It must have a certain amount of something to do with vanity when you hear your own words come out of your child’s mouth and think how wonderful he is for saying such clever things.

This is until your sweet curly-haired and blue-eyed four-year-old instructs you to tell the cranky neighbour to just f*** off. I’d love to blame those hippy parents of his school friends for not bringing up their children properly … I’d love to but I can’t really, can I …

All I could do was tell him what a rude word it was and that it would be best if he didn’t use it in public. Now he just whispers the word in my ear when he thinks the situation we are in may warrant its use.