Think parenting is a breeze? Try getting a teenager to put on a coat before he heads into the cold with his friends

There’s a nip in the air, and we’re bracing ourselves for a winter of asking: “Is it really necessary?” before we put the heating on.

And so it will come to pass that my mother-in-law’s reminders about layers will be the popularly held position in households across the nation. I love the heat. I’m not so keen on wearing several layers of clothing. It will be a winter of wardrobe discontent.

Still, us mothers of sons can feel a little more smug in this time of necessary energy savings – particularly those of us with electric showers. Those who ask parents: “How many boys and how many girls?” won’t be so quick with the side head-tilt of sympathy when they hear a response confirming that a household is predominantly made up of boys.

Yes, they have the place wrecked. But who needs kitchen press doors anyway, when you can have lower energy bills?

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Plus, they feel the cold less. Some, of the teenage variety in particular, head outdoors with their mates in the rain and gale force wind wearing just T-shirts and tracksuit bottoms. There’s one who visits this house wearing shorts in December, so I know it’s a trait of the species rather than specific to my offspring alone.

And they never seem to pick up the phone when you ring them, after they’ve run out the door coatless and hoodie-less in Baltic temperatures, to tell them to get their backsides home and a warm top on – so they save you money on phone credit too.

They don’t do layers. They don’t need layers. They’re invincible.

Such is the life of raising sons. Himself often says someone should make a TV programme that would see families of all girls switch places with families of all boys. He usually says this after one of the boys has broken or burst something. We’re not one of those families, though, because we have a daughter. So we have perspective. We know how much longer girls spend in the shower.

Himself often says someone should make a TV programme that would see families of all girls switch places with families of all boys. He usually says this after one of the boys has broken or burst something

Mind you, I didn’t find teenage girls to be any great lover of layers either. A coat, if you were so unreasonable as to insist your daughter wear one on a cold winter’s day, could completely ruin a look or an outfit. Even a school uniform. Far preferable to be soaked and freezing. At least then you were cool, in all senses of the word.

My mother is a great believer in the difference between the genders. She raised four daughters, and lived to tell the tale. She excuses all manner of things for her grandsons, on the grounds that they are boys – eating all around them, wrecking their shoes, ripping the knees out of their trousers, losing jumpers, ties, tracksuit tops, my bank card, whatever, on a daily basis. The granddaughters, irrespective of their ages, have more sense, she observes across the families. Her own daughters, proud mothers of sons too, quietly tend to agree.

She knows, though, that it’s not as simplistic as girls being one way and boys another. Had it been so, then she could have been certain that all her daughters would be talented bakers and seamstresses with a particular gift for aesthetic presentation. She passed some of those skills on to my sisters. Me, I spent my childhood resisting it all, on the grounds of feminism in theory (the boys in the class didn’t have to learn how to knit and sew), but in truth because I just hated doing it.

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My pitiful homemade creations only reached acceptable levels when my great-nana decided to do them for me instead. “You shall go to the school fashion show in a purl and plain knit jumper and a pink A-line skit and pass them off as your own,” she said, kind of. Though, to most, it just sounded like: “Mother of God, what is that supposed to be. Would you just give it to me and I’ll do it.”

On special occasions, my sisters (like my mother) have the tables that people ooh and aah at, such is the beautiful presentation of them. Mine is more likely to make people question whether I own any matching delph at all. When you have a load of boys, you see, things get broken. A lot.

That’s not to say they’re all the same, by any means. They’re as different to each other as they are to their sister. It’s as infuriating as it is fabulous. There is no route to perfect parenting, because the approach can never be the same.

Except when it comes to layers. The battles are similar there, even unnecessary. Superheroes don’t need to wear hoodies and coats over their costumes, you see. Or so Spider-Man tells me.