‘Oh sweetheart,’ I smiled lovingly at my four-week-old, Teddy, one night at 3am, while changing his nappy, ‘would you please shut the f–k up for just one second?’ He did in fact stop yelling at me for just one second – and started pissing on me for several more seconds, instead.

That made me laugh one of those mirthful what’s-the-point-of-it-all laughs. ‘Fair enough,’ I replied to the little squirt, mopping up the fresh spillage and creaming his bottom with whatever-the-hell cream it is wives buy for husbands to use on newborns – doubtless for the sole purpose of pissing us off.

A grudging peace obtained between the opposing parties for the rest of the nappy change. Teddy didn’t scream at me, but his furrowed brow and suspicious eyes implied that he would again unholster his penis and shoot me right between the eyes if I didn’t proceed with caution.

It’s hard not to love a little guy with that much attitude. And, philosophically and cosmologically speaking, God – or at least my own parents – must be getting a good chuckle out of seeing me pissed on and pooped on at regular intervals. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving person, they probably think, and they’d be right.

See – I’m reliably informed I belong to what’s called the Millennial generation, so I guess it serves me right. Speaking of generations, I think it’s generally accepted knowledge that Baby Boomers – what’s the technical term for it? – suck. The story of the Baby Boomers is the story of a generation repeatedly rigging society’s rules every ten years or so to give themselves maximal advantage at whatever stage of life they happened to be passing through at the time.

Whether it was dodging fruitless wars as youths or starting fruitless wars as adults, living high off the hog of the accumulated capital – social and financial – of their own parents, or raiding the next generation’s piggy bank through grotesque money printing and profligate government spending, the Baby Boomers have proved themselves an admirably crooked bunch.

But what happens when such a hash of a generation starts having kids? Millennials.

The Boomers may have been impressively irresponsible, but at least they were crafty. To twist and bend and surreptitiously re-write the rules, you at least have to know them. One admires Boomers in the way one admires a criminal mind forever in mid-season form. Millennials, by contrast, are simply too stupid to think of – let alone get away with – any shady enterprises.

Apparently, my generation is having a hard enough time even having a good time, with sexual encounters notably on the wane compared to generations past. This is unsurprising – as popular reports indicate we no longer observe the classical distinction between penis and vagina. That would be ‘binary’ thinking, you see?

Call me old-fashioned, but I’ve always thought it a good idea to know what things mean or do when it comes down to brass tacks. Ever tried entering battle against an armed and dangerous foe without knowing what your weapons are or do – or even who the enemy is? Neither have I. But it doesn’t strike me as a cracker of a good idea.

A generation that doesn’t even know the difference between a chick and a dude sure as hell will create new problems. They might have a harder time solving old ones.

Maybe this is what those crafty Boomers were trying to achieve all along when educating us Millennials: ‘Alright, we’ve raided their bank accounts, now let’s fill their heads with such bunkum they can’t even find their own dicks – much less notice we’ve swiped their wallets.’

A suspicious-minded person might think a conspiracy was at play here. But, since I haven’t started day-drinking, I’m yet to become that person. Which isn’t to say – sober though I notionally am – I’m entirely sure what my point is with all this rambling, either. Ah! That’s it. I was coming to the question of whether having a kid will cure Millennials like me – heck, Millennials generally – of the epidemic of stupidity running rampant through our minds.

It’s probably not true to say I’m representative of my generation. I may have drunk, smoked, munched, and snorted nearly every illicit substance on offer at every hour of every day of my twenties – but still, at age 31 I wasn’t so brain-damaged that I voted for the Voice.

So, at least I have that much going for me.

Actually, I have much more going for me: parental support – moral and financial. Both my parents and parents-in-law are morally and financially upright folks, even if they are Boomers. When we found out my wife was pregnant early this year they opened their hearts – and their wallets – to ensure our first child wouldn’t suffer unduly by having me as his father.

They helped us buy a house and have generally been on call for baby-this-or-that, too.

‘Have you received your handyman’s licence, yet?’ my mother-in-law asked me, with hope in her eyes, after I boldly announced my manly intention to put together some Ikea furniture, unassisted. When she spotted me an hour later holding the hammer wrong-side-up, she gently intervened. And boy do we need the help. (Well, I do at least. In addition to being a brilliant lawyer who earns stacks more cash than I do, my wife somehow got her handyman licence years ago – an accomplishment for which she has earned my undying resentment.)

Fatherly trials and tribulations aside, I can honestly report that my little Teddy is simply the best thing that’s ever happened to me – coequal with and not unrelated to meeting and marrying my wife.

One of the things I didn’t expect was how much having a screaming bundle of joy straightens out one’s thinking. It’s hard to be a hapless, narcissistic Millennial basket-case when you’ve got a baby relying on you for survival – and believe me, I’ve given it the old college try.

Much ink has been spilt by Boomers on the subject of why Millennials are so repulsive and just what can be done about them. Happily, I have the answer: children. Don’t just encourage your twenty-or-thirty something satanic spawn of an offspring to procreate and prosper – demand it of them. Shove fistfuls of cash into their pockets if you must. A screeching little terror of their own is – I promise you – a highly effective expedient for getting Millennials to shut the hell up and take some responsibility for something for once in their damned lives.

Which reminds me, my Teddy is again screeching at me right now.