Parental pride comes before a fall

As his daughter prepares a concert reading, Will Gore battles to keep his own ego in check

Output from a DNA sequencer. Look closely and you may spot the Gore genetic gift for public speaking (AP)

The pride a parent feels toward their child is a strange and potentially perilous thing. It can be blind, as when a tone-deaf mother genuinely believes her tone-deaf son is the greatest singer since Pavarotti, and is aggrieved when even Louis Walsh winces and says: “you remind me of a young Orville the Duck”.

It can also be a proxy for parental regret, such as in the case of the football dad who puts little Johnny’s MVP runner-up certificate in the centre of the mantelpiece to make up for his own trophyless football career.

There can sometimes be a mismatch between a parent’s pride and their child’s own sense of fulfilment. When my daughter was seven, she took part in a music recital with all the other kids who had been taking guitar lessons. She was proud because she thought she’d done a good job. We were less convinced by the playing, but will remain forever gratified that instead of strumming “Three Blind Mice” or another well-known nursery rhyme, she played “Martha the Last Passenger Pigeon”, which was truthfully, if rather grandly described as her “own composition”. As a tune it was indiscernible; as an exercise in chutzpah, it was remarkable.