Comic Rob Beckett has told how he does colouring and Lego with his daughters to beat the anxiety that left him feeling suicidal.
Rob had a breakdown in 2020 due to crippling worries about providing for his family, despite his success on shows like Taskmaster and 8 Out of 10 Cats.
But his unshakable love for his wife Lou and their two children helped him take control of his runaway thoughts.
Rob said: “I was not in a good mental state when my kids were first born but I’m in a better place now. Until you are happy and content, you can’t do anything else properly. I’d ticked off all the things I wanted – I had a happy wife, two kids, a lovely home yet I was still miserable.
“What was going on? It was me and my little old brain. Luckily, having my kids prompted me into realising that this wasn’t OK. You’ve got to sort that out before everything else falls into place. You need to be internally happy. It can’t come from other things.”
The Cockney comic said his working-class roots pushed him to burn out, working nearly every day for 10 years to build his career. “It was the poverty mindset,” he says. “If you don’t come from much, you don’t stop working because you think the tap is going to be switched off. On top of that, parenting brings out your insecurities and frailties. It’s like having a little rip in a bag. If you put one apple in it, it doesn’t matter – you can get by. But if you fill the whole bag with apples, the rip starts ripping.
“That’s what life as a parent is like, full of kids and responsibilities and school uniforms and playdates. All of a sudden, your head is about to burst.
“I was thinking non-stop about everything that could go wrong and I needed to stop that. You have to rewire how your brain thinks and that takes practice. Now I find moments in each day to breathe.
“My coping strategies are doing meditation and enforced quiet time, so I’ll sit and do colouring and Lego.”
Londoner Rob, 36, has been married to Lou since 2015 and the couple have two primary-school-age daughters. In lockdown he started the hit podcast Parenting Hell with fellow comic Josh Widdicombe to share ups and downs from family life. It’s now on a fifth series and their book of the same name came out this week. It contains their frank and funny musings on everything from pregnancy and newborns to relationships post-baby and their mental health.
No topic is off limits, including the time Rob had to extract a stuck poo from his constipated baby’s bum. He says: “It was absolutely brutal. But at some point as a parent, you’ll have vomit in your mouth and poo on your hands – guaranteed.”
He believes the success of Parenting Hell has been down to this commitment to absolute honesty.
In one section, he admits eating an entire tower of Ferrero Rocher in front of Lou while she was in labour because he felt useless and out of his depth.
“All the traditional parenting books and TV shows are dry, or show the extremes,” he say. We try to do the real day-to-day life of being a parent. I want to be a really good dad but I don’t always get it right and it’s important to share your mistakes as well as your successes.
“You know what does my head in? Those parents who write Instagram posts that they are #blessed because they’re on a walk with the kids. Yes, it is fun and enjoyable, but even a walk is also hard work.
“You see Jamie Oliver and his kids all cooking on telly. That would be carnage in my house. With cameras there they would be screaming at me that I need to wipe their bum.”
As one of five boys, Rob was thrilled to have daughters. He says: “I wanted girls, I was sick of boys. I quite like doing traditional feminine things. I’m way up for a spa day. You get to explore a whole new world.”
While he’s just brought out a parenting book, Rob’s best advice for parents-to-be is to read self help books instead of childcare ones. He says: “Don’t worry about the baby – sort yourself out first. It’s like the foundations of a wall. You’ve got to make sure it’s all level.
“Some people are chilled and don’t need to do that. But if you are a bit anxious now, it’s not going to get better when the kid comes. Try to get a handle on it. Read books about that rather than how to put a nappy on a baby.
“Sorting myself out made me a better dad. And being a dad is the best thing I do. The girls are my little mates.
“When your daughter snuggles up to you on the sofa to watch telly, that’s better than a promotion or the smell of a new car. That’s the real stuff, not your status in society.”
Parenting Hell by Rob Beckett and Josh Widdicombe is out now (£20, Blink Publishing)
Samaritans (116 123) operates a 24-hour service available every day of the year. If you prefer to write down how you’re feeling, or if you’re worried about being overheard on the phone, you can email Samaritans at jo@samaritans.org.
