It’s a rites of passage moment for any plucky young kid! Exactly like drawing all over your lovely walls.

Eat your bloody greens! 🥦🫑🥒🫛🟢🟩🍏🥗🤢

One of the greatest early hurdles in life is comprehending broccoli. We all know it’s healthy for us. We also all know it can be bland and incomprehensible. Why eat it when one could spend one’s days eating nothing but ice cream and fizzy drink smoothies with whipped cream topping?

Well, because if all you eat is that sugary stuff you get RABIES and you FROTH AT THE MOUTH! Who wants that!? Not us! And we’re here to help.

Why Broccoli Isn’t Boring Family Food (and how to convince everyone it isn’t)

Dear agony aunt,

My daughter Annunziata is an insubordinate girl! She point blank REFUSES to eat 99% of my meals! I’m an EXCELLENT cook and only use the finest ingredients from top-end supermarkets with our impressive combined wage packages! All those fresh vegetables we offer her and LITTLE MADAM just DOES NOT WANT to eat the broccoli. She’s called it “boring broccoli” and also thinks carrots are “crap”! I screamed at her, “YOUNG LADY, WHERE DID YOU LEARN SUCH AN ABHORRENT WORD?!” But she doesn’t know what abhorrent means… perhaps I was right and she DOES need home schooling?

Regardless, I’m not having my cooking and lifestyle choices criticised by a five-year-old. That is absurd. Indeed, I believe it beholden to me to prove I am correct and she is wrong. As such, I’ve ensured ALL of little Annunziata’s meals are now broccoli-based. Her:

• Breakfast
• Lunch
• Dinner
• Snacks

It’s ALL broccoli. I’m very smug and self-satisfied about this controlling decision, but I’m also 100% certain it’s the right choice for little Annunziata. So I began this regime of broccoli terror, to which Annunziata responded with many temper tantrums right up until the moment she shouted, “Mummy is a dickhead!”

Well, I must say I’ve never known anger quite like that! I grabbed hold of a broccoli stem and waved it angrily at Annunziata whilst roaring mighty loud, “DO NOT BE IMPERTINENT, ANNUNZIATA!”

Of course, she doesn’t know what impertinent means, either! I despair, I really do, and alongside the broccoli regime I’ve determined home schooling is the BEST course of action. It:

• Removes her away from her peers (many of whom are disgusting plebs)
• I can control her each and every morsel of food!

What do you think, agony aunt? And do note, I send this message to your tawdry, vile little website as reputable agony aunts all REJECTED my email as “reprehensible”. I’m now engaged in several lawsuits over such defamation of character! So, choose your words wisely, “agony aunt”!

Kind regards, Lady Annunziata Dameson Dame III

Hi there, Lady Annunziata Dameson Dame III. We agree that broccoli is excellent and anyone who hates it is probably a communist spy or something.

Did you know, we’ve had numerous pet hamsters over the years who’d swoon at the slightest of broccoli. THAT is appreciation. THAT is discipline.

And yet your average workshy five-year-old these days REJECTS the greens in favour of SELFIES and MARXISM and oh my days… hang on, we just realised you made several disparaging remarks about our agony aunt column.

Well, we’ll let that go as we really support your pro-broccoli agenda.

We also agree it’s time to induce HORROR across the land to get everyone eating their greens. We’re not really sure how to achieve that, so our recommendation is to do the tried-and-tested fascist state route and:

• Enforce violent police patrols
• Promote argy-bargy
• Enforce punitive punishments on non-broccoli eaters

Of course, the fussy eaters will whinge. They’ll throw temper tantrums. But eating a bit of broccoli beats getting a truncheon to the gut, eh? Not that we suggest that level of violence with your daughter. The violence is for the adults!

Maybe just remove her selfie taking abilities and, voila, problem solved.

That and hire a butler and a maid (if you haven’t already) to take care of all this beastly mothering business for you.