Are new parents the real cause of Global Warming?

A friend at work has just returned after the birth of his first child. He looked a little tired but manged to cover it with a smile that fooled everyone except those who had children of their own.

We knew! To us it was obvious. That slight redness in the eyes. The odd gaze into the distance as he struggled to fully engage with the conversation, and the fact that his once imaculate appearance was now, ever so slightly, crumpled.

Not in any really obvious way you understand: the fact that his shirt was slightly under ironed shouted that his wife was otherwise occupied or, if ironing is one of his chores, he didn't have enough energy left to reach his usual standard.

We all asked him how it was going and then proceeded to nod in an understanding way. Each of us experienced parents then took turns in telling a bit of our story.

That is surely the point of other people having babies: so that we get chance to impart our choice bits of parental wisdom

It was probably all a little too much but we meant well.

Amongst the wisdom available were these pearls, which I offer here in the hope that they will either aid you, should you have young children, or bring back memories if yours have now flown the nest.

1. Each child seems to have it's own preferred rhythm that helps them to sleep. Of you find the right song to play out in your head whilst you rock them it can make all the difference.

2. He more the baby sleeps the more they will sleep. (we needed a little more explanation on this one). Basically it means that you shouldn't try to keep the child awake for long periods with the intention of making them tired thinking that this will make them sleep better at night. It won't work.

3. Most babies seem to like noise more than quiet. New parents think that they need to tip toe around and whisper, but experience shows that a normal amount of noise gives some level of security.

Our new parent joined in at this point with the news that his son stops crying when he runs the cold water tap.

At this point it occured to me that the real cause of global warming was rookie parents trying to keep their kids quiet.

If listen ever so carefully you can hear the sound of running taps, hoovers, washing machines, fans, car engines, and Hi-fi's.

We chuckled as we shared stories of late night drives to nowhere desperately trying to get just the smallest amount of peace.

I tried to convince them that the only reason I developed snoring as a regular practice was in order to offer enough household noise to keep the babies from waking but they threatened to check out my story with Mrs M.

With all this in mind I am thinking of inventing an iron that makes a soothing noise as you use it so that way my colleague can keep his son quiet whilst attempting to keep up his usual well-kept appreance.