They muck you up your parents. They (probably) don’t mean to, but …
One of my friends greeted the arrival of their daughter’s first period by announcing to friends ‘our little girl’s become a woman’.
Glen tells me that his mum sent him off to college with the ringing valediction of, ‘Fly Glen, fly..’ Mine packed me off to school with a bowl haircut and skirt, three sizes too big, ‘to grow into’.
On one of my first dates, Dad deliberately turned up early and caught me and Romeo snogging furtively through the front window. After (‘jokingly’) threatening my soon-to-be ex, he spent the car journey home, giving me tips on technique.
And these are just the stories we can print.
But according to today’s Independent, they’ve got nothing on Dale Price and his son Rain, 15. Poor Rain’s name alone is probably enough to warrant a regular head-flushing. But that’s far from his biggest worry.
Every day Rain catches the school bus and his Dad waves him off – in fancy dress.
On the first day of terms, he was practically laughed off the bus by classmates because of his waving parents. Dad took this as a challenge. For the next 179 days, he wore a different costume to wave in. These included The Little Mermaid, Batgirl, Elvis, Little Red Riding Hood and Princess Leia. He once bought a porcelain toilet bowl so he could wave at his son while sitting on it, reading the morning paper.
Now that’s what I call Parenting.