Dad Rocker

Kevin Courtneygets used to being daddy uncool

They f*** you up, your mum and dad, wrote Philip Larkin. Obviously Larkin never met Kelly and Jack Osbourne, or he might have put it in somewhat stronger terms. With the best will in the world, your aul' ones can leave you pretty messed up. Add fame and fortune into the formula and you take dysfunctional parenting to new levels. Just ask Martha Wainwright.

If dealing with ordinary parents is snafu (situation normal, all f***ed up), then having famous parents is fubar (f***ed up beyond all recognition). The kids of rock and film stars often inherit enough baggage to fill Terminal 5. And if your dad is Woody Allen ("Son, your dad's run off with your big sister") or Michael Jackson ("Son, drink up all your Jesus juice"), then you don't even want to open that baggage.

Thankfully, not all famous people dangle their babies off balconies or cop off with their adopted daughter. But star parents share one thing with everyday parents: their kids will never, ever think they're cool. Not even if they're a rock critic for The Irish Times.

As a young(ish) crit-about-town, I rather fancied myself as the Tony Parsons of Irish rock, hanging out with An Emotional Fish and Something Happens . . . it doesn't get much cooler than that, now does it?

Now that I'm a dad, though, any illusion that I ever existed in a state below tepid has been firmly shattered. You can fool the world that you're a "hip dude", but you'll never fool that little fella in the high chair looking at you with a mixture of pity and disdain.

Lord knows I've tried - a blast of Psycho Killeron the guitar just to show Daniel that his old man still has the edge. He's only 10 months old, but Daniel has already perfected the universal look that says, "Omigod, I can't believe I'm related to this idiot."

Dads are just not cool. We are, as a species, condemned to eternal uncoolness. It doesn't matter whether you're the world's biggest pop star or Hollywood's top box office draw - your kid will think you're a dork, and cringe every time you perform your chart-topping hit on the telly or kill all the bad guys on the screen.

Recently, Robert Downey Jr. was chatting about his 14-year- old son's reaction on seeing dad in Iron Man: somewhere between horror and embarrassment. If Downey Jr. can't even impress his kid by playing a cast-iron superhero in the summer's big blockbuster, what chance do we mortal dads have? So cancel that space mission to save the planet from an approaching asteroid; your kid won't thank you for it.

Still, there is hope: Jade Jagger thinks it's great that her dad, some old gent who performs in a veteran rock'n'roll combo, can still "do it" at his age. So maybe, in years to come, Daniel will be impressed that his old man can still string a coherent article together.

That's assuming I haven't become a doddery old Ozzy by then.