Who's The Daddy: My nagging put a perfect smile on my daughter’s face

My daughter has perfect teeth thanks to my nagging. Photo: Adobe

Yeah, I know. It’s incredible. Want to know how I did it, the secret of my success? Well it all goes back to the hard yards of the school run - all 14 long years of it.

Those mums and dads who are braving the horrors of that daily grind today will tell you that it feels like a job in itself, before you do the job that you’re paid for and, if you’re lucky, feel appreciated at.

There’s two words that those literally driving the school run find themselves repeating over and over and over again, as the seconds tick down to the bell and also your clocking on time. And those words, which get louder as the morning drags on, are SHOES! and TEETH!

I must admit, I was the resident nag when it came to our kids brushing their teeth. But guess what? My dogged persistence paid off last week when grown and flown daughter #2 landed back home for a couple of days with a uni pal, primarily for a six-monthly dental check-up in Morecambe where the dentist told her she had, and I quote, “perfect teeth.” No fillings, healthy gums and an exemplary brushing technique.

And her big sister’s exactly the same. Now where’s that halo polish?See that. That’s me, that is. Dads very rarely get to enjoy a lap of honour without derisory comments such as, “What do you want, a medal? I do that every day.” For that brief moment, when daughter #2 told us around the dinner table how her check-up went, nobody could pee on my rainbow. I might get one of those journals with a cover that reads, “Times I Was Right And Nobody Listened” by way of celebration. It’s already on the kitchen calendar for posterity.

Another reason daughter #2 graced us with her presence for 48 hours last week was for a warm and some nice food. What with the malevolently incompetent Government running the country into the ground, warm banks have shamefully become a thing. But I never thought our house would be one.

Daughter #2’s shared student house in the middle of Liverpool is on a street that looks like a Georgian film set, in point of fact production is due to start on her road in a couple of weeks, but regular readers may recall the actual property is positively Dickensian. A massive, freezing, damp pile that if someone spent a few quid on it would sell for seven figures.So her and a mate came to ours for a warm, a “retreat” they called it, where they were handed plates of chicken balti and the next night slow cooked veggie sausages in onion gravy on a bed of sweet potatoes, tender stem broccoli and, get this, kale. Yeah, kale! I served kale to our kids once when they were teenagers and armed police turned up at the door, mistaking the kerfuffle for a siege.

No so fussy now, is she? Certainly beats that student staple, a Pot Noodle baguette.

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