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by Uju Asika

Parenting is nasty business.

Let me rephrase: I have picked up many habits quite unbecoming to a lady of my considerable breeding since being initiated into maternity.

It starts with all that prodding and poking throughout pregnancy. That’s when you say goodbye to your inhibitions. But it’s impossible to imagine, until you cross your own personal pain and shame threshold (aka labour and delivery), just how low you’ll stoop.

And you can’t escape it. Unless you’re rich enough to hire your kids out to the nanny 24-7, somewhere along your parental path you will find yourself engaging in at least one of the following 7 disgusting behaviours:

1. Butt sniffing

How often as new parents do we casually raise our kids in the air and plunge our noses into their backsides in public? At restaurants, in malls, at the pet shop… yes we’re regular poop hounds. Funny thing is when baby does drop that bomb, everyone can smell it from a mile away.

2. Boob grabbing

It’s not about sexual assault, I’m talking about squeezing your own melons to check which one baby last drained. I’ve caught myself doing this strolling down the street, glancing into a passing window and wondering who that lady is feeling herself up. Knock knock? It’s you, mama.

3. Poop scooping

We’re all familiar with dirty diapers. But once those diapers come off, it’s a whole catalogue of horrors from poo-namis in the bathtub, to Isht storms (literally) on the grocery floor. Potty training ain’t for wimps.

4. Discussing bodily functions

Parenting is a strangely intimate bond. Within minutes of meeting a complete stranger in the playground, you’ll trade stories of leaky boobs, stitches ‘down there’, projectile vomiting…anything goes when you’re in the bub club.

5. Serving food off the floor

As an older child, your mama warns you not to do it. But what she doesn’t tell you is that when you were a baby she couldn’t be bothered with fixing you a new plate every time you tossed carrots to the floor. She would dust it off, blow on it, maybe say a prayer, and shove it back on your tray.

6. Nose picking

I’ve got two snotty-nosed kids and I take secret pleasure in extracting their crusty boogers. But the other day on the train, when my four-year-old son announced loudly, ‘Mum, I’ve got a bogey, you’ve got to pick my nose!’, I at least had the grace to feel a little embarrassed.

7. Breast milk tasting

It’s not for everyone, I know. But when you start lactating and see how much your baby just can’t get enough of the good stuff, why not give it a try? I did. And that’s the last you’ll hear of it. Although I will say it was an excellent vintage.

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Uju Asika is founder and Babe-in-chief of Babes About Town, a London-based city guide and social network for hip, smart parents.