Rachel Halliwell: Never let on to your kids that you were once a wild child

You don't want your offspring knowing you've done anything remotely fun or even mildly risque before they came along. Otherwise you're giving them carte blanche to try and out-do you. Photo / 123RF

Opinion

There are two schools of thought when it comes to raising children. Option 1 has you giving them chapter and verse about your own misspent youth in the belief that they will learn from your mistakes and respect your honesty while quietly admiring your rebellious streak.

Then there's Option 2, in which you totally gloss over every single juvenile misdemeanour and shenanigan and cheerfully let your kids believe that they're quite right: you really are as dull as dishwater.

Option 2 is clearly what David Cameron is banking on. In recent, pre-election interviews, he has revealed that his children take the mickey out of him daily: "To them I'm just a normal dad, who they think is a bit square and sometimes embarrassing," he said. "They rib me about, you know, anything from my CD collection to what I watch on TV."

He admitted to being immersed in a battle with his eldest, Nancy, who is 11 and wants her ears pierced, but Dad says she must wait. This confession naturally brought up the small matter of the dolphin tattoo that Samantha Cameron has etched on her ankle. The Prime Minister said he loves his wife's tattoo, but should Nancy want to follow suit he wouldn't be very impressed.

That's the problem with tattoos - they're a permanent record of a time, pre-parenthood, when you had a life in which you could afford to be less than sensible. Frankly, I think Sam should have airbrushed hers out of existence: not to protect the sensibilities of the voters of Middle England, but so that her children didn't see it.

You don't ever want your offspring knowing you've done anything remotely fun, interesting or even mildly risque before they came along - and certainly not before they're over the age of consent themselves. Otherwise you're giving them carte blanche to try and out-do you.

Sam Cam, who has always had that mildly exciting whiff of rock chick about her, takes a far more laid-back approach. She's been quoted as saying she wouldn't mind if any of her children came home with a tattoo. Then again, she's hardly in a position to say otherwise.

I'm the mother of three daughters. Two are now through the rebellious phase and so are privy to the odd bit of toned-down scandal from their parents' past.

But these stories come out after dark, when their eight-year-old sister is tucked up in bed, and they're under instructions to keep schtum. I must keep the slate clean for when she hits her teens. Mostly, throughout our children's lives, my husband and I have nurtured their view of us as being "boring fun suckers". (The fact that, even at their most unruly, they didn't come close to matching what their father and I got up to, has been a private joke that got us through the tougher days of parenthood.)

So, we've feigned shock and dismay as they regaled us with stories of under-age drinking and drunkenness and general teenage bravado while quietly thinking: "Is that it? Hallelujah!" The words "those lyrics are disgusting - turn it off, now" have rung through our home more times than I care to remember. My daughters don't need to know that back in the day I was a fan of a band called the Violent Femmes, who could give that Skepta chap a run for his money.

Of course, I understand why some people settle on Option 1. When your sulky offspring shout that the only reason you want them to spend a couple of nights in each week is because you don't have the first idea how to have fun yourself, it's tempting to fire back a "Let me tell you about the time..." counterblast that blows that attitude to smithereens. And I would, occasionally, like my girls to think their mother was, once upon a time, actually rather cool.

But it's too high a price to pay; let the facade of boring matriarch slip and you've given them ammunition that they'll use on you at a later date.

And make sure you keep the grandparents on side. Countless times I've had to glare meaningfully across the dinner table at my parents or my in-laws when, as we've berated their grandchildren, they've started to snort in derision and one just knows that, "Oh come off it, you did much worse," is about to fall from their lips.

Personally, if your kids think you were born boring then pat yourself on the back because, as far as parenting them goes, you are doing a marvellous job.