Keep Out Of Reach Of Children

Six little words, so often noticed on everyday household items yet so rarely understood, let alone heeded.

So many people foolishly think the warning refers to the item on which the words appear - that the batteries, lighters or whatever are to be kept away from children. Wrong!!! After all many things are dangerous to children but do not carry such a warning. For example - a bottle of vodka would be hazardous in the hands (or stomach) of a child but it it is more likely a harrassed parent, driven to the edge of sanity, will be the one reaching for the bottle. For a parent to see that warning all too painfully late might be the last straw which sends them in a swan-dive off the nearest multi-storey car-park. Therefore no "keep out of reach of children" message appears on the label of the vodka bottle.

The words are, in fact, a warning to the reader to keep at a safe distance from children. Children are dangerous to your mental and physical wellbeing; they drain your resources and destroy your property.

Men take this well-meant advice far more than women. A man at the first hint of a child will often flee - literally! A woman tends to go all sappy and often doesn't realise the error of her ways until the child is a teenager...by which time the woman's hair has prematurely greyed from stress.

I can't stand children. Never could, even when I was one! How I ended up with two of the little blighters I am still not entirely sure about. "Hormones" had a lot to do with it, and a persuasive ex who subsequently fled in the best time-honoured tradition.

There are no maternal-instincts in my family. My own existence is similarly a confusion to my own mother - and she has had over 32 years to ponder the question. Perhaps instead of maternal-instincts in our genes we have a kind of hereditary insanity that causes us to have children despite despising the little beasts?

Thankfully my little monsters are not so little now; in fact I am well past the halfway stage! I hope and pray that by the time I turn 40 they will have flown the nest and I will be in peace at last...although the way things are going that peace might be more of the "eternal rest" variety... A friend of mine has rug-rat commitments until the age of 52. Rather her than me!

Can you tell I have been having some trials and tribulations with my offspring? Stealing, lies, fighting, cheating, betrayal of trust...and that's just the last 24 hours! Some days I really wonder how come I have managed to not kill them...