Currently there is a great deal of press in the media about "parental mental health," a predisposition to autistic offspring, they claim.

It would be my assertion, that as with most children, they are genetically pre-programmed to push our buttons. If you are a clean and organized type of person, your children will be messy. If you’re a more casual easy going type, then your children with alphabetize your kitchen utensils, it’s just a given. It’s what our own parents predicted, warned us about at trying moments, with a certain degree of vicious glee, ‘just you wait until you have kids of your own!’ Hence, scientifically speaking, a single, unattached person has average mental health, but any parent is likely to fare more poorly, it’s just common sense.

It is because of this fact, that wise parents have a single child and then pray that it’s the other parent’s buttons that our exposed and that their own remain inviolate. More feckless types, have several children, which statistically results in covering all the bases of both parents.

This is why although I’m inclined to celebrate the diverse qualities of my children, instead I have to expose my number one moan. I do indeed have a genuine complaint, although "few people" share my stance. My complaint could be broadly summed up as laundry; there is far too much of it and the greater part of it is filthy. ‘Greater part?’ I hear you query. Yes, the greater part. The lesser part is clean. Why would I clean clothes that are already clean? Well that’s because one of my children has exacting standards that I rarely meet, such that the article goes in the reject pile. Haven’t I heard of the word ‘no’? Indeed I have, but I tell you truly that he is more than capable of removing, running and hurling the offending garment into the washing machine mid cycle, faster than I can say ‘flat iron.’ My mental health would be greatly improved by finding someone else who also washes clean clothes.

On the other hand, or son, I also encounter what might be considered ‘typical boy’ behaviour of the grubby, mucky and lizard stained, variety. I experience the ‘typical boy’ behaviour in my eldest son, and of course, both my daughters. My eldest daughter returns home with sleeping bags full of forest debris. My youngest daughter returns home with treasures, sometimes they are still alive. Collectively, we are talking industrial standards, commercial washer.

Overall, I can conclude with a certain degree of certainty, that my mother was right. She would chase me all over the house, pin me to the ground, whip out a hanky, add ‘lick’ and scrub. I swore that I would never subject my own future darlings to such trauma.

I haven’t.

But only because I either can’t catch them or I’m incapable of producing a vat of spit on demand.

"Cheers dears"