IF I COULD offer you one piece of parenting advice, it would be this: ‘Never arrive home earlier than you were expected, unless you are fully prepared to deal with whatever you may find’.

I came home from work early one day last month, and it ruined my life a little bit.

My 16-year-old was sitting at the kitchen table, scrolling on her phone. She had started her Summer Break a little earlier than her sister, so she had been home alone all morning. A wave of something that I now know was terror flashed across her face, but I naively assumed she just hadn’t heard me come in.

I said good morning to her as I put my handbag down, and she responded with an ‘mmm’. I stopped and looked at her, ‘Are you alright?’

Again, I got ‘MMM-hmm’.

I was about to ask her what was wrong, but at that moment, the breath she had clearly been holding since I opened the door decided it absolutely could not wait a second longer, and she opened her mouth, releasing a cloud of strawberry-scented smoke large enough to conceal Gandalf himself.

At the same time, she somehow also managed to roll her eyes, no doubt in anticipation of my next move, which was, obviously, to lose my mind.

I had been dreading this moment since I first heard about vapes. Sweet-flavoured smoke that can cause irreparable damage to your body, sold in brightly coloured packages that are technically illegal for children but also seemingly available everywhere, guaranteed to horrify parents and endorsed by half the internet. They are, quite literally, the most teenage product ever invented.

I feel like we gloss over this every time we discuss........

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