Peter's Patter - Bad Daddy

There were pushy mums, laid back mums, completely off their trolley mums and the obligatory mad daddy but despite my forthcomings about their methods the vast majority of their children seemed happy and contented so who am I to criticise?

At least none of them ever lost any of their children!

It is quite difficult for me to claim the moral high ground on parenting skills when I somehow mislaid my very own daughter.

In my defence she was quite small, unbelievably fast at crawling, unimaginably strong and very, very persistent. In a small way I was very proud of her.

The way she crawled to the back door, the way she opened the heavy fire door with the strong door closer, the way she crawled along the concrete garage floor, the way she climbed the steep chipped driveway and the way she managed to attract the attention of one of Angus Mackay’s lorry drivers to bring her back to the house. Not bad for a 10 month old baby!

In my defence I was sitting on the loo as she crawled out the bathroom door so how on earth was I to know she was some sort of Super Baby?

Anyway, I watched Anne Robinson having a laugh at some of the strange things her TV parents did, like breast-feeding 6 year olds or allowing a 4 year old to chop up vegetables with a machete but I never heard her ask any of them “is one of your children missing?”

Maybe the mother with seven kids wouldn’t notice if one was gone but as this was our first child I had no excuse.

Hopefully it made me a better parent but I still gave my kids some leeway in life although there were times I wish I had measured their arms and worked out how far they could reach.

That way I could have moved things out of their reach and would have prevented the very same daughter from shaving her face with my razor.

Funny thing is, fast forward 15 years and she has started using my razor once again although this time it is strictly legs only.

At the end of the day there is a multitude of ways to bring up your children and it is very difficult to say which is right and which is wrong as long as they know they are loved everything should turn out ok.

Just remember to do a head-count every day…just in case!