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LIZ JONES: Clegg's right for once (just ask the tot snoring in the dog bowl)

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So, is Nick Clegg right to be worried? Is it too much to increase the number of nursery children an adult can look after from three to four in the case of babies?

I don’t have any children, but I am one of seven, and I can’t recall any of us dying, or starving, even though my mum looked after us all single-handedly.

As an experiment for a newspaper article, I was once dispatched to spend a day looking after a fellow writer’s three young boys to find out if I could cope. It was an ill-judged assignment, much like the one where Gordon Ramsay was sent to my house to teach me to cook.

Is Nick Clegg right to be worried? Is it too much to increase the number of nursery children an adult can look after from three to four in the case of babies?

Me: ‘Are you sure that pasta has had long enough?’ Him, with much banging of a ravioli wheel, which marked my table top: ‘And this from someone who still has the price sticker on the base of her saucepan?’

You can gather I’m not remotely domesticated. I hate noise. I have never knowingly opened a stainless-steel appliance with my bare hands.

I hate plastic, pink, flour or any type of ingredient. I hate people who sit on sofas, as they leave a dent.

I moved to a new house with the fastest-flowing river in Europe at the end of my lawn to discourage visitors with young families.

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But I am not lazy. I think hot drinks are a sign of weakness, and that people who chat are time-wasters.

Above all, I detest working mothers who spend all day slumped at their desk, eating and complaining about the cost of childcare.

Hmmm. Let me tell you about my experiment, looking after boys aged eight, two and one. Their mother, as she waved goodbye, had a wild look in her eye, like a pit pony about to be turned out for summer.

She was going to spend the day riding while her husband, she told me, ‘is at work’; the tone of her voice had me imagining him being fanned by concubines.

Liz Jones says she detests working mothers who spend all day slumped at their desk, eating and complaining about the cost of childcare

I was left alone in the house with her children, six bright eyes shining in my direction. I asked the oldest one what he wanted for lunch, to be told: ‘Sausages.’ I told him I don’t touch meat, so he settled for a choc ice.

‘Does the youngest [I had already forgotten his name] eat solids?’ I asked the oldest, who I was beginning to treat me as though he was my husband, or at least very wise.

The mother had given the middle child one unwashed strawberry, and he was now on the floor eating the rest, while sharing a crust with a labrador.

I know parents are not supposed to have favourites, but I soon found I was favouring the middle one, as the oldest one answered back, while the little one hadn’t learned to respond to the command: ‘Stay!’

I am ashamed to say that despite having about 19 nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews, I have reached my grand old age having never put a nappy on a baby.

So I enlisted the male photographer sent with me, but who had been told expressly not to help. I asked him to put the trousers on the baby, but unfortunately he forgot the nappy altogether.

The photographer was much better at parenting than me, though, all round: I’m too shy to tickle anyone and I hate the sound of my voice too much to read out loud. We didn’t venture outside, as I’m scared of being run over, and I didn’t have enough hands to hold on to everyone.

Liz Jones is ashamed to say that despite having about 19 nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews, she has never put a nappy on a baby

In fact, it would have been useful if the mother had told me the baby was allowed to crawl up the stairs, as I had been herding it (him!) away from the hall all bleeding day.

But, even though I cooked nothing bar baked beans, did no laundry, shopping or cleaning nor stimulated or disciplined anyone, by the end of the day I was so exhausted and aching I was convinced I had flu.

I’d not gone to the loo, or even freed my hair from beneath the collar of my jacket (ah, so this is why mums are always so badly groomed!).

I learned that mothers cope not only by having as many arms as an octopus, but by not stressing about the small stuff, such as holes in walls, milk squirted into cushions, or the fact that the baby ended up with his face in the dog biscuits, snoring.

No wonder they prefer to use childminders, given my day was both long and boring.

Perhaps the women, mums or minders who look after small children become acclimatised, like mountaineers at high altitude.

But I think one extra child, which this mother now has, would have tipped me over the edge. I still think of the middle one’s chubby hand in mine, though this experiment put me off a vague idea I’d had at the time of adopting.

No amount of money could convince me to do this day in, day out. Pay minders more, not less.



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