The mum's guide to undermining your adult child's life choices

WISH your grown-up child had followed a different path? It’s never to late to offer subliminal negative guidance with our handy guide:

Ask leading questions

Not allowed in a court of law, but fine in your lounge once you’ve finished telling them about the trouble Dad’s having with his prostate. For example: ‘Don’t you think it would be nicer to have a boyfriend with fewer tattoos?’ or ‘Wouldn’t you like to have a big house because you run your own pharmacy, like Liz’s eldest?’

Subtly question their appearance

You would never tell your son he’d had gotten fat, but that’s why God gave us euphemisms. Say ‘looks like you’ve been eating well’ and wonder aloud if there are any membership offers at the gym these days. If all else fails, buy him a Fitbit for his birthday.

Continually ask about their successful friends

Thanks to extensive Facebook-stalking, you know Emma from school is a univeristy lecturer married with two kids. No matter how often your pride and joy reminds you they fell out a decade ago, keep asking if they’re in touch in the hope that they’ll realise that they don’t measure up.

Say ‘That’s nice, dear, but’

Sick of hearing how well your 29-year-old’s latest unpaid stand-up appearance went, but don’t want to explicitly tell the man you birthed to shut up? Nothing will hit him harder than an obviously forced ‘That’s nice, dear’. He’ll be a successful lawyer within the week.

Allude to your death

If your adult son or daughter will insist on making it impossible to boast about them at pottery class, it’s time to bring out the big guns. Remind them that you won’t live forever and that you don’t want to go to your grave with a child still unable to afford a nice new car.

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Track-and-trace team finally gets in touch with Boris Johnson

THE UK’s world-beating track-and-trace team has contacted Boris Johnson to inform him that he tested positive for coronavirus in March.

The team advised the prime minister that he should self-isolate for seven days five months ago, that he may be asymptomatic and not even know he has the disease, and asked for names, addresses and phone numbers of everyone he has met since then.

Johnson said: “This goes to show what a first-rate system we have in place because as it happens, it’s 100 per cent correct, I did have coronavirus.

“It’s competence like this which has ensured we have kept deaths well below the 500,000 mark, unlike some other nations which I, er, shall not embarrass by naming.

“I have promptly supplied with the names of everyone I was in a room with in March and April and received an automated response advising me the team has a backlog and hopes to process my information within 90 to 180 days, which I found very reassuring.

“So this is positive proof that the system works, Britain is back on track and we are perfectly safe to re-open our economy, schools, pubs and international conference centres.

“If anyone wants a test, book now and you’re guaranteed to get your results by mid-December. Be rotten to have your Christmas ruined by something like this hanging over you.”

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