I should prefix this by stating that I intend this as a rebalancing of the scales. There are a lot of negative posts about becoming a father, a lot that resort to the worst kind of clichs and some that pile on the sentimentality.

This is also, in a way, a post that I hope will cheer Carlos up. He has a 5 day old baby at home and is probably going through the same stuff that I did early on.

Milo is a year old. This has gone by quickly, a lot quicker than I would have anticipated. These are the things I have found out about being a new parent.

1. People are NEVER, EVER satisfied. When you're single, they* say "When are you going to get a girlfriend?" When you're in a relation ship - "When are you going to get married?" When you marry, some say "So now you're married, you can forget doing X, Y and Z" others say (of course), "When are you going to have kids?" When you have a child, "When are you going to have another?" And so on. Repeat until dead. Although I suspect, when you die, some bloke will say "When are you going to get reincarnated?"

2. My life did not end, nor did I have to give up all of my friends and interests - although I have had to make some adjustments

3. After the first 4 weeks, things don't seem quite so frantic. It's amazing how quickly you can find your readjust to having a new baby in the house.

4. Nappies aren't that bad. They have never really been an issue. We use a washable nappy system and get on fine. If anything, I find it more difficult to use disposables now.

5. We sleep really well, as does Milo. We put him t bed at 8pm and wake him up at 7am.It's all about consistency and routine.

6. We have never given Milo anything prepared from a tin or can. Everything he eats comes from ingredients. Remember ingredients? I won't pretend that this doesn't take time, but at one year old he eats pretty much everything we do now, so it's less of a hardship

7. We have managed on just one pushchair. To all those who need a different chair for each activity/day of the week, I say - the manufactures saw you coming. But well done you for supporting china's burgeoning economy.

All in all, having Milo has been a positive, educational experience. He is a bright, healthy, happy boy - and although he still looks a lot like me, I'm sure (if he's lucky) he'll grow out of it.

To all the naysayers and doom merchants consider this: Maybe the boring married people you know were boring before they got married, and maybe all the people who complain endlessly about how shit their lives are having had kids had fairly shit lives to begin with.

And maybe these people who can never find anything good to say about life changing events, just because they have already been through it and they can't think of anything they enjoyed about it, are miserable, joyless areholes who need to be a little more open to the possibility that other people can have different, positive experiences from the same events.

Marc Curtis

35, balding and angry. But not about being bald.