Who is the boss around here?

It's a Dad's Life:  They fuck you up, your mum and dad, They may not mean to, but they do They fill you with the faults they had, And add some extra, just for you (Philip Larkin This Be The Verse)

Childhood recedes as we come to some terrible realisations: that there is no Santa Claus, no Easter Bunny, that we may not be the centre of the universe and as such bend everything to our will. One of these that comes early on and can be seen as truly terrifying, or as a path to a sense of ourselves as individual, is that our parents do not know everything, that they often seem to be grappling for any answers at all.

I am watching my two daughters grow and I am floundering. Nell, at four, has long twigged her Mum and Dad are not omnipotent and is pushing us in a way I did not expect to have to deal with until much later. In my early, idealistic fantasies I had hoped she would pass through life never challenging us, taking our every offering as gospel. Mia, only one, is witnessing this early revolution and swallowing its doctrine whole, like a true communist child of early 20th-century Russia.

This is the line that is becoming the elder's mantra: "No. You're not the boss, there's no boss here." This is thrown at me in response to every suggestion or direction - "please eat your breakfast/lunch/dinner", "please pick up your toys", "get up and get dressed now", and, worst of all, "it's time for bed".

Where has the fear gone? I cast my mind back and wonder what would have happened had I directed the same attitude towards my own father. There would have been no violence, no shouting even, no room for these altercations because, quite simply, he had the power. There was no room for dialogue; what he said, I did. Now, 30 years on, what I say is ignored.

Looking at the way we have set about raising the monsters, you might think we have taken a healthy, proactive approach. When the elder was born I took a decision to leave full-time work once the missus's maternity leave finished. The reasoning was simple: a child will benefit from having a parent look after her rather than going into daycare for great swathes of the week.

We concern ourselves with their diet, exercise, health and stimulation. Sometimes we sound so right-on I want to hit us.

Because we're not really, we are as messy and confused as the next parents, trying to navigate a supposedly natural path that seems to meander from one direction to the next. At the same time these nippers are in tow, witnessing our indecision at the route to take, and probably wondering why we don't use a map, or at least ask for directions.

The last thing I want is for them to be afraid of me, to jump to attention every time I demand it, but I would appreciate occasional compliance. Maybe I spent too much time with the elder, focused all my feeling on this one little person too hard. Maybe I blurred the boundary between Daddy and buddy, and my authority was eroded. I know the importance of discipline and structure in her life, and I try so hard to supply it, but seem so often to come up short. I see her confusion and frustration when the inevitable arguments arise from her disregarding my requests, and I feel I have nobody to blame but myself.

I am the adult here. The proverbial buck has stopped in front of me and is refusing to budge.

I guess every new generation of parents looks at the approach that they experienced as children, then disregards it because they know they can do better.

I have found it humbling to go, cap in hand, back into the past and accept I can't re-invent the wheel. Mum, Dad, can you help me out here?