You can take a day off work, theoretically, but you can’t take a day off being a parent.

If, for instance, you have the kind of cold I’ve got today, an end-of-the-world cold that turns you into a shivering, brainless snot zombie, you still have to do the school run.

It’s not really acceptable to keep your kids out of school because you're feeling poorly, so you’re up well before dawn, after a night of being shouted at by your one-year-old, to start the confusing, chaotic, nearly impossible on a good day, process of getting your kids to school.

I slump back into the car. I probably shouldn’t be driving. I could just stay here, in the car, outside the school, with the engine running for warmth, sleeping with my forehead on the lovely, comfy steering wheel, while my one-year-old shouts “Daddy!” at me at approximately the volume of a jet engine.

DAD'S WORLD: Being ganged up on by three small offspring

Presumably, eventually, someone would call the police. Perhaps the police would help me.

At home my son spends the day shouting at me, because he’s got a cold. I try to sleep when he does, but turns out I’m too ill to sleep.

I consider the repercussions of not picking up my children. Eventually someone would bring them home, surely. Getting from the house to the car takes everything I’ve got.

At the school gate I have the bearing of a parent with a serious drug problem. I wait for my children. I wait and wait. They don’t come out. All the other parents leave, glancing at me pityingly. OK, so I’ve lost my children.

A teacher comes out looking concerned. “You OK?”

“Er… my kids…”

“They’re in football club. Could you come back in an hour?”

“Oh yeah. OK. No problem.”