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

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In the end it took around six weeks to settle/break her in. I spent a lot of that time Googling variations of the words ‘nursery’ ‘baby’ and ‘trauma’. I knew her going to childcare was necessary for us as a family, but it certainly didn’t sit well. Friends would say, ‘Mine didn’t like it at the beginning either Ellie, it’s really normal for them to be upset.’ 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.

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

We write off people’s experiences of having children, because it’s so commonplace. It absolutely happens thousands of times a day, and yet for each family, it is seismic. And that’s basically why I wanted to write the book, because I think it’s a story that does get sidelined. You go, ‘Oh Susan’s had a baby, let’s send her a basket of muffins’, but for her, the tectonic plates that her life is based on, have completely shifted. And so that is basically what the book is. It’s what I like to think of as the extraordinary ordinary story of the experience of becoming a parent.” 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!’ 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. 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. 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.”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. 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: Raw, candid and hilarious, Ellie Taylor’s My Child and Other Mistakes is the funny truth about motherhood and all its grisly delights.

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

This is a story told from the heart and there are some truly emotive moments in which Ellie Taylor shares her tales of motherhood with all the grisly, painful, and heart-breaking details. That said, she also successfully manages to ensure that the writing feels easy to connect to and is consistently humorous, and therefore, not a difficult read.

2. How to cope with set-backs

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