Status Anxiety | 26 April 2008

Machiavelli’s The Prince is by far the most useful guide to parenting

King Lear was right: How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have an ungrateful child. For the past fortnight, I have been overseeing the construction of a tree house for my three-year-old son Ludo at the bottom of my garden, but he has yet to show any appreciation. The problem is, I have employed a young man called Edward to actually build it. The fact that I am the ‘project manager’, not to mention paying for the labour and the materials, cuts no ice with Ludo. As far as he is concerned, ‘Eddie’ deserves sole credit.

‘Where Eddie?’ he says the moment he comes back from nursery and then runs out into the garden. If I wander down to the construction site in the hope of spending some time with my son, he blocks my path and says, ‘No grown-ups.’