Not short of ideas, mind you, just short of enthusiasm to pontificate on my chosen topic this week: sins of the father and sins of the mother.

I was going to address, even lecture, fellow parents of young adults on the importance of casting our minds back to the so-called good old days - when we were full to overflowing with youthful exuberance - before kicking our kids’ butts over their latest indiscretion, social faux pas, or act of unkindness or disrespect towards us.

MM1 backed into someone’s spanking new company car near Coles in Lyttleton Terrace a few weeks ago, then did a runner. Not intentionally, so she says. But some upstanding citizen wrote down the number plate, so guess who got the call from the police - and the repair bill? Angry, you bet.

But then I remembered how I took off down the street in my mother’s Datsun 500 with my kid sister and brother in the back. I was 17, unlicensed and didn’t have a clue how to drive properly. That was far more irresponsible than nudging a Falcon in a car park.

Earlier in the week, when I was enthusiastic about writing the column on people’s past sins, I canvassed the office and friends for glory tales of boys and girls behaving badly.

I was overwhelmed.

The men gloated when recounting tales of skinny dipping, streaking, and being stripped naked by their mates, vomiting in their girlfriend’s new car, vomiting in their pants, vomiting after drinking their entire body weight in beer. Getting naked and then vomiting was a consistent theme.

The women were a bit more circumspect about their past.

Most of their horror stories involved drinking wine or spirits, a boy and sometimes, vomiting. Yuk. Yuk. Yuk.

No doubt you can appreciate my dilemma: the story was going nowhere. Leading by example is such an overrated pastime.

Back to the future. MM1 is out with her friends tonight, celebrating the end of their first year at uni. Still out, in fact. Hope she doesn’t vomit when she gets home. More yuk.