Seán Moncrieff: There’s one big reason I’m glad to be a man

If you were to construct a list entitled Top 10 Reasons to Thank God You’re a Man, there would be a few obvious contenders for the No 1 slot. Men don’t have a menstrual cycle. Men don’t have to deal with much in the way or sexism or misandry. As a man, I don’t have members of the opposite sex telling me what it’s like to be me. Just like I’m doing now.

Glossing over that: my vote for the top position would go to giving birth. Obviously, I haven’t done it, but I have played the largely useless support role on five occasions.

You’re supposed to remember to put the bag and other vital equipment in the car, some of which I’ve forgotten. You’re supposed to provide calming and encouraging noises, which in the midst of the agony can be more annoying than helpful. You don’t complain when she squeezes your hand so hard you have to get it X-rayed afterwards.

I nearly screamed when I saw the terrifying episiotomy scissors

You do see these accounts of childbirth where it’s all transcendental and lovely, where the child slips gently into the world while surrounded by dolphins playing the pan pipes. It’s nothing like what I’ve witnessed. There’s no mention of screams or gore or poop or puking. It’s like a yoga class where you get a child at the end of it.

Hilary Fannin: My days of cognitive disintegration in taxis at 2am are over

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Give me a crash course in . . . Alan Kelly’s sudden resignation

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Royal family: As Queen Elizabeth winds down, will her successors measure up?

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‘I’ve written about my pubic hair and drunken adventures so there is a fear of loss of gravitas’

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I stood in a pool of blood during one birth. During another, I nearly screamed when I saw the terrifying episiotomy scissors. They look like they were designed by Hannibal Lecter: just to magnify the awfulness of what they are used for. While giving birth to Daughter No 4, Herself had just one contraction. It lasted six hours.

Everyone’s happy

In my experience, this is the real marvel: that a beautiful baby should come as a result of this gruesome process and that everyone is happy about it. That the women even considers doing it again at some point is a miracle of nature and human will.

Yet in Ireland this miracle takes place a couple of hundred times every day: in the majority of cases gently guided by a midwife. I've seen some obstetricians that you wouldn't lend money to, but I've yet to meet a midwife who you wouldn't trust with your life.

Mothers don't lift weights or do shots or get piercings

As you probably know, Sunday is Mother's Day. (If you don't, perhaps you should put down the paper and get to the shops.) As usual, the Yanks claim they invented it, when a woman called Anna Jarvis held a memorial service for her mother in 1907. But the roots of Mothering Sunday go back to the Middle Ages, and even before that, ancient cultures had days to celebrate their mammies.

Of course, nowadays it's become commercialised and homogenised, almost to the point where there's one archetypal mother who likes one discreet set of things. According to Google, these are the things mothers like for Mother's Day: candles, chocolates, bath oils, flowers, spa treatments and afternoon tea. Mothers don't lift weights or do shots or get piercings.

Remembering stuff

Nothing wrong with any of those presents, if you like that sort of thing. It just doesn’t seem much of a reward for the pain of childbirth, and the long-term strains of parenting. A smelly candle is grand, but a bit of help wouldn’t go amiss either. And remembering stuff.

Every morning, I’m up first in the house. I get breakfast, sit at my computer, do a few boring, work-related tasks. I usually start writing this column, decide it’s rubbish, rewrite it, go get a coffee, read what I’ve written and decide it’s rubbish again. Daughter No 4 will emerge next, and I set her up with some toast and orange. For a while, things are quiet until Herself gallops down the stairs.

She always comes in to me to say good morning and invariably asks the same question: did you put out the washing? Have to go now. I just remembered something.