10 Things Only First Time Fathers Understand

So you’ve ruined your life? Chin up, sunshine, it’s not as bad as you think, you know.

Believe it or not this parenting lark is actually something to enjoy. Presuming you remove the brutal exhaustion, the night terrors, the jelly-legged fear about the wellbeing of your child, the financial costs, the strain on your relationship, the sheer cluelessness, the crying, the wailing, the teething, the nappies, the stress, other people and that nagging sense of complete inferiority that won’t go away, it’s actually quite a jolly old knees up.

With added vomit.

Right up there with drinking lots of beer every night in the pub, or telling a long-despised boss to shove his job up his backside, becoming a father is a fairly big deal. This is because once you’re a father you actually have to act like one and stop doing stuff like drinking loads of beer every night in the pub or telling a long-despised boss to shove his job up his backside.

Despite fathers having something of an ancillary role during the early stages of ensuring their offspring is reared appropriately enough that they don't grow up to be Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, it's nevertheless an eye-opening experience. Which is ironic given how difficult it is to keep the buggers open during those first few months.

And while you might feel alone, you're absolutely not. You share a whole range of feelings, both good and, inevitably, bad...

This is something you're just going to have to come to terms with. You could talk about nothing but your offspring for hours at a time which, for the other person, is basically the conversational equivalent of somebody putting their head in a vice and slowly tightening it until their eyes pop.

Your Facebook will become a creepy shrine to your kid; you'll post 'hilarious' scenarios involving your 'adorable' new son or daughter; you'll upload four million photos and wonder why people don’t ‘like’ everything you post or find it wonderfully magical like you do.

Here's the skinny, brother, it's because no-one cares.

You'll become everything you once hated but, frankly, you couldn’t give a toss.