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My children will never have a criminal record. They’re innocent. They haven’t done anything wrong, they wouldn’t know how to.

Sometimes, in winter, when I see them in balaclavas, I picture them as bank robbers. They wouldn’t be very dangerous with their unconvincing gestures and shaky hands.

The police would catch them easily, they wouldn’t run away, they can’t run.

I’ll never understand why they’ve been so heavily punished. It’s profoundly unfair, they haven’t done anything wrong.

It’s like a terrible miscarriage of justice.

In an unforgettable sketch, Pierre Desproges takes revenge on his young children and the horrors they give him on Father’s Day.

I haven’t actually needed revenge. I’ve never been given anything. No presents, no loving notes, nothing.

On that particular day, though, I’d have paid through the nose for a yogurt pot transformed into a receptacle for loose change by Mathieu. He would have wrapped it in mauve felt and decorated it by sticking on stars he had cut from gold paper all by himself.

On that particular day I’d have paid through the nose for a badly written note from Thomas in which he’d toiled to form the words “i luv yoo verry mutch.”

On that particular day I’d have paid through the nose for an ashtray as gnarled as a Jerusalem artichoke that Mathieu had made out of modeling clay and engraved with the word Daddy.

Because they’re not like other people, they could have given me presents unlike other presents. On that particular day I’d have paid through the nose for a pebble, a dried leaf, a bluebottle, a horse chestnut, a ladybug …

Because they’re not like other people, they could have done drawings for me unlike other drawings. On that particular day I’d have paid through the nose for odd-shaped animals like weird Dubuffet-style camels and Picasso-style horses.

They didn’t do anything.

Not because they were unwilling, not because they didn’t want to, I think they would have wanted to, but they couldn’t. Because of their shaky hands, their poorly focused eyes, and the straw inside their heads.

Dear Daddy,

Because it’s Father’s Day, we wanted to write you a letter. So here it is.

We won’t congratulate you on what you’ve produced: take a look at us. Was it that hard making children like every one else? When you know how many normal children are born every day and you see what some parents look like, you’ve got to think it’s not rocket science.

We weren’t asking you to produce mini geniuses, just normal kids. Once again you wanted to be different. Well, you won, and we lost out. Do you think it’s fun being handicapped? We do have a few advantages. We’ve avoided going to school, no homework, no lessons, no exams, no punishments. On the other hand, no rewards, we missed out on quite a lot of stuff.

Maybe Mathieu would have liked playing soccer. Can you see him out on the field, a fragile little thing amidst great strong brutes? He wouldn’t have come out alive.

Do you think it’s fun spending your life with handicapped people? Some of them are really difficult, they scream the whole time and stop us from getting to sleep, and there are vicious ones who bite.

Because we don’t bear grudges and we’re fond of you, we’re going to wish you a happy Father’s Day.

On the back of this letter there’s a picture I’ve done for you. Mathieu can’t draw so he just sends you a kiss.

Children who are not like the others aren’t some sort of nationwide specialty, there are several different versions.

In the special school that Thomas and Mathieu go to there’s a Cambodian child. His parents don’t speak very good French, their meetings with the head doctor of the establishment are difficult, sometimes epic. They often come out very upset. They always strenuously challenge the doctor’s diagnosis.

Their son isn’t a Mongoloid, he’s Cambodian.

Nobody mention genetics, it’s bad luck.

I’m not the one who thought of genetics, it’s genetics that thought of me.

I look at my two misshapen little kids and hope it’s not my fault they’re not like