No no win, no fee claim for baby, so far

As Philip Larkin nearly said, "They flip you up, your mum and dad." For most people this statement, as pithy and irreverent as it is, will be a truism, at least for the relationship with their own parents. However, as a parent you hope you can avoid inflicting your own flaws and fallibilities onto your offspring - I certainly do.

Fortunately, as saddling one's own children with all kinds of emotional and psychological baggage seems to be the norm, it is not possible for children to make no win, no fee claims against their parents for simply "flipping them up".

I know, that my own daughter, at the tender age of four, has already inherited her fair share of emotional baggage. However much we hope to avoid repeating the mistakes of our own parents it seems that, unless we react by becoming their antithesis (which is perhaps even more dangerous), it is an all but impossible aspiration.

For example, I vividly remember uttering my first expletive at the age of five after hearing my parents sharing a heated conversation about the electricity bill. Believing that this had somehow robbed me of a part of my innocence I had always held onto the ideal that I would ensure my own children were never exposed to swear words at home.

Imagine my embarrassment then when at a tea party last weekend my little girl brightly announced to a group of middle-class churchgoers that when she grew up she wished to be "a total ahole, like daddy."

Okay, in my defence, it is clear that this is something she has heard her mother say, not me. But am I really off the hook?

The short answer would be "no". I've got little ground to stand on. It is just my good luck that she didn't ask, "Why is Mummy such a complacent slattern?" She could so easily have done. She asked me this question just the other day.

But the damage we unwittingly cause our children is not just confined to the social, psychological and emotional. There is the personal injury too.

Let's be clear, I am no smacker. But I have, on occasion, caused accidental injury. Like the time I encouraged my little one to overcome her fear of heights and jump from the garden table. "Go on, go on," I said. "It will be fine. Trust me."

Needless to say, on landing she turned her ankle and had to be taken for an X-ray, which, mercifully, showed there was no fracture. She was off school for three days, during which time I denied her the privilege of watching television in case she saw an advert for a no win, no fee claim company and decided to sue me.

There was also the time, in a hurry to drop her off at nursery and get to the office so I could write about no win, no fee claims, I hastily ushered her outside and pulled the door shut - on her fingers.

Thankfully, as yet, she knows nothing about accident compensation...

Can I claim?