The age of consent is sixteen in this country - why does the government treat anyone under twenty who chooses to have a child as a social pariah? Are we not physically best primed to do it then, rather than waiting till we’re all thirty? And do they really think that they can legislate so that sixteen and seventeen year olds can legally marry and have children, but not be allowed to leave school?

So, two things have struck me, this week. One was the shock announcement that Manchester are to get the Super-Casino (and the most satisfying part of that business was the thought of all those journalists running from Blackpool to Manchester, because they didn’t expect it), and the possibility of lone parents being put under pressure to find work when their children are still under sixteen.

Of the first, I’m frankly alarmed. It seems to me that Blackpool was the ideal location to limit the potential damage of such an establishment. It’s a tourist destination, in a relatively lightly populated area - most of the customers would therefore arrive with a finite and pre-calculated amount of money in their pockets, and leave when it had gone. I’m sure there would be some “ambient” trade from local people, and that for some it would create serious problems, but Blackpool’s a little place, so surely the damage would be limited by that fact.

Manchester is not a major tourist destination, unless you’re a closet Man City fan wanting to pay homage at the ground. It is a large and thriving city, with a radius of nearly twenty miles, and all the social problems that one associates with big cities. I’m no expert, but I would have thought that most of the trade would be “ambient”, and from within that radius, and that the presence of the casino in that location has the potential to destroy many, many peoples’ lives.

I was delighted to discover that Liverpool wasn’t even on the shortlist. We’re not even getting one of the littler ones, and long may that situation continue.

The other thing leaves me torn, pretty much. I don’t know what I think; I hate it when I don’t know what I think, but at least I have the courage to own up over it. I can see the argument, that my taxes (not that I pay any myself, you understand) are going up to cover the cost of keeping lone parents at home, and there is a social and economic justification for trying to limit the extent of that reality. But on the other hand, I believe in parents. Unlike the current government, current opposition, and a never-ending torrent of think tanks and pressure groups with a wide range of biases, I don’t see “affordable, quality childcare” as the solution to all society’s ills. In fact, I see it as the evil of the day. Children need parents. The younger the children, the more they need them, and they are spending more time away from their parents than they ever have before.

Tiny children need to know that you’re there, you’re not going anywhere, and that if they step away to do something new and interesting, you will still be there when they get back. Apparently, the detectable stress-levels of babies and toddlers in childcare is more or less directly proportional to the amount of time they spend there. There is no safe level, below which they are fine - they are more or less stressed according to how much of their life they spend away from Mum.

More controversially, I also believe that bigger children need parents, too. I believe that children need to feel safe, secure and loved, in order to be able to take any risks at all in life, and all forms of education and individual development involve taking risk. Actually, I believe that’s true of adults, too, they’re just capable of finding that security and confidence in different places. I think school starts too young, in this country, and I think that a child’s needs are best met by someone who knows that child. Because, actually, they’re all different. They develop in different ways at different rates, they have different strengths and weaknesses, and the minute you try to categorize them, they start to be short-changed. You can’t say “All children of eleven can walk home from school alone,” because some children of that age are a complete liability. A friend of mine had two girls, nearly three years apart, the younger of whom was allowed to use the sharp knives in the kitchen some time ahead of her sister, because she was careful enough, and her sister would most likely lose a digit. It’s about knowing your child, and it’s about the person who knows that child most intimately being left alone to make those decisions.

So how can I, from the luxurious position of being kept on my husband’s wage to take care of my daughter in whatever way I see fit, possibly criticize someone who’s child deserves the same treatment, even if the finances make it less easy to achieve?

Why do they sell cat food in six-packs? I mean, I understand that six tins of cat food bundle together more conveniently for the plastic-wrapping machine than seven, but really, does anyone have a cat that they don’t feed one day a week? Anyone responsible, I mean.

Once every six weeks, I buy twice as much cat food as usual, making a minor impact on my grocery budget, and a major impact on the weight of my shopping for that week. Because, for some obscure reason, it is cheaper to buy tins of cat food in extra packaging, than to buy the amount that you might reasonably expect to need between now and next week’s shopping trip.

It makes no sense.

I’ve just had the opportunity to watch Kevin and Daisy behaving like me and Daisy, and it was illuminating.

At the beginning of the week, I was wildly hormonal and had the patience of… the Mummy from Hell, pretty much. As a result, there were legion situations where Daisy decided to be awkward in some way, I over-reacted, and she got even more awkward, in a seemingly never-ending spiral.

This evening, Kevin doesn’t feel very well (he’s had a cold brewing for a few days), we’re all tired from having too much fun with some houseguests all weekend, and I just watched the exact same spiral play out from the position of spectator. And I was annoyingly calm and in control, and wordlessly sided with Daisy in just the annoying way that he does, on the basis that she’s two and he isn’t, and was the gentle influence of sanity in pulling the situation back from crisis point.

The thing is, I knew that children feed off your emotions like some kind of Star Trek: TNG alien, and I more or less knew, in retrospect, that that was precisely what had happened between us for most of Tuesday, but it really took being an outsider to see it clearly.

I’m not sure if it helps. It’s a lot harder to spot when you’re busy resisting the temptation to shake the squirming toddler, and even harder to do anything constructive the break the cycle. Certainly illuminating, though.