The first time you put your kid in school uniform, there’s an intoxicating charm to the moment. There he is, your precious firstborn, and you’ve dressed him up like a grown-assed man who’s managing the fanciest restaurant on a very large ferry. Slacks and a well-pressed shirt are just the baseline; there’s also insignia on everything – jumpers, shorts, bags, pencil cases and water bottles – and the crest is something egalitarian, such as a tree or a leaf, but whatever it is, only that will do. After a full and overall pretty happy life of not sweating the small stuff, suddenly there’s a person in your house whose every clothing item is absolutely irreplaceable, and that person is four, and has squashed a beetle into it. On that first day, though, all you’re thinking is, “How adorable, this is like his first Christmas, when we dressed him up as a pudding.” The next 12 years, though, are going to be hell.

The first year, you’ll spend the whole time looking for the insignia jumper.

The second year, you’ll just give in and buy five jumpers, 10 shirts, and five pairs of trousers, and a year two trouser pair will remain in circulation until the end of time, waiting to bite you in year 11, when they can’t get those trousers on, and it’s all they have, and they’re on their way to a GCSE.

The third year, you’ll start a campaign at the PTA to get rid of school uniform, but then you’ll have to........

© The Guardian