Understanding that parents would never be so graceless as to list their own complaints about the child-free, No Kidding last week handed over this column to the childed to share a few albeit mild strictures regarding our failings, if any. There were so many, and so heartfelt, that we’ve now been obliged to afford the courtesy of a second column. Let it never be claimed that we childless welch on our undertakings.

With scarcely any more prefatory matter, then — you’ll notice I’m actually trying to filibuster them out of some space here — we’ll begin with Mr P, from Barnes, a father of three children under 6. He pleads: “I wonder if you could stop telling me about your fantastic social life. I know I asked what you’d been up to, but it was purely rhetorical: I don’t actually want to hear that your suite had a plunge pool, or that everybody ended up back at Kate Moss’s, or that the sharks were so close that you could touch them. Show some sensitivity. Please shut up. Last weekend I went to the park four times and saw some tramps.”

It’s a fair point, Mr P, but don’t you see? We are simply trying to fill the void, the chasm of childlessness, with inane chatter, shiny baubles and rodomontade.

Clearly not placated, Mr T has this supplementary: “Or at the very least could you invite me along when you have a lads’ night out? I know it’s highly unlikely I’ll be able to come, but I haven’t taken holy orders yet.”

This would indeed seem a very small courtesy, Mr T, but perhaps the boys considered that you would only feel more excluded if you knew that they were out and you weren’t? I think I’m going to give this one to the child-free.

Still on non-invitations, one of our respondents, a Miss S, a mother of one from Camberwell, complained: “This year alone I’ve had two wedding invitations that specifically excluded children. Who’s next for the ban? Old people? If you think children will ruin your wedding, do you think you should be getting married at all? It’s absolutely ridiculous. It makes my blood boil.”

One marrying couple did complain to us recently that, between the lot of them, their friends had nearly 150 children. That’s the size of a small school, and one can quite see how that might alter a sophisticated metropolitan reception. And the bill. But on the whole, marrying non-parents, we’re slightly ashamed of you on this one.

On to the subject of culture now and Mr D, of Peckham, is angry: “Just because I haven’t seen a play or visited an art gallery or read a book, really, since 2005 doesn’t mean that I’ve become a thick philistine or something.

I didn’t personally invent the genre of ice-dancing reality shows, even if I do now quite enjoy their brand of light-hearted, lobotomised fun. Who’s to say I won’t write a novel soon though? Oh, and we did watch The Wire. Does that count?” Yes, of course it does.

Finally, but first in popularity among parents’ all-time gripes: back-seat parenting. This seems to be the one thing that riles all parents and yet who among us is not guilty? “Is he all right playing near that big pond . . .?”; “Should you be eating all that sugar? Should you? Should you?”; “I think that children really enjoy structure to their day. You know, doing stuff, activities . . .”; “Shall we find you a warmer coat? Did Mummy bring you a warmer coat? Did she?”

As Ms V so eloquently writes, “It’s not just the suggestion that the we failed to see the vast pond right in front of us, it’s also the slight implication that we no longer care, have given up, and would, if it was easier, probably raise the child in a motorway service station.”

You can see how that might offend, but what can you do? It takes a village to raise a child . . .

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