He wolfed down a couple of stale Krispy Kreme donuts with his coffee, hoping to settle his stomach. After sitting for several minutes listening to the fridge hum, he pulled himself to the granite counter and began preparing breakfast. He knew the kids were awake before he heard them. Bart always clicked out of the kitchen and bounded upstairs moments before the muffled cries began. Like all labs, he adored his tormentors.

'No!' Thomas heard his daughter, Ripley, shriek. Tumbling footsteps along the hallways, then, 'No-no-no-no!' all the way down the stairs.

'Dad!' the eight-year-old cried as she barrelled into the kitchen. She was thin and willowy in her Donna Duck pyjamas, with a pixie face and her grandmother's long, raven-black hair. She swung into her seat with the strange combination of concentration and abandon that characterized everything she did. 'Frankie showed me his you-know-what again!'

Thomas blinked. He'd always been an advocate of early childhood sex education, but he could see why most parents were keen to keep the genie in the bottle for as long as possible. Shame was a lazy parent's way of teaching discretion. Or so he told himself.

She made a face. 'His thing, Daddy. His'—she screwed up her face as if to give the official word an official female expression—'peeenis.'

Thomas could only stare in horror. Dammit, Tom, he could hear Nora say. They need their own rooms. How many times … He called out upstairs, wincing at the volume of his own voice. 'Frankie! Do you remember what we said about your morning—' He caught himself, looked askance at Ripley. 'Your morning… you-know…'

Frankie's petulant 'Yes' floated up from the nether regions of the house. He sounded crestfallen.

'Keep your pecker in your pants, son. Please.'

Of course Ripley had been watching closely. 'Pecker, Daddy? Eeww!'

Thomas grabbed the bridge of his nose and sighed. Nora was going to kill him.

No shame, he told himself. The world was lesson enough. Ripley was already fretting over what clothes to wear, talking about how L'Oreal was better than Covergirl was better than whatever. Soon they would wince at photographs of themselves, at the sound of their voices on the answering machine, at the rust spots on the rockers of their car, and so on, and so on. Soon they would be good little consumers, buying this or that bandaid for their innumerable little shames.

Not if he could help it.