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Thanks to you, I’ve had various advantages over the parents of normal children. I haven’t had to worry about your schoolwork, nor your choice of career. We never had to waver between the arts and the sciences. Didn’t have to fret about what you would do later, we knew very early on what it would be: nothing.

And, more importantly, for many years I enjoyed the benefits of paying no road tax.1 Thanks to you, I could drive a big American car.

1. Parents of handicapped children with a permanent disability card used to be exempt from paying any road tax. When the exemption was rescinded in 1991 there was no longer any advantage to having handicapped children.

From the moment he got into the Camaro, Thomas, aged ten, has kept on asking the same question he always does: “Where we going, Daddy?”

At first I answer, “We’re going home.”

A minute later, still just as genuine, he asks the question again—it’s not registering. By the tenth “Where we going, Daddy?” I’ve stopped answering …

I’m not really sure where we’re going anymore, my poor boy.

We’re going with the flow. We’re heading straight for a brick wall.

One handicapped child, then two. Why not three …

I wasn’t expecting this.

Where we going, Daddy?

Let’s take the freeway, against the traffic.

We’re going to Alaska. We’re going to stroke the bears. We’ll be eaten alive.

We’re going mushroom-picking. We’re going to pick death caps and make a lovely omelet.

We’re going to the swimming pool, we’ll dive off the highest board … into the pool that’s been drained.

We’re going to the seaside. We’re going to Mont-Saint-Michel. We’ll go for a walk on the quicksand. And get sucked down. And go to hell.

Unperturbed, Thomas keeps it up: “Where we going, Daddy?” Maybe he’ll improve on his record. By the hundredth time it really is a joke. You’re never bored with him; Thomas is master of the running gag.

Anyone who’s never worried about having an abnormal child, please raise their hand.

No one raises their hand.

Everyone thinks about it, just like we think about earthquakes, and the end of the world, the sort of thing that only happens once.

I had two ends of the world.

When you look at a newborn baby, you’re full of admiration. It’s so well put together. You look at its hands, count the tiny fingers, note that there are five on each hand, same with the toes: it’s mind-blowing—not four, not six, no, just five. It’s a miracle every time. Not to mention the insides, which are even more complicated.

Having a child means running a risk … You don’t win every time. But people still keep on having them.

Every second on this earth a woman brings a child into the world … She really must be found and told to stop, added the comedian.

I remember the day we went to the convent in Abbeville to introduce Mathieu to Aunt Madeleine, who is a Carmelite nun.

We were taken to the visiting room, a small, whitewashed space. In the far wall was an opening closed off by a thick curtain. It wasn’t a red curtain like they have in a puppet theater, but a black one. We heard a voice from behind the curtain saying, “Hello, children.”

It was Aunt Madeleine. She’s in a closed order so she’s not allowed to see us. We talked to her for a while, then she wanted to see Mathieu. She asked us to put the stroller in the opening, and turn to face the wall. Nuns in closed orders are allowed to see young children, not older ones. Then she called the other nuns to come and admire her great-nephew. We heard rustling robes, chuckling and laughter, then the sound of the curtain being drawn back. Next came a concert of superlatives and ticklings and teasings for the heavenly babe. “He’s so adorable! Look, Mother Superior, he’s smiling at us, just like a little angel, a little Christ child … !” They came very close to saying how advanced he was for his age.

To a nun, children are first and foremost the Good Lord’s creations, and are therefore perfect. Everything God makes is perfect. They don’t want to see