WE love them more than anything in the world. We’d do anything for them. We’d die for them if we had to. But the bottom line is that children are ungrateful wretches.

According to figures I saw published recently, it costs around £218,000 to raise a child in this country.

That equates to around £10,400 a year, £865 a month or £28.44 a day. I have four children so I’d be well on the way to being a millionaire by now if I’d saved all that money.

But do they appreciate it? Do they heck as like. I have a 16-year-old who treats me and his mum like personal roadies – taking him to and from band practice and ferrying his drumkit around to gigs.

But ask him to pop to the kitchen to bring us a glass of wine and you’d think we’d asked him to walk barefoot over hot coals. Ask him to cut the grass or wash the car and he asks: “How much are you going to pay me?”

A week last Sunday, I drove his older brother back to university down South. It was going to be three hours there and three hours back, all in one day, so I told him I wanted to leave by 9am.

“Does it have to be that early?” he asked, pulling a devastated face.

When we got there, I humped all his boxes up the stairs while he caught up with his flat-mates, and then I was given the distinct impression that he couldn’t wait to see the back of me so he could get on with his socialising.

It wasn’t quite a case of “Can you leave now, dad, I’m busy,” but that’s how it felt.

I know, I know, it’s all our own fault because we spoil them. I should have told him to get the train and carry his own boxes, but I suppose I’m just stupid.

The only consolation is hearing stories from other parents about how their children are ungrateful wretches too. The best example I’ve come across lately came from a friend and colleague called Jenny.

Jenny juggles her working life with being a good mum. Like the rest of us, she just wants what’s best for her kids.

She gave her 21-year-old son Josh her old car – a Suzuki Swift – to help him get around while he’s going through college. To be fair, the car’s seen better days and when it came to needing a service, Jenny sorted it out for him.

She drove it to the garage, settled the repair bill of more than £500, and promptly returned it to her son.

Despite all of that, Josh saw fit to complain loudly when he got back behind the wheel. Why? Because he’s a lot taller than his mum, she’d had the audacity to adjust the seat, and he’d banged his knee.

The ungrateful wretch.

  • What have your kids done to be ungrateful wretches? Email me at peter.barron@nne.co.uk

The things they say

TANNI Grey-Thompson, sporting legend and doting mum, is still reeling after being asked by her daughter Carys: “Are you really going out like that?”

DARRAN Weston, of Newton Aycliffe, told how he was on a day trip to Blackpool and, passing a graveyard, he overheard a young boy say: “Look, Grandad, dead people live there.”

LINDSAY Bruce, of Middlesbrough, was a touch alarmed when her little boy came home from his Catholic school singing a new Christmas song which went: “Freaking riding, freaking riding, freaking riding on a camel.”

It turned out to be Three Kings who were on the camel.

MATT Westcott, of Middlesbrough, has been musing on how things have changed. A friend has recently emigrated to Australia and Matt asked their son, aged ten, how the journey had been.

“Terrible,” said the youngster. “It took a whole day!”

CHRIS Forwood, on Twitter, told how a friend’s little girl was watching an old black and white film and asked: “When did the world turn colour?”

  • You can follow me on Twitter @echopeterbarron