I am currently recovering from minor surgery… but nothing in surgery is minor as I struggle to move and need assistance with pretty much everything.

Thanksfully I am on painkillers. Not the glamorous sort that inspire a new Operating System or terrible life choices in Las Vegas, but enough to leave me staring at the ceiling wondering just how far my water bottle actually is from me.

This is where children come in.

Normally, children are a long-term investment with questionable ROI. For years, they have no marketable skills beyond making noise and asking why. But then one day, without warning, they become useful. Not in the heartwarming, legacy-building sense parents like to post about online, but in the practical sense of, “Can you get my glasses because if I bend down too fast I may take an awfully long time to get back up.”

And so, in the spirit of morphine-lite reflection, here are seven reasons kids are wildly overrated until the exact moment they become the unpaid domestic staff you didn’t realise you were raising.

1. They begin life as a liability

Babies contribute nothing. This sounds harsh, but so does being awake at 3:17 a.m. because the baby has decided to randomly switch its sleep patterns.

You feed them, carry them, clean them, entertain them, and in return they scream directly into your soul. Their main output is chaos. Their secondary output is fluids.

No one tells you this often enough because parents are too busy pretending that every dribble is a miracle.

2. Toddlers are bumper car drivers

There is a period where children can move but cannot reason. This is a dangerous combination.

They stagger around the house with like those kids going on bumper cars for the first time. Unsure, banging into things, going around in circles, and getting stuck for no reason.

At this stage, they are not helpers. They are tiny crisis generators with biscuits on their face.

3. Then one day they can fetch things

This is the first sign that the investment may eventually pay off.

“Can you bring me my glasses?”

And they do. Not always quickly, not always the correct glasses, and occasionally with one lens mysteriously greasy, but still. The principle has been established. They can retrieve. They can carry. They can be sent forth like slightly confused squires on minor domestic quests.

Frankly, I have never loved them more.

4. You become absurdly grateful for appalling standards

When a child brings you a glass of water, it’s an emotional experience.

They arrive with the concentration of a bomb disposal expert, holding the glass in both hands, moving at the speed of continental drift, having spilled only around ten percent en route.

And you react as if they have crossed the Alps on horseback to save your life.

“Thank you,” you say, with genuine emotion, because in that moment they are not your offspring. They are a hydration technician (well, that’s how I’d refer to them on LinkedIn).

The same applies to plugging in a charger. Refilling a bottle. Passing the remote. Basic tasks become acts of heroism when performed on your behalf while you are mildly sedated and shaped like a prawn.

5. They make you confront the horrible truth that you are old

There comes a day when you realise you are no longer the strong one in the house. Not consistently, anyway.

You are the one asking for help with simple things. You are the one making involuntary noises when sitting down, getting up, or just breathing. You are the one calculating whether standing up is worth the administrative effort.

Meanwhile, your children are springing about with functioning knees and casual balance, like the smug young gazelles they are.

It is deeply offensive.

I am, medically speaking, not old. Spiritually, however, I am one cardigan away from shouting at pigeons.

6. Their usefulness is wildly inconsistent

The problem with children is that just when you think they are becoming dependable, they remind you they are still essentially experimental humans.

Yes, they can bring you a charger. But they can also forget why they entered the room, get distracted by a sock, and return twenty minutes later carrying a banana and some Lego.

This is still better than infancy, but only just.

Their operating system is unstable. Their customer service is erratic. You are outsourcing mission-critical household functions to people who think putting a spoon in their pocket is a sensible long-term decision.

7. One day you realise you depend on them more than they depend on you

Not fully. Let’s not get dramatic. I’m not asking them to do my taxes or explain the settings on the television.

But enough.

Enough that when your glasses are out of reach, your charger has fallen behind the bed, and your water bottle is empty, these small people become weirdly essential. Little roaming assistants with patchy attention spans and surprisingly decent bedside manners.

And somewhere in that realisation is the deeply unsettling truth that parenthood is not a one-way street. You spend years keeping them alive, only to discover that eventually they start returning the favour in tiny, slightly damp increments.

So yes, children are overrated. For ages, in fact. But then one afternoon you’re reclining under the influence of legal pharmaceuticals, requesting spectacles like a Victorian invalid, and they appear at your side with water, cables, and concern.

Which is when it hits you.

I have not raised children.

I have slowly, lovingly assembled my own support team.