1 May 2025, 08:29 | Updated: 1 May 2025, 10:12

By Nick Ferrari

It's not until you are fortunate enough to become a parent you understand the full impact and extent of that expression “every parent’s nightmare.”

In reality, the worries start the second the little one is placed in your arms and the roller-coaster ride begins. Moments of unbridled joy and pride as you watch their triumphs, and the darkest of fears in less happy times.

As a baby, you gently nudge them while they’re sleeping in their cot as you’ve falsely convinced yourself they’ve stopped breathing. They haven’t – as the ensuing howls of anger attest.

Then come the toddler years when stair guards are fitted, and all electricity sockets are filled in with safety plugs or covered up with hastily moved furniture.

After that, it’s off to school, and you try to hone your best MI6 skills and follow them discreetly from a distance, and without their knowledge, as you tail them on their way to school or the bus stop.

You can bet the parents of........

© LBC