In the movies, parental inadequacy is usually denoted by the parent buying store-bought cakes instead of slaving over a hot stove themselves – but there’s nothing quite like a book week parade to make you feel like the worst parent on the planet.
Especially when the first you heard of the parade is at 8am on the day itself, just as you’re shoving store-bought cakes into lunchboxes. As other kids turn up in elaborate homemade Peter Pan or Pearlie in the Park or Where the Wild Things Are costumes (not that there’s anything wrong with that), you have to try to convince your seven-year-old that wearing his dad’s Y-fronts outside his jeans with a red towel on his shoulders will make him the best Captain Underpants ever.
There’s only one thing that will make you feel better as you watch the endless parade of Harry Potters walking down the runway, and that’s knowing that it’s another full year until next year’s book week parade – and that you’re definitely, definitely, going to be organised for that one.
Please share a description or a photo – and a story to go with it – of the worst last-minute costume you’ve thrown together for your child’s parade; or, if you’d rather gloat, of your best ever effort.
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