You took your daughter to the slaughter, now she's a PR in a pashmina scarf, are you proud?

As Sartre - or was it Camus? (you'd think I'd look this up, wouldn't you) - said, or would have done if he had taken a moment to be more specific, 'Hell is other people's children'. I wonder if other countries have the tradition of Half Term. The arrangement by which, a few weeks after the little bastards have been rounded up and confined they are set free again for a week.

From a humanitarian point of view I can only be in favour - the more holiday people can get, teachers or children, the better. I've vague memories of having been subject to the same conditions once, and I know I was glad of it. But, with the prime purpose of schools being to act as juvenile holding pens while the parents service the economy, this can lead to a return to the tradition of taking your offspring with you while you till the fields.

Like Welsh or Self said in a book title (you'd think I'd...) 'If you liked school you'll love work'. What a way to spend a day. And the poor little sod doesn't even get paid for it. Things have improved for them slightly: where once there was a sheaf of A4 hoicked out of the printer, two ballpoints and dry-wipe marker to play with, now they have internet access. And a whole new set of content filters and firewalls to get around.

A more proactive parent will seize upon the opportunity to inculcate their spawn into the ways of paid employment, subjecting them to that baleful practice known as 'shadowing'. Which, as with the adult equivalent, means dragging them around the weary circuit of meetings, presentations, and one-to-one line management appraisals ("And now darling, I'm going to make one of my colleagues cry. You see, it's just like school!").

The stifling effect of having a child present at a meeting is inestimable. It is almost impossible to conduct proceedings without resort to innuendo and expletive - if you can't swear and impugn the proclivities of colleagues absent and present, how are matters to be taken forward to a satisfactory conclusion? Unfair on the under-sized participant too - they can hardly duck out with the usual formulae of polite decline: 'Would love to, but I'm not sure my presence would add value' or 'Sorry, have to crack on with something terribly urgent that sits rather higher on my ladder of priorities', or even my current favourite: 'I'd rather eat sand.' Then, when the introductions drag around the room, poor Junior not only has the embarrassment of the same surname as the person they are sitting next to, but has to substitute 'cause my mum said' for their organisation of origin.

Of course they might bring fresh perspectives: powder paint instead of Powerpoint for presentations, angry red crayon instead of track changes for those contentious drafts. And as for spreadsheets, I've always believed that any figure that cannot be worked out one person's fingers and toes is Too Big, and also Rude.