Dad-to-be Jack Whitehall has joked he’s only having a baby to shut his mum up because she has pestered him so much about starting a family.
The comic announced at the weekend that he and girlfriend Roxy Horner, 31, are expecting their first child.
His mum will be pleased, as she was egging him on to “make the most of life”.
Jack and Roxy got a dog first to be sure they could be responsible parents. Jack, 34, says: “If you can keep the dog alive then you have a kid. I look at some of my friends and think, ‘You couldn’t even keep a plant alive.’”
Admitting the prospect of parenthood fills him “with a lot of trepidation”, he says: “I have been trying to change.
“I always thought I had a fear of change, but actually I have just had a fear of responsibility and I’ve been trying to not live my life galvanised by fear.”
However, he’s not sure what to expect because he says advice coming in from other parents has “no middle ground”.
Speaking at Cliffs Pavilion in Southend, Essex, as part of his Settle Down tour, he said: “You ask them about having a kid and they talk about it with demented enthusiasm and they say, ‘You’ve got to do it. It will change your life’.
“And then you have the others at the other end of the spectrum, who talk about it like they’re Vietnam war veterans.”
Hopefully he and Roxy will be more at the demented enthusiasm end of the spectrum – battle scars permitting.
