Moaning is a crucial part of parenting. So give Duncan Jones a break

Among the great lies of our time are: the Brexit agreement will be “one of the easiest in human history”; “Mexico is going to pay for the wall”; “We tried to deliver your parcel but you weren’t in”; and “Nobody ever tells you how hard it is to be a parent”.

The latest person to tell us how hard it is to be a parent is Duncan Jones, a filmmaker, father of two and the son of David Bowie. He “sparked debate” (AKA a social media pile-on) this week with a series of tweets about life with children aged two-and-a-half and nine months. “I’ll tell you something I never see anyone admit,” he wrote. “They are exhausting, frustrating and life-destabilizing. They are rarely fun. Sure, smiles are great, hugs are lovely, but it’s HARD & not obviously a good choice in life.”

The reactions to his honesty have been interesting. While many people criticised Jones for airing his dirty nappies in public, calling him a cruel father and a horrible person (though usually in shorter words), one newspaper reported him as tweeting, in a “hilarious” post, that he “wouldn’t change it for the world”. But what he really said was: “This is where people feel compelled to say ‘i wouldn’t change it for the world!’ But you know… Of course I’d reconsider! It’s exhausting! Its banal! It’s like looking after a dog you can’t housetrain.” What these responses have in common is that they deny his right to tell this story. Parents tell us how hard it is all the time – it’s just that some people really don’t want to hear it.

Despite popular wisdom, research shows that having children tends to make people less happy. It’s hardly surprising, since what babies inflict on parents is essentially a prolonged form of torture. Sleep deprivation, bleeding nipples and Baby Shark going round and round your head for weeks are all actually banned by the UN. But for some reason, parents are not supposed to admit that all of this is hard to bear.

We know this, though, if we listen. I sometimes see 3am posts on social media from new parents who say, “I am struggling… This is unbearable… I can’t cope.” What really shocks me is when other parents jump in to comment: “Ha, you don’t know anything yet! Just wait until you have two of them! When they’re teenagers, then you’ll know what unbearable is...” Funnily enough, these are often the same parents who judge the choices of people who don’t have children, and suggest to us that we will regret it. Perhaps people without children do actually have some idea of how hard parenting is. Maybe that’s one reason why we don’t do it. But we can still try to be a bit more supportive of people who do.

As a non-parent, I probably can’t truly understand what parents are going through. I have no advice to offer about colic or cabbage leaves, or the unique agony of going back to work or choosing the right school. But I can drop everything to come and do your washing up on a day when everything seems too much. I can fill your freezer with bolognese sauce, or talk to you about something other than shades of baby shit, and if you tell me that sometimes you feel you just can’t cope with that tiny tyrant, I will say “Hell no! I couldn’t do it. And I am absolutely in awe of you that you are.” I will also say, having read, watched and reread The Handmaid’s Tale, thank you for doing this so that I don’t have to.

Frankly, a society that puts so much pressure on people to have children, and then never complain about it, really ought to make life easier for those who willingly sign up to 18 years of hard labour. Research shows that parents are even less happy in countries that don’t support them, but that policies such as subsidised childcare and paid leave make the burden a lot easier to bear. Perhaps Tulip Siddiq MP, a member of parliament’s women and equalities select committee, will sort all that out when she gets back from having her caesarean – which she had to delay so that she could take part in the Brexit vote this week.

The rest of us can do our bit by being less judgy of other people’s choices, and having some sympathy for those who are finding it tough. As Duncan Jones also wrote: “What it is, is that it is. & they are mine. Hopefully they turn out OK.” With parents who love them so much that they would go through torture for them, they will probably be fine. But they might do even better if their parents had more support and less criticism.

• Katy Guest is a freelance writer and editor, and a commissioning editor for the publisher Unbound