Arylene Westlake-Jennings: Help a mum out, will ya?

Three months? More like three years, at least.

That was my immediate reaction to hearing a study that found bearing children doesn’t just make a woman feel older; it can increase our biological age by up to three months.

That explains those deep-set wrinkles.

Ok, so that study by researchers from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health confirmed that growing a human being over the course of nine months takes its toll on your DNA, and it’s not really about my post-pregnancy brain fog that sits thick in the air.

But can you blame a girl for trying to use science to explain away the aching joints, the perpetual fatigue and some of that mum brain?

I spent one afternoon on the weekend talking with the kids about being more helpful — not depending on mum or dad to set the table at dinnertime, making their beds independently, and taking greater responsibility for the whereabouts of their belongings.

They already help with their laundry, water the plants, and unload the dishwasher so it wasn’t something out of the ordinary.

But there has been a noticeable uptick in our household of the pre-schoolers expecting someone else to pick up the slack.

Whether it’s not putting their laundry in the hamper or leaving the playroom looking like a tornado had whipped through it, Mum and Dad have been handed the short end of the stick since Easter.

I can feel those forehead grooves burrowing even deeper.

As I texted a group chat whingeing about my predicament, I got a “let kids be kids” dictum. From my own mum.

I’m pretty sure I was cooking rice for the family when I was 7 years old, but I also wanted to help Mum by doing it.

It made her happy and gave her five minutes to sit down and just have a breather.

It could never erase those three months I apparently stole from her as she grew me in her belly, but I understand the value of those five minutes today more than ever.

So whether you’re five or 45, help your mum out. Who knows, maybe one day, research will tell us that chipping in to give Mum a break could reverse some of the damage we did to her DNA.