I always said I never wanted children and I think I was right in that decision, however you can’t plan for having them thrust upon you.

There is an old saying about having greatness thrust upon you and faced with the option I think I would prefer greatness to children, which leads me on to my topic today.

I am fairly surprised to find I have taken on the mantle of fatherhood quite so easily, but Angella comes as a package together with her children, it’s not a pick and mix option, although we have discussed trading them in for a new tile cutter or hammer drill as we are busy with the DIY at the moment.

We went to my second parents meeting last night, the first being last week for Michael, our youngest boy, who in all fairness is never going to be a rocket scientist, our youngest girl, however we had high hopes for, perhaps a barrister, or cabinet minister in the family would be a useful addition we thought.

We were therefore fairly surprised when nearly all the teachers we spoke to were not too pleased with Diane’s work, although she does the homework it is inevitably late being handed in it seems.

She lacks organisation and is fairly quiet and shy in class they said, I was wondering if they had perhaps mixed up their notes and got the wrong child, but as they all said virtually the same thing we resigned ourselves to accept that this was indeed our daughter they were talking about.

On the positive side, she does go to an extremely good school which sets its standards very high, personally I was a little taken back when they complained that she had only attained seven out of ten for one of the tests as in an ordinary school she would be close to a genius with a score like that, they on the other hand were aiming for nine out of ten.

I’ve only been a father since Christmas, so what to do escapes me as it seems quite hard to get them to talk about how they feel and I assume this is how kids are as I don’t have any previous experience to fall back on.

We seem to have a problem with self-esteem as well, a lack of pride in their appearance which seems extraordinary as most young people are desperate to have new clothes and to look after them and wear them.

My world of childhood is a million miles away from where I find myself here and I’m beginning to wonder if a little of the more old-fashioned style of parenting might not be a bad idea.

I seem to remember I never had any choices, my parents made all the decisions for me and woe betide me if I were to overstep the mark on any of the rules they had made.

Not that I was ever beaten physically, but the house was ruled with a rod of iron by my father mostly for his benefit, it’s the way it was then, children were seen and not heard and knew that when parents said no, they meant no.

We are wondering if she is finding the school work too hard or is she being lazy, it’s so hard to tell as they don’t answer your questions.

I’m going to show this to Diane and ask for her comments and see if I get an answer, this bit is for you Diane; we don’t want to tell you off, we want to help you but you have to tell us how to do it.

Once again, answers on a postcard!