Things it took you far to long to work out (or admit)

You are replaceable at work, but irreplaceable to your family

That daily exercise is essential not a superfluous hobby.

Never sacrifice the number of DCs you have for the sake of a career.

You'll always have your DCs.

Careers can melt in a moment.

My daughter (nine) is petite and I LOVE this - I am going to save it if she ever feels like she wishes she was bigger.

You have three types of friends in life: Friends for a reason, friends for a season, and friends for a lifetime.

That "We spend hours and hours at work to get extra money to buy more and more things that we don't actually need to impress people we don't even really like"

There's a cliché that this is a women-only belief, and that men only tell you a problem when they want you to solve it, or help solve it, or supply a solution

I know it's certainly true for everyone I know - my male friends tell me a problem when they want a solution, my female friends when they want to talk about the problem

Some marriages last forever. Some marriages have a sell-by date. Both of those things are fine. You will not get a better, softer , velvet covered seat in heaven ( which I also don't believe in) by staying in a marriage that is making everyone miserable. You have this one life and it's precious .
The same applies to friendships. You should look forward to meeting up with someone and you should feel uplifted after you have see them. If a friendship fills you with dread, sucks the joy out of you, causes you financial stress then it's time to let it go. You might have been beasties since you were 5. You're 35 now and , if it's not working, it's time to let it go.

My 87 year old granny was able to put her tights on while standing she was amazing. Her GP was stunned. 😃

Have you realised that the faux Marley is called Bob...?!

But if your parents had told you that you couldn't do the degree that YOU WANTED to do, would you be here bemoaning your controlling parents who didn't support your dream?
Eventually we have to take responsibility for ourselves. Not many of us get dealt the hand we want.

And just because, in my case, you are a teacher and someone throws out the phrase ' oh but it's for the children' when they want to add another bloody task to your already massive list, doesnt mean you have to do it . ' Sorry Jessica I'm just going to have to say no on this occasion '. Smile and walk away.

How did you find this out please?

That many men don't care about their own children, and that society doesn't judge them much if they make it obvious, and that many will use separation as an excuse to disappear from their lives.

Hard lesson, but women are deceived from girlhood about this one.

Absolutely.

Sugar kills you. I was probably in my late 40s before I realised it's harm.

That if jobs don't display their salary they usually want the cheapest labour they can find and have discriminatory pay policies. I'm so glad more young people are rejecting these and demanding to know upfront before applying.

I see it more as bad things happen to most people at some point. It's not karma, just law of averages. And it applies to the nice people and the successful ones too. Which is comforting when shit happens and you can tell yourself this is normal and expected.

That, when you go to a social event, work thing, whatever really, and you are nervous about walking into a room where you don't know anyone , reframe it. Don't think 'oh I hope they like me'. Change it to ' I wonder who I will meet and if I will like the people there'.
You won't like everyone you meet in life and not everyone you meet will like you. That's fine. You don't need to try to make people like you/ fancy you/ love you/ marry you. You can just be you . Your tribe will find you. If they don't make you feel comfortable then they aren't for you.

They don't call me WoolySnail for nothing 😉😆😂

My father was a worrier. He was always, always stressing enormously about something and it pervaded the whole house. I grew up thinking that it was normal to allow a worry to occupy your brain 24/7. These weren't worries like ' do I have cancer ?' they were normal, small , pointless worries that became huge but just didn't bloody matter . The worrying about what might happen ruined the run up to something and often ruined the day of something. It took me years to realise that worrying about whatever it was changed absolutely nothing about it and that , in the vast majority of cases, the thing you were worrying about didn't turn out that way anyway.

That people love to load bullets for you to fire, and then they sit back and watch

That me stepping forward to help my mum will only make my siblings even more lazy and her more unappreciative of me

That my hair isnt the "rats tails" I was told as I was growing up. It is actually lovely and wavy and I dont have to keep straightening it

That tomatoes never live up to expectations 😁

That my children are really the only people I feel truly happy being with

Following this, that the Muppets Christmas Carol is the closest adaptation to the book that's been made.

Best live up a mountain then and live on fresh air.

Cutting out all bread, potatoes and pasta in middle age has been good for me.

I occasionally have the odd bit (one roast potato with a roast dinner or the odd bit of sourdough with a cooked brekkie) but, like you with alcohol, don’t eat much. Helps the middle age spread.

That doing secretarial work as a "way in" to the arts/TV was an option only offered to women, and that actually those industries were dominated by men who had other routes in. This was a few years back, and secretarial work is no longer a thing, but I'm fairly sure that women are still being advised differently...