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An inscription from 2800 BC reads as follows: “Children no longer obey their parents. Every man wants to write a book, and the end of the world is evidently approaching.”
Not much has changed since then, except that these days every man wants to head a committee that writes an influential report on how the end of the world is approaching, and the government should do something about it forthwith.
The man who led the committee that produced this week's doom-mongering report is Lord Layard, an economist who specialises in happiness. The report, published by the Children's Society, argues that although Britain has got richer, its children have got unhappier because we are all too focused on individual gain. It's a familiar thesis, which sits comfortably with the generally accepted notion that we're all going to hell in a handcart.
But the evidence that children are more miserable than they used to be is thin. According to the report, nine out of 10 children are cheerful. That seems to me rather impressive; and the report doesn't tell us whether even more were content in the past. Figures on whether trust, community and values were better in the old days came from asking adults. A large majority said they were. As my children would say: well, duh.
On mental health problems among children, the report does cite a study looking at changes over time. Parents and children were asked questions about behaviour and emotional problems between 1977 and 2006. These problems increased between 1977 and 1999; the figures stabilised thereafter. I was at school in the 1970s, and deeply unhappy much of the time, but I tended to keep the matter to myself. My daughters make it quite clear when things aren't going their way.
I suspect those figures reflect the relaxation of the national stiff upper lip, which is probably a good thing, rather than the growth of misery.
Nothing in the report justifies the conclusion that, as Rowan Williams says in a glowing afterword, “we are deeply in thrall to individualism … and this hampers our capacity really to put ourselves at the service of the growth and safety of a new generation”.
The report merely asserts that “in Britain and the US the balance has tilted too far towards the individualistic pursuit of private interest and success” and contrasts societies on the European mainland favourably with ours.
Hostility to individualism is fashionable on both the Right and the Left; but given the history of the 20th century, this seems to me odd. Anglo-Saxon individualism, after all, gave us the notion of human rights; European collectivism gave us fascism and communism.
Britain does have a serious problem with its children. A small minority of them are poor, abused, incipiently criminal and unlikely to have a decent life. There is good stuff in this report about these people, and about how the government and schools should help them. But by burying this important issue under unsubstantiated claims of a widespread social failure, Lord Layard's report does them a disservice.
Brad reveals Brown's secret
CULTURAL artefacts often have an unexpected contemporary relevance. Little Dorrit, featuring a respected financier who turns out to be a swindler, was screened just as Bernard Madoff, who invested money for half the world's A-list, was exposed as a fraudster.
So it is with The Strange Case of Benjamin Button, starring Leonardo di Caprio. The film is about a man who gets younger as he gets older: his energy reserves are replenished, he finds new sources of vitality, his sagging skin tightens. Every time I see Gordon Brown, on whom the economic crisis seems to be working like monkey-gland serum, I see a sinister real-life version of this film.
Why Britain needs to breed
JONATHON Porritt claims that people who have more than two children are immoral because their families will use too many of the world's resources. He's right that we should be more economical with resources but wrong about offspring.
The problem in the rich world is not too many children but too few. Women in the rich world came to the conclusion that it was more amusing to shop than to look after children, so we aren't producing enough children. The depleted next generation is going to have to work horribly hard to pay for the Zimmer frames and Bingo cards we'll need in our retirement. We need to breed, if only to lighten the burden on our unfortunate children.
* Emma Duncan is deputy editor of The Economist
Reader views (13)
Surely it is povery of CARE that infests our society today, not poverty of posessions, or "classic" poverty of sustainance.
This brings us back again to the unpalatable question of lack of quality parenting, does it not?
- Darius Midwinter, London UK, 04/02/2009 10:07
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Interesting that on the same page we have "why Britain needs to breed" and just below it "goodbye Polish nannies". There are already 6.5 billion people on this overloaded planet, and yet we encourage people to make more children so that they can support us in our old age. Something along the same lines is even enshrined in the tax laws in France where the third child carries significant fiscal and benefits advantages.
Surely the real answer (or at least, the most practical for the future of the human race?) is that we drop the barriers and xenophobia and invite migrant workers to fill the void left by our reluctance to breed. Provided we don't allow them to work here tax-free, that way we can all be supported in our old age without making the global population explosion any worse.
- Chris, London, 03/02/2009 22:55
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Charles Lovegrove has put it best I believe, I agree
- Rob, Peterborough, 03/02/2009 16:57
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Ha ha Hazel...A fifty (or more so)...kid!...never seen one of them before
- Charles Lovegrove, United Kingdom, 03/02/2009 16:43
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To say that only people in child care "professions" know children as Hazel says here is to hit the wrong nail on the head. What is wrong is these so-called "professionals" think they know kids when they clearly don't. The reason we have problems with young boys knifing one another is because young girls are in the jobs they would once have got because those women would be at home. Most women I know openly say want to be looked after by a man and have his kids, most but of course not all, and it is time we catered again for the silent majority and not the vocal minorities and that has a price and the price is more men have to find work and more women have to return to the home. We can't say we want this thing as the vast majority of both men and women do and not accept that to achieve that changes have to be made. We need to go back to the future, back to the 70's and sticking by things, for richer or poorer, for better or worse. You can't turn the clock back? Just you watch this recession do exactly that. The experiment of women out of the home has led to this and very very few are happy with it, only a fool says never go back the way you came if you were happier back then.
- John, Dundee, UK, 03/02/2009 16:23
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This is a great article, I think half feel too much presure to do your best, the other half only know how to do nothing and blame everyone else.. Dont know why Im writing this for you lot to read..
- Chris, Leeds, Yorkshire, 03/02/2009 14:54
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Send in the four horsemen then. That will solve the growing and ageing population woes. Those that are left will learn to care more - for a while.
- Doom Sayer, London, 03/02/2009 14:53
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To offer any meaningful opinion on the Children's Report you would need to (a) have been one oneself for a good, say, half a century (preferably more) to give you a sense of comparison (b) been a parent at least once and (c) have worked with a wide spectrum of children as teacher or in other child care professions over this time. Do you qualify...?
- Hazel, Newbury UK, 03/02/2009 14:15
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I was a 3rd child and my parents were so influenced by their achievements that they were unable to nurture any inclination I had for creative application and I was left amongst a whirlwind of out-moded and non-purposeful individualistic society - experiencing a 'sort of' mid life crisis.This society we live in has no established community basis, unless it is guaranteed by corporate doctrine or council provincialism. We are all victims of 'Rude Capatilism' we have no framework of proper creative schooling and such things are required in order to develop new industry stratagem.Kids are ignored and have been for a long long time and,those who hav bitten off more than they could chew are starting to choke!
- Charles Lovegrove, United Kingdom, 03/02/2009 13:14
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And so your solution to an ever growing aging population is to add to it with even more people. Smart...
- Jonathan, London, 03/02/2009 12:58
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hmm.. are you trying to justify your own maternal instincts..? its quite clear we do not need to breed.. perhaps we could move away from this individualism towards a more tribal approach to elders and community.. not breed more so we can care less..?!
- Benjamin, Birmingham, 03/02/2009 12:25
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"The depleted next generation.....to lighten the burden on our unfortunate children." Get serious. According to the National Audit Office, in 2006 more than 60% of Britain's 700 biggest companies paid less than £10m corporation tax, and 30% paid nothing...... And now we've got to rely on the idiots who got us into this economic shamble to get us out of it. Fat chance.
- Neil Mitcham, Southport, 03/02/2009 11:54
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Since when is Leo in Benjamin Button?
- Sam, Putney, 03/02/2009 10:41
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