explain it. I really enjoyed this book, and I think mothers and wannabe mothers will be super grateful for the honest account of giving birth/adapting to being a mother too. Completely honest, real, funny and thought provoking - I found myself laughing and crying (sometimes at the same time) and at some points I seriously felt like I was reading my story.

Ellie Taylor On Childcare - Grazia Daily

As a couple, having a child has forced us to reevaluate everything we had previously thought set in cement. Our daughter has irrevocably changed our priorities, the little rat. Children are not the only route to having a meaningful life as a woman. I had a meaningful life before I had a child, and had I not become a mother, my life would still have value, worth and love. p11-12 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.” Yes, having my daughter has made me less overtly self-obsessed, but that’s largely due to me being so busy nurturing the piece of myself that is within her. Children are a physical manifestation of the ambition of their mothers and fathers. They are our hopes and dreams. What I’m saying is, if my daughter doesn’t win an Oscar by the time she’s 18, I will expect a public-funded enquiry. Your body When parents make choices for their child and are over-involved in their lives, children learn that they can’t trust themselves and grow up believing that others always know better. Part of being resilient is learning to become independent and to trust in our own abilities – whilst asking for help where appropriate.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. As a cis white woman married to a cis white man who were fortunate to conceive naturally, my account of parenthood is undoubtedly limited by my many privileges.”

build your child’s resilience - BBC Bitesize Five ways to build your child’s resilience - BBC Bitesize

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.” 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’. Also, you can catch Ellie on the upcoming new series of the smash hit Apple TV+ comedy, Ted Lasso. “What a show!” she enthused.

5. Challenge their beliefs

But, as always, for all of us it was ‘just a phase’. Ratbag acclimatised, and so did I. Partly because time passed and partly because, essentially, we were out of options. I had to work, I wanted to work and for that to happen she needed to be somewhere I wasn’t. I will and already have been recommending this to everyone I know and it should be a must read for every new mum. I have no idea whether I’ll end my life being a mum of one or a mum of two, or perhaps a mum of one and then surprise twins, or maybe a mum of one and owner of new tits. But what I do know, is that the child I have has been worth all the mess, all the noise and all the destruction. When further talking about having a baby, Ellie said, “It’s the most commonplace, unexciting lifechoice to make. It’s not exactly punk, is it, to have a baby? And yet, for you, and the family that the baby comes into, it changes, it really does. All the cliches are true, annoyingly, but it really does change everything, and I’m so glad that I’ve got to write this all down, and I really hope it’ll make new parents feel like someone else has been through it before.” Stand-up comic, broadcaster and actress Ellie Taylor is relatable, clever and interested in how women can have it all. Her honest, hilarious and moving account of the whys and hows of having a baby makes perfect reading for expectant mothers and fathers everywhere, as well as those who’ve been there, done that, and wonder how on earth they did.

My Child and Other Mistakes: The hilarious and - WHSmith

A raw, refreshingly honest, and hilariously funny read, this book begins prior to Ellie’s pregnancy during a period of her life when she was questioning whether she wanted children. It then travels through via various highlights and lowlights including; the pregnancy itself, childbirth, navigating the early days of life with a new-born, and of course, motherhood. 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. I enjoyed this book (on audiobook, narrated by Ellie herself) but it didn’t blow me away. Parts were relatable and parts were funny but on the whole I found it a bit wannabe worthy. In my new life, TDSY (The Dry Shampoo Years), my main aim this week is to try and get Ratbag to eat a raspberry. Success has shape-shifted from the vast, the international, the stratospheric (with me at the centre of it all), to the small, the fundamental, the domestic – all rotating around a small child who loves pink wafer biscuits more than some members of her family. If you really want to be entertained this is the perfect book for you - just be mindful you will be laughing out loud, so may not want to read this book on the train!I’m a fan of Ellie Taylor. When I watch her acting or her stand up I genuinely belly laugh at the things that she has to say so I was eager to read her memoir My Child and Other Mistakes because I knew that I would be entertained. Ellie Taylor did not let me down. A refreshing, hilarious, raw and brutally honest account of the process of deciding to become a parent and everything that follows, whatever the path this may take. As well as personal stories, both emotional and funny, Ellie supplements these chapters of her life with data and facts about parenthood that were so eye opening. For example the realities of maternity and paternity pay, or the racial disparities across birth fatalities.

ways having a child destroys your life – in the nicest Five ways having a child destroys your life – in the nicest

Ellie's honesty and humour has helped me a tremendous amount. I read this over a few long nights with my 4 month old and it felt like she was writing my innermost thoughts that I didn't dare to say aloud. Her words have brought me sunshine in some particularly dark nights through hilarious anecdotes that I can already relate to, as well as feeling like being given a huge hug of reassurance. 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 is a frank and funny account of comedian Ellie Taylor's journey from being a single woman to meeting her now-husband, pondering motherhood, trying to get pregnant, being pregnant, having her baby and then navigating the trials of newborn life and figuring out her new place in the world. The settling-in period was, I would say, pretty heartbreaking for everyone involved. All the parenting my husband and I had done up until that point was about making our daughter feel loved and safe. Nursery felt like the undoing of that.However, there are many other child-enforced changes that bring far less sparkly outcomes. It’s safe to say that having a child destroys your life and ruins everything that you previously enjoyed. For anyone who is pregnant, or trying to weigh up whether or not they ever want to be pregnant, this is a really helpful insight into what you might experience and - importantly - that all of the negative experiences and emotions that you may go through are NORMAL and OK! For those like me who have recently experienced preganancy and newborn life, it is a great book to reflect on what you have experienced so far - and to realise that those times where you think, or thought, you were doing a bad job, you were just / are just a human being and doing the absolute best that you can. Parents can help their children feel safe and secure during uncertain times by helping them recognise that life is actually less certain than they think – but this is okay. In fact, it can be exciting not knowing exactly what will happen – surprises can sometimes be nice! 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: