As a remedy for a child’s smelly feet, Botox injections would hardly be the first treatment to come to mind. But that is how actress Sharon Stone proposed to cure her eight-year-old son Roan’s personal hygiene problems, according to leaked documents from a custody battle. Her ex-husband argues that this is paranoid and obsessive parenting. Not to mention downright wasteful.

I don’t know how renewable the resource of Botox actually is, but I’d hate to see global supplies squandered on young lads’ feet when we’re going to need every drop to keep Joan Rivers aloft. But in Sharon’s household, I suspect, Botox plays the same role as Sudocrem does in ours — the first line of defence for every scratch, scrape, burn and pimple. Some rich women even have their handbags injected with Botox to keep them supple, so you can see why Sharon saw nothing wrong with giving it a whirl.

The cost, $500 (€360) a pop, is hardly much of a deterrent to a rich actress and, even if it would be cheaper and maybe more effective to make sure the lad washed his feet and changed his socks regularly, the more drastic treatment offered the appealing prospect of a quick fix. In the world of privilege, I guess problems have a knack of disappearing if you just throw enough money at them, even those that could be better resolved by hands-on parental attention.

So Sharon Stone, who also insisted that her son be treated for a rare spinal condition when he was suffering a mild bout of constipation, has now lost custody of the boy after a court ruled she was a neurotic mother who “over-reacts to medical issues”. The actress has denied the reports of her unique treatment for stinky feet, calling it a "complete fabrication" and her lawyers say she still has the visitation rights she always enjoyed. But, in what might seem like a counter-intuitive conclusion, the court found the actress was a negligent parent. Surely if you’re prepared to spend a fortune to haul in the most expensive medics at the first hint of a sniffle, you can’t possibly be a negligent parent, can you?

Actually, a lot of what passes for parental indulgence borders on neglect; smothering and over-fussy parenting can be an easier option than taking the trouble to consider a child’s real, often time-consuming, needs. I really doubt a healthy, well-nourished eight-year-old could have offensively smelly feet but, even if he did, rushing him to a Botox specialist and leaving him with a complex about his hygiene was hardly the most caring solution. Benignly ignoring the problem, while taking care to ensure the child was clean, healthy and happy, would have been a cheaper but more labour-intensive response.

I do feel sorry for Bob Geldof, for all his prickly arrogance, because he has become something of a poster boy for How Not To Raise Your Children in circumstances of personal prosperity. Peaches, who threw a strop in Dundrum town centre, seems like a right handful. But you don’t need a degree in child psychology to figure out the origins of her needy, attention-seeking behaviour. I doubt those girls grew up wanting for any material thing. I suppose Geldof believed that giving them all the freedom and money they demanded might somehow compensate them for things he couldn’t or didn’t provide.

If you haven’t had a child busted for drug use or married in Vegas at 19, then it’s easy to lecture Geldof on how he should have put saving the world on hold to read bedtime stories. But almost every time-poor modern parent takes short cuts that their own parents didn’t while convincing themselves that material and financial indulgences amount to giving their children a better start in life.

It’s easier to pay a stranger to give your child grinds in maths, for instance, than to engage your own brain and spend a Saturday morning reacquainting yourself with algebra. It’s handier to bring a child to the doctor for a pre-emptive strike of antibiotics than to weather a bad cold that might just keep you both at home for a day or two. No child under 12 actually needs a mobile phone — the only person it really helps is the parent who no longer has to make firm arrangements for collection from outings or after-school activities; the children’ll ring if they’re stuck.

I’ve heard of parents who give their children two mobile phones for school — one to hand up to teacher if either rings in class. Apart from suiting themselves under the guise of loving, attentive parenthood, these geniuses are also teaching their kids it’s clever to break the rules if you have the means to get away with it. A nice message if you’re raising a household of investment bankers; not especially helpful otherwise.

If you’re still convinced that indulgence and neglect are mutually exclusive concepts, just take a look around at the generation of obese children we’ve produced. The problem is so acute an academic suggested last week that schools alert parents to their children’s weight problems, much as they’d raise concerns over attendance, schoolwork or behaviour. This is neither a socio-economic nor an awareness problem. Middle-class kids are just as likely to be fat as poor ones, and nobody can plead ignorance about the dangers of a diet high in sugar and transfats.

It’s about taking the easiest option and dressing it up as a loving treat and whether that’s ordering regular takeaways or encouraging your child to sample the foie gras at the gourmet restaurant in Collioure that doesn’t do a kids’ menu, the effect on their body mass index will be much the same.

I’m terribly self-righteous about banning televisions from bedrooms, but that hasn’t ensured that my children retire early with well-thumbed hardback copies of Treasure Island under their arms. Instead, whoever loses the battle over The Simpsons versus America’s Next Top Model slopes off with a computer game, or will at least pretend to be reading until I’m safely back downstairs.

It takes time and effort to police the wholesome and healthy, and sometimes you don’t have the energy and it’s easier to turn a blind eye. But it is a little disingenuous to buy those addictive Warcraft games that keep youngsters occupied for hours on end and pretend it’s only because you don’t want them to feel left out among their peers in the schoolyard. It rots their brains but, be honest, isn’t the peace and quiet wonderful?

Extracting a pair of ancient sports socks from a kit-bag last week, I hated myself for briefly wondering if the Botox trick actually works. So cave in to Pester Power or plain laziness by all means, but at least have the decency to feel guilty about it.

Pot of gold

I don’t know if it was a conscious juxtaposition, but a news item the other night about the parlous state of the national economy, and this €10 billion shaped hole in the public purse, was followed immediately by the latest exploits of Dillon the drug sniffing wonderdog. In just one day’s work — which he seems to enjoy no end — Dillon had detected some €10m worth of cannabis resin in the bottom of a truck.

If there was any possibility of recycling that drug for commercial use — and it does seem a shame to destroy something so potent and valuable without at least considering all options in these cash-strapped times — then at that rate Dillon could have us back in the black in no time.

brenda.power@sunday-times.ie

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