London dad doesn’t sugarcoat parenting

Dad Simon Hooper and mum Clementine (Clemmie) have their work cut out for them, raising four daughters under age 10 in London: a 9-year-old, a 6-year-old and 10-month-old twins. Simon has gained internet fame over his hilarious posts of their adventures in parenting on his Instagram account – father_of_daughters.

With nearly 300,000 followers now, Simon’s posts are so popular because they share the realities of parenting without sugarcoating, which of course many can relate to!

“In general my whole account is to show a realistic view of what parenting is like from a parent’s perspective,” the dad told HuffPost. “There is way too much sugarcoating when it comes to parents, so I wanted to share what it’s really like and provide a bit of humor at the same time.”

There used to be a time when Fridays nights meant going out drinking with friends and waking up with a hangover that that would require surgery to remove. However Marnie came home today with the dreaded bi-annual “There are nits / lice going around at school” letter, so our Friday nights are now spent carrying out small scale genocide on colonies of unwanted scalp intruders. @mother_of_daughters & I will now spend the rest of the evening quietly observing each other to see which one of us start scratching our heads first whilst mentally cursing all children everywhere. Awesome. #betteryoustartscratchingafterreadingthis #fridaynightarentwhattheyusedtobe #parenting #keepingitreal #nits #dotheyevenhaveapurpose #fatherofdaughters #dadlife #instadad

A photo posted by Simon (@father_of_daughters) on Nov 18, 2016 at 1:02pm PST

Nits, sleepless nights, the joys of supermarket shops, trying to cook with twins in the kitchen…scroll on for just some of the hilarious photographs and captions.

Make sure to visit Clemmie’s page too: mother_of_daughters.

Clemmie gave me a pretty simple job this evening – “go pack the baby bag” (we’re going away for a night). A plan developed in my head (why can’t I take anything seriously?!) I called her in – “well you said pack the baby bag!!”, expecting a laugh. She didn’t. I then suggested cutting holes in the bottom for their legs to hang out like those dog carriers but @mother_of_daughters was already less than pleased that i’d used her prized leather @kerikitbags for lols, so with my tail between my legs, I repacked. A shed load of nappies, baby crack (milk powder), toys they won’t play with & a monitor – There was still enough room for half my family in there! #bottomlessbabybag #mobiletwins #howmuchstuffdobabiesneed #fatherofdaughters #dadlife #instadad

A photo posted by Simon (@father_of_daughters) on Oct 28, 2016 at 12:09pm PDT

Another monday, another last minute rush to the shops to avoid the armageddon I.e running out of nappies, wipes & baby crack (milk) for the addicts. I basically live in this aisle of the supermarket now. New parents seem to gravitate to me as an “experienced parent” (i.e. the tired looking guy shivering in the corner) and ask “do you know where so and so is please?” My reponse – “Sure 3rd shelf, half way down on the left hand side, buy 3 & get a discount,although you want to use that in combination with blah blah blah.” I’m like a walking encyclopaedia of baby product info. I used to use my brain to solve global corporate wide problems. I now use it to calculate bulk buy discounts. #ishouldgetanamebadge #bogofking #iliveherenojoke #dadbrain #lifeinthefastlane #fatherofdaughters #dadlife #instadad

A photo posted by Simon (@father_of_daughters) on Nov 7, 2016 at 12:45pm PST

Cooking with the family is important so that they get an early interest in what healthy eating is all about. But when you add two 10 month work experience kitchen hands to the mix who have minimum training and hygiene standards that would get a greasy kebab placed closed down, Jamie Olivers 15 minutes meals turn into Simon hooper’s 90 minute botch jobs. In the end you just chuck it all in and hope for the best. The likelihood is that it will get rejected by the discerning clientele anyway. Might as well just short cut the whole process and chuck the raw food directly into the bin. #masterchefiaint #sausageandchipsitis #worstworkexperienceever #ottieatearawgarlicwhole #whydowebother #fatherofdaughters #dadlife #instadad

A photo posted by Simon (@father_of_daughters) on Nov 14, 2016 at 1:32pm PST

Well that was fun. @mother_of_daughters is away with the eldest 2 so I have the twins. Delilah was up & down last night more than a yoyo who’d necked a crate of redbull. As a dad, I usually have inbuilt noise cancelling and can sleep through an thrash metal gig but last night was something else. The neighbours must have thought I was skinning cats with a wooden spoon at 3.30am – the noise was endless – the kind of noise that cuts through you & drains you of any memory of who you are or what you’re doing until your brain dribbles out you ear. They seem to have forgotten the whole experience and moved on. I’ll just scoop up my eye bags so they don’t drag on the floor. To top it all, the car is broken so I can’t get to my brother’s birthday. A shocker of a day so far. #brainonthefloor #alongwiththeeyebags #brokencar #twins #comehomeplease #parenting #fatherofdaughter #dadlife #instadad

A photo posted by Simon (@father_of_daughters) on Nov 20, 2016 at 3:42am PST

Is it only me or do all men learn to sleep on an 8 inch strip at the edge of the bed? Irrespective of the size of the bed, or how many people are in it, I always find myself relegated to the ‘man zone’. I’ve become so used to sleeping on this limited area of bed real estate, that I’m confident that I could sleep on top of a wall & not fall off. On the other side of the bed (the promised land), @mother_of_daughters sleeps like a star fish all night long, kneeing me in the back and generally complains about me coming to bed too late, being too cold or my foot encroaching onto her territory. At least the bed’s nice and warm, even if the reception isn’t sometimes! I hope that next Sunday, on #NationalLieInDay, I’ll not only gain another hour in bed, but more space – but it’s doubtful ! If you want to regain that hour (and some space for that matter) click in the link in my bio, loads of great prizes to be won @SimbaSleep #bedrealestate #livingontheedge #girls #twins #daughters #therestoomanygirls #fatherofdaughters #dadlife #instadad #gopro

A photo posted by Simon (@father_of_daughters) on Oct 23, 2016 at 12:00pm PDT

When we go to the park nowadays, we take over. Everywhere you look there’s a hooper child. I’m considering GPS trackers (are criminal grade ankle tags going too far?) to just keep track of them. I invariably get yelled at across the playground to look at a trick or observe how high someone is jumping of something. Had we been first time parents we’d be running over, warning them of the dangers, ready to catch our little Angels in our arms should they fall. Now I’ll look up from my coffee, smile from a distance, say well done and return to daydreaming about doing DIY. If there’s a scream, then it’s time to move. It doesn’t make me a bad parent, I just have, what they call in the trade, ‘experience’. #therearebenchesinplaygroundsforareason #whyaremykidstheloudest #theyneverstoprunning #wetakeoverstuff #teamhooper #girls #fatherofdaughters #dadlife #instadad

A photo posted by Simon (@father_of_daughters) on Oct 8, 2016 at 12:58pm PDT

Someone call crime watch! I took this picture of a guy getting mugged in broad day light today. The 2 confidence tricksters are known in the local area and ply their trade by pretending to love their victims and then, when their guard is down, scratching their faces to pieces, pulling their hair and dribbling on them until they are given milk or rice cakes. The suspects are described as looking exactly the same, to the degree that their father cant tell them apart. They are around 2.5 ft tall, talk with a strange accent and are incredibly cute. Some previous victims had said they smell like a childrens play centre toilets but that has yet to be confirmed. #muggedbybabies #twins #parentinginjuries #thelmaandlouiseinthemaking #callcrimewatch #fatherofdaughters #dadlife #instadad

A photo posted by Simon (@father_of_daughters) on Oct 6, 2016 at 1:17pm PDT

Teething is now in full effect and the girls want us to know all about it. An email would have sufficed but it seems they’d rather use their voices to get the message across that they really aren’t enjoying this stage of development. Its not straight screaming, it’s more like the sound a wounded animal might make that just wants to end it all. I can’t blame them though, it’s like a mini scene from ‘Alien’ in there at the moment, just in very very slow motion (and of course teeth don’t then go on to kill you and the crew of your ship so a few subtle differences but essentially the same). #canyoubulkbuybonjela #teethinglikealien #twins #thisisntfunforanyone #doubleteethingisnotdoublethefun #fatherofdaughters #instadad #dadlife #daddydentist

A photo posted by Simon (@father_of_daughters) on Sep 21, 2016 at 1:06pm PDT