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Are you a smug parent?

August 12, 2010 By Clare Mackintosh

My son has an unfeasibly large head.  It’s quite cartoonishly vast and I’m certain it contributes to his inordinately high trip/fall ratio.  When he was a baby we hoped that he would grow into it but now that he is three years old I have grown to accept he will only ever wear sweaters with zipped necks and will always sport a buzz-cut – excess hair serving only to accentuate his disproportionate swede. 

I mention this not in order to humiliate my son, but to make a point about smug parenting.  We’ve all met smug parents before – at the school gate, in toddler groups, at baby sessions, in fact I’ve met smug parents in the waiting room of the maternity unit.  Their off-spring were barely conceived before they began pontificating about the genius germinating within. 


Nobody likes a smug parent, but it is in fact perfectly acceptable to be one just as long as you balance out the smugness with self-deprecating acknowledgement of failure in other areas.  Hence I can bask in the reflected glory of my intelligent, articulate son, as long as I then throw in a wry remark about his melon-head.  I can freely boast about my daughter’s early walking and superb motor skills, if I follow it up with a reminder of her inability to string more than two words together.  I suspect this is a deeply English trait, borne out of a cultural tendancy to underplay strengths, and a slightly superstitious feeling that pride will almost certainly come before a fall. 

I am unashamedly a smug parent.  My three children are beautiful, smart, funny, articulate and filled with imagination and talent.  But my goodness my son’s head is enormous. 

Are you a smug parent?  Feel free to boast about your off-spring’s achievements here, but only if you share the pants bits too. 

Filed Under: Parenting

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