If you’re so boring and shortsighted as to raise your kids to be responsible, disciplined and health-conscious, be sure it will come back to bite you one day when it’s all too late. It will bite, which means you won’t. Such is the lesson of Easter 2022. How so? Please read on ...

One of the liberties of retirement is the capacity to make, change or discard recreational plans at short notice. And so it was that we decided to go away for Easter. At that point one may find utilitarian value in the spreading abroad of responsible adult offspring. Having benefitted inestimably from countless nappy changes right through to expensive gifts and the odd temporary access to car keys over the space of two decades or more, they are morally obligated to accommodate you if you announce that you’re coming. Free bed and vittles for you every time. And if it’s Easter you can eat their hot cross buns and chocolate eggs too, saving your own for later with no moral dilemmas about social equity and exclusive rights. So far so good. Shareholder value through the roof. A win.

But then comes the fine print the government and lamestream media have been hiding from you since the first reproduction, to the eventual net benefit of the economy. If you raised your darlings to be responsible and all that boring stuff, then they’ll raise their offspring the same way. This will prove disastrous come Easter. The requirements of responsible parenting, which seemed so hip 30 years ago, now again condemn one to the servitude of severe chocolate rationing. Culinary calorific bliss sacrificed on the altar of intergenerational equity. You didn’t see that one coming, now did you? Shareholder value takes a hit. You only get to consume a miniscule fraction of their delicious choc eggs before it’s time to go home. A savage net loss.

Still, it’s not all gloom. For when you get home, there waiting for you are the 20 chocolate eggs you bought a week ago. Ten each, no sharing, no guilt, justice restored. A very happy and satisfying Easter Tuesday.