My children are guiding me towards self knowledge and enlightenment.

I’ve learnt that when I’m part of the resistance movement in the future dystopian world, and the evil CEO of the World Wide Corporation catches me and subjects me to sleep deprivation torture to extract the location of the rebel base, I might be able to hold out a little bit longer than I previously thought. Not very much longer, and certainly not very long in total, but my previous assumption, given how much I love bed, had been that I would break immediately. Parenting small children has taught me that when you have literally no choice but to carry on, you somehow can.

Obviously, if the Evil world CEO simply tortures me physically, I will immediately betray my comrades. But let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

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I have also learnt that I am not a nice person. I almost never used to get angry. And before I had children, the thought of losing my temper with them was appalling to me. What you do is you talk to your children. You explain. You create understanding which stops things becoming stressful and fraught. I laugh bitterly at my naivete. When you’re late for the school run and your children are charging around half naked, laughing at you, it’s basically impossible not to start shouting. Or impossible for me anyway.

Most of all, though, the main thing I have learnt about myself is that I don’t really think that TV is bad for children at all. Turns out TV is not the child's enemy, it’s the parent’s friend. How did people cope thousands of years ago, before Cbeebies was invented? It’s literally unimaginable.

I don’t need sleep. I’m a bad person. TV is fine. I have achieved enlightenment.