Why I mortified my son for the sake of my daughter

My son learned something about himself over the weekend and believe me, it did not sit easy with him.

When I mentioned it in passing a few days ago, I genuinely thought he was aware that the little ritual used take place, but from his puce cheeks and gritted teeth, I quickly realised I was mistaken.

Sitting around the dinner table on Friday evening, myself and the kids found ourselves reminiscing.

From Rebecca’s first disastrous swimming lesson to Alex’s obsession with our elderly neighbour, we laughed until we cried and then, as always happens when things are going well with my brood, the evening took a turn for the tense.

Obviously feeling that proceedings had become overly-sentimental, my eldest son decided to rein things in a little and took the opportunity to remind his younger sister about the time she wet herself at her first slumber party.

Watching her face fall during what had been an extremely lighthearted exchange made my blood boil and, at that moment, I could have killed him.

I don’t know if he feels his reputation with his peers in his jeopardy if he enjoys family time for longer than 15 minutes, but I wasn’t having it.

Eager to take the spotlight off Rebecca and the event it took her months to get over, I reminded her brother of the years he had spent spraying my perfume on the sleeve of his school jumper.

I say I ‘reminded’ him, but from his expression I realised I hadn’t actually reminded him, I had instead enlightened him of this for the first time.

He turned to me with a disbelieving expression and before he could deny it, I explained to his siblings that Chris struggled with school for the first few years of his primary school career.

In an effort to placate him at the time, I sprayed a little of my perfume on the sleeve of his jumper and told him to smell it every time he missed me during his school day.

It worked like a charm, but long after I felt Chris should have grown out of the habit, he was still carrying me with him on his sleeve every day.

It took almost two years of dissuading and much hand wringing from his father before he stopped including my perfume in his morning routine.

My son is either a very convincing liar or he has genuinely blocked out the activity, but he sat aghast at the kitchen table as I filled him on the unique form of security blanket he brought to school every day.

“Did my friends know?”, he whispered, almost hoarse with horror.

I assured him they didn’t because he was always careful to spray the perfume up his sleeve and I had no recollection of him ever saying his classmates had grown aware of the rather floral scent surrounding the hardly little boy.

For the rest of the evening he sat quietly, digesting this new information.

His sister may have wet herself at her first grown-up slumber party, but If we hadn’t weaned Chris off my perfume, he may still be padding into my bedroom before school and stealing a few squirts of my favourite fragrance.

It may have knocked the wind out of his sails that evening, but maybe he'll think twice about cruelly taunting his sister for no reason next time.

And believe me, there's more where that came from and now he knows it.