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

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In my old life, BC (Before Child), my aim was to move to America and become the next big thing, like a younger, female Hugh Grant with better teeth. I would live a jet-set lifestyle and become best friends with Kristen Wiig and end up replacing James Cordon as host of The Late Late Show. The world was my oyster. 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. 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. The audio book is read by Ellie Taylor herself, and this just adds to the comedy and the rawness of the stories. I definitely recommend listening to the audio version.

My Child and Other Mistakes: How to ruin your life in the

Resilient children are less afraid of making mistakes and more prepared to take risks – because they can cope with having got it wrong. Explain how we don’t always know the answers or the right way to behave, but we can make the best choices we can – and accept if we get it wrong. This means showing them that mistakes are great ways to learn and are part of what makes us human. 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. 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. 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 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.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. 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 Expanding on how tough having a newborn was, Ellie said, “I had quite a bleak time with it all. I think, probably now, I had a touch of the old postnatal depression. It’s so hard. You do a lot of baby classes and you learn how much a little six-week old should sleep, and how to swaddle a baby, but you don’t learn that, especially for a woman, it’s a massive mental, psychological, physical adjustment. You become a completely different person. I think trying to get used to that, with all the hormones flying around, and trying to work out how you now exist in this world, when this life has been lifted from you, is massive.

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

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. Ellie's comedic, best-friend style shines through, covering even serious topics in an approachable way. 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. But the book isn't 'worthy', it's a personal account where Ellie wants to encourage people to be ok with whatever choices are right for them, including whether not to have a child at all - and with some of the stories Ellie tells it might encourage them down that route! Or at least ensure that people always take the free hotel shower caps for future use - who would have thought to use them for that purpose... Raw, candid and hilarious, Ellie Taylor’s My Child and Other Mistakes is the funny truth about motherhood and all its grisly delights.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. Children thrive on routine, predictability and boundaries - when they lose these factors in the long-term, and the reasons why can often by unavoidable, it can be a difficult time for parent and child. However, as parents, there are ways to help them not only cope, but prosper during these times.