M

y teachers always told my parents: '€œEr, he'€™s probably a late developer.'€ Years later, I'€™m beginning to ask how late is late, exactly? This side of the afterlife?

Don'€™t we all just hate people destined for early success? Reader Anita Chau sent me a report about pregnant UK woman Amanda Collins who entered an ultrasound scan of her fetus into a baby beauty contest. Contest officials accepted the entry, although waited until afterbirth to give the baby her prize certificate. (They could have rolled it up really tightly, I suppose. '€œHello, fetus. This is for you.'€)

But her actions raise the parenting bar to a worryingly high level. School admissions officer: '€œAnd can you list your child'€™s achievements before birth?'€ Me: '€œEr, well, she kicked a lot, probably, and practiced breathing, no, wait, there'€™s no air in there, well, she kicked a lot, probably.'€ Like that'€™s going to get her into a decent school.

Can you actually change your fate by sheer determination? Maybe. A deaf thief robbed a house recently, taking his sign-language interpreter with him to facilitate the intimidation of the householder, says a report from a news site in Scotland. Now you have to admire that guy for not letting his disability limit his ambition.

But more common are news reports like the one about the one-legged teenager in Malaysia some years back who joined a snatch-and-run gang and got caught on his first job as he hopped away. Why did his school careers advisor not warn him?

 Yet experts can be wrong. When my school careers officer asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I said: '€œA member of the British royal family.'€ She told me there were limited openings for small Asian people in that line of work, so I ditched the plan.

You can imagine my horror when in 1995 Princess Diana fell madly in love with a handsome south Asian guy (Hasnat Khan) and started dressing in sari blouses to court him. That could have been me! I could have been married to a dangerous scheming woman who slept with her bodyguards and ruined her husband'€™s life.

So it'€™s important to not let people limit you. Still, I continue to hate the phrase '€œfollow your dream'€. This may have something to do with the fact that my most common dream is being naked in the supermarket. A psychologist told me this is an extremely common dream which signifies that you feel inadequate as a human being. I told her, no, it signifies that my supermarket is run by a criminal gang which takes everything customers ('€œvictims'€) have.

So late bloomers, don'€™t despair. Novelist Jean Rhys wrote her first bestseller at 76, and Indian polymath Nirad Chaudhuri wrote a book at the age of 100. No need to rush.

Meanwhile, there'€™s another baby beauty contest coming up. My kids are too old to enter, but I may follow Amanda Collins'€™ lead and send in an x-ray of my reproductive system. This may be an arrestable offense, but at least I'€™ll get some headlines and finally prove my teachers right.