The 4 year old is really into nature programmes, wild life, sea programmes, especially dinosaurs.

He’s really into catching monsters on netflix some sort of Canadian River Monsters.

So today, River Monsters was on.

“Shall we watch River Monsters mate? It’s about a man who catches really big and weird fish.”

“Yeah!”

Only today’s episode was about a fish that bit people’s bollocks off.

So many questions. He’s supposed to go swimming later, I’m not sure he’ll even go in the bath now.

So what you done? Have you mentally scared the little one? Left the kids at the zoo. Go on holiday for Christmas, only to leave Kevin at home fending the house against burglars.

Father Stoofus is here to hear your confession….

Go on holiday for Christmas, only to leave Kevin at home fending the house against burglars.

the thought crosses my mind most days

I was the victim rather than the parent- for our first spending a night in a tent we pitched it in the back garden and me and my brother settled down… Mum and dad checked we were OK then left us to it…

Until about 10pm, my dad sneaked out and started making terrifying growling animal noises and jumping about just outside the tent. So we shat ourselves and didn’t sleep a wink for the rest of the night. Took a while to get us back in a tent…

Generally not a bad dad, my dad 😆

My 11-year-old is interested in Pompeii, so we were watching an archaeology programme about it on TV, when it became apparent that the archaeologist presenting it had quite fruity language. I was just wondering whether to turn it off and then she went in an ancient brothel and without warning translated the graffiti: “I came by here today and had a really good ****” 😮

The worst I’ve done was last year just after Funkmaster Jr turned two. He has issues sleeping which means mum and I are zombies. My wife went to pass him to me and I put my arms out, I inexplicably moved them just as she let go. Baby just dropped to the floor on his bum and was not impressed. I felt awful.

I also have a habit of clanging his head in to things. Monitors in hospital, ceilings when throwing him in the air, doorways when carrying him on my shoulders. You get the picture.

Email in profile should any social workers wish to get in touch 😐

Swung our then 2 year old onto my shoulders in a restaurant, forgetting the lowered ceiling 😳 cue loud clunk of head on plasterboard, screaming toddler and restaurant full of aghast patrons.
She wouldn’t have a piggy back for weeks after that.

A month or two back I badly stubbed my toe in the bathroom one morning and shouted loudly ‘oh for trucks sake.’ I was later rung at work by the wife to say our 3 year old daughter was stomping around the house slamming doors and shouting said phrase. Oops!

Hoppy jr did his 1st roll with me whilst Mrs hoppy was out of the room. Unfortunately it was clean off the side of the bed and I just sat and watched it because, well, he can’t roll.

Doesn’t seem to have done him too much harm, ish.

When I was prime minister I left my daughter in the pub

Check your not standing under a road sign when you put your child on your shoulders is all I have to say.

My Godsons, aged 11 and 8, know what tea-bagging is… although tbf that’s not my fault, I blame the parents! They believe it comes from some wrestling/martial arts thing however…

Took baby to cafe in a front pack. Ordered a latte and promptly spilled it down baby scalding her leg, resulting in a trip to casualty.

Walking some of the Pembrokeshire coastal path we managed to leave Jnr sleeping in the shady spot behind a wall as we drove home.

My dad’s advice to us when we had our son: “When you put him up on your shoulders hold the legs NOT the wellies. Apparently he had walked quite a long way up the hill before realising he was just resting a pair of empty wellies on his shoulders.

Ambrose – Member
Walking some of the Pembrokeshire coastal path we managed to leave Jnr sleeping in the shady spot behind a wall as we drove home.

Winner.

3rd outing on his bike that has brakes a year or two ago and he flew into the middle of the busy road at the bottom of the incline which i thought he’d be ok to pull the brakes at the bottom. Buses and cars on the busy road… i make a noise akin to a goat from somewhere… he ploughs into the curb on the other side with no traffic anywhere near thankfully. Literally thought i’d lost him, had pictures of bus siding him while i slow motion ran towards with goat noise.

Hes 5 now and bounces around leigh woods and ashton court weekly. While i shat my pants i think it gave him a bit of confidence on where the line was!

Needless to say we don’t go near that incline any more.

Parenting FAILS

There are not enough terabytes of server storage to cope with ours….

put my 2 month old duaghter down on the sofa to sort out her baby gym thing, turned around and she rolled right off it onto the floor, thwack onto the laminate. eeekk, much crying and soothing from Daddy. Fortunately mrs Jek was out at the time and there was no lasting mark. I read later that ALL babies fall off changers or sofas at one time or another, lol. 😮

Tossing baby gently up in the air up making “weeeee” noises while she giggled. I walked through a door and tossed her into the top of door frame. Giggling stopped.

Member Jekkyl
I read later that ALL babies fall off changers or sofas at one time or another, lol.

… When men are left to look after babies!

My wife was the first one to flip the baby bike trailer over. Until I tried the red at Dalby and flipped it twice.

When my oldest was about 9 months and crawling we lived in a house with those wooden stairs that are full of gaps, I thought I was being clever by blocking the stairs with a few chair so he couldn’t fall on the stairs…

He proceeded to climb up the chair and tip it over falling up the first few stairs then falling back down the stairs and smashing into a chair 😳

Ambrose wins hands down.
Today’s fails –
mammy said we could have a fish and chip treat for tea, l’il J responds “can we have curry sauce?” – my fault apparently 🙂
I then made the mistake of letting him watch “how to train your dragon 2”, hiccup’s dad only went and died! Missus not happy with me . No pudding.

Jnr was 18 months old when he had some new pyjamas. The legs were a little too long, and we agreed we’d shorten them after they’d been washed.

He started to go downstairs, tripped over the end of his pyjamas and I watched him tumble down 13 steps to come to a sudden halt against the wall by the front door. There was a long moment of shocked silence, and then he screamed. I have never been so happy to hear a child scream in my life!

12 years on, he is more confident on a climbing wall than he is on stairs.

Daffy- it gets worse. Boy No 2 almost died. It was a ‘serious day’ No fun at all. Stood at the side of a trail in Les gets he put his foot down onto- nothing. And fell about 200feet down the gully. Even now we don’t laugh about it.

Not me but my step-dad’s parents forgot to collect him from ski school so he wondered off. They didn’t bother calling the police and only was found by chance 2 days later skiing with a local school.

This would bad but not too terrible, assuming he was 15-16yo, nope he was 9!

This was 1978 that this happened but still!

EDIT: Thinking about it they’ve admitted to forgetting him a few times in europe, having lost him in Italy when he was 11, him going missing for a week when they were serving in Dresden, only to realise he was on a school trip.

sat at the picnic tables out front of the local one summer.

Stoners Jr are in the pub garden on the other side of the car park, clambering over the wooden castle. Jr Jr reaches out to the monkey bars and makes a fist of it before realising he cant make it and is now hanging there like a motivational poster cat.

I’m sat with pint in paw and just have to resign myself to mopping him up once he’s fallen as there’s no way I can cover the ground between table and dangling lad in time. Not without spilling my pint anyway.

I’ve kinda forgot about the 3rd one… a coupla times. One minor one in the car for 10 mins; the other in a shopping centre in Birkenhead. She’s 20 months.

Every other mistake we’ve made is my fault too – because I’m married.

2 days?

Waiting in a long queue at the airport. Bored. So I started making our baby giggle by tipping her pushchair back and doing wheelies.

“Stop that you might drop her!”

“Oh don’t fuss woman, I won’t.. aah…”

Pushchair drops to the ground. Baby whacks head on ground. Evils from the missus, our friends, and basically the entire queue, inform me that I am clearly an unfit father.

Daughter in high chair eating pasta, Mum asked me to put ketchup on it. Sleep deprived Dave reached into fridge and retrieved chilli sauce. Took us ages to work out why she was in such distress. Nappies were a mare for the next 24 hours.

They didn’t bother calling the police and only was found by chance 2 days later skiing with a local school.

So many questions!!

But yeah, this is why we do the French thing of putting a sticker on their helmet with our mobile number and hotel name on it. Just in case!

Many. many child on shoulder door frame incidents. But the one that still makes me cringe is:

My 5 y-o at the time was being a bit of a PITA in the way to school (not wanting to go basically) he walked ahead and blocked the gateway with his arms outstretched, I came up behind him and tickled him under the arms- he flew forward bumped his head and was crying loudly. I look up and see a child minder who I see every day and she looks away embarrassed. I think she thinks I pushed him.

family holiday to Florida and all the parks. Day 1, ride one, and the 5yo is too small to go on it. Rather than do parent swap, we asked the attendant who said we could all go on and the littl’un he’d cross over to the off platform where we could pick her up.

But when the train pulls in – she’s no where to be seen. Nor’s the attendant. We were just about to get the staff member (who was brilliant BTW – they must lose dozens of kids a day) to call a full park shutdown or whatever, when she saunters in from the gift shop. She was missing for probably 3 minutes but **** me your heart stops several times in those 3 mins wondering.

One useful tip as well given to us (along with the number on a wristband / sticker) is to get then dressed for the day and then take a photo of them. With today’s tech, every park employee can have an up to date photo of who they’re looking for in an instant instead of a vague description.

We also used to dress the identically every day – helps to not have to remember what they look like at that precise moment you’re looking for them in a crowd.

Our lad is getting a very strong Northern accent.

In Paris near the Awful Tower a couple of years ago and mini Matt who was 2.5yrs old at the time decided it would be a good time to run off. I legged it after him while pushing the stroller. For some reason I thought if I ran fast enough I could cut him off and get him to fall into it, only it didn’t work like that. I clipped his foot and he hit his head on the floor quite hard.

It left a lump.

Bloody kids eh?

So many questions!!

Don’t worry so have we, but there are SO many other things that are scary about their parenting style that we don’t bother.

This just about sums it up to me – when they went skiing they took their caravan, BUT made Pete (my stepdad) sleep under the awning in a sleeping bag as they wanted to have enough room to play cards at night and didn’t want to keep him awake. This is fine until you realise that the awning was actually a tarp at 45deg against the side of the caravan, but it their words “it’s fine, the campsite had a drying room so he could dry his sleeping bag out during the day” 😯

Another sleep deprived one…filling the baby bath in kitchen, instead of baby bubbles put fairy washingup liquid in.
Never even noticed till the wife came in 10 minutes later and expressed amazement at the amount of bubbles there were….

She was squeaky clean afterwards tho!

not me but……….. arrived at childminder to find a very sheepish childminder’s son waiting for me to apologise – he’d got home from school and just flopped into his usual chair to find smudgelette there – cue visit to A&E and a 9 month old in a stookie for 6 weeks.

Met him in the cinema last year when he was a burly 6′ teenager with his girlfriend and asked him loudly if he had broken any more babies legs? We’re even!

I was the child that caused the parenting fails. Jumped thru some railings into a pool in a temple in India when 5 took ages to get me out again, Fell out of a top bunk and landed on my head at 4. got lost too many times to remember. My poor parents!