Bringing up a child is hard enough, but when you realise they have their own minds, well ... How dare they! When Ben was at nursery, I remember the nursery manager saying "In life, there are leaders and there are followers. Let's just say Ben won't be a follower." To a parent, this is pleasing to hear, of course. He'll end up being head boy at school and fast forwarding twenty years, he'll be the president of some society or other, management at work etc etc. (But actually I don't think anyone is ever going to say "He'll be the follower" to a parent!) We like to think we are cool as parents, as individuals, as a couple. We like indie music, we listen to 6Music and we don't watch the X-Factor or any broadcast TV for that matter. We shop in Waitrose and read The Guardian (well the free Saturday edition from Waitrose covers the guinea pig hutch nicely). We don't like popular chart music. We hope Ben will be as "rebellious" as ...