Are our children worse off than we are? Are we better off than our parents were? Do we have a duty to our children’s and grandchil-dren’s generations? All these thoughts have bubbled to the surface this week thanks to a fairly random concatenation of circumstances.

Over the weekend, I was talking to our daughters about which of our generations had it better. They envied the fact that I was a young woman during that narrow window, postPill and preAids, the only time in living history in which sex could be relatively carefree for girls. Then they bemoaned the way in which our generation had contributed so much to climate change but theirs would suffer from it.

On Tuesday night, though, Channel 4 ran a fascinating programme, called Never Did Me Any Harm, in which a couple of spoilt Noughties children were forced to live for a fortnight the way their father had in the 1970s. Instead of caving into their every whim and doling out money like sweeties, he made them wash their own clothes, dig the allotment, share a bedroom, earn pocket money and eat cheap tinned food. Most of their clothes and toys were taken away and they were expected to do as they were told.

Initially, they squealed like stuck pigs. Never having had to do without anything in their lives, they resented it bitterly. By the end, though, they began to appreciate the connection between effort in and reward out. Having made £10 from baking biscuits and selling them door to door, they decided to spend the money on cooking dinner for their parents. With better boundaries, more respect for their father and the satisfaction of teamwork, they ended up happier.

Then yesterday, that Unicef study gave us chilling news about what it was like to be a child in Britain today. It was almost enough to make me want to move to the Nether-lands, where young people are apparently more than four times happier than here.

For what more can we do as parents? Yes, we can stay together, eat meals with our children and spend as much time with them as we can. But we can’t force their peers to be nice to them – which is what matters most when you’re a teenager. And only 43 per cent of British children say their schoolmates are kind and helpful, compared with 81 per cent in Switzerland.

Mind you, my peers weren’t kind and helpful either. And in other ways, our children are better off than we were. In general, our generation is more emotionally aware than our parents’ was. We and their teachers think harder about the effect of our words on them: for instance, we know that, “What you did was naughty” is less damaging than, “You are a naughty girl”. And fathers of my age are much more involved and affectionate than their fathers were.

Then the children have technology that we’d have died for. They travel more, eat nicer food, have more clothes and toys, and girls have better prospects than we did.

Yet they are also more likely to suffer family breakdown. Their lives may be even more insecure than ours – and ours are less certain than our parents’. The older generation had a job for life, a generous welfare state and a final salary pension. We have capricious employers, the prospect of a nugatory state pension, and private pensions that depend on the vagaries of the markets.

We grew up during the Cold War, with the threat of nuclear annihilation. Our children have the threat of global warming. But our parents lived through a real war – far worse than either. After that, they deserved a cosy working life, guaranteed pensions and cheap houses.

Ah yes, the property market. I used to envy my parents for having bought a house in the 1950s for £5,000. Now it is our generation that is the subject of jealousy. As David Willetts, the Shadow Education Secretary, pointed out in a speech yesterday: “Look at how we got started early on the housing ladder and are now sitting on big increases in the value of our houses while the younger generation find it harder than ever to get started.” He claims that: “The most important single thing going wrong with our country is that we, by which I mean above all the baby boomers, are not doing enough for the generations coming after us.”

I would dispute that. Most of us are starting to recycle, to change to less gas-guz-zling cars, to switch off the lights and lower the thermostat to achieve a cut in carbon dioxide emissions that won’t benefit our generation, but ones to come. Most of us who live in valuable houses will do our best to help our children on to the housing ladder, maybe by trading down to release equity.

They will have higher real incomes than we have. Their working lives will be more flexible, allowing them to balance their family commitments better than we can. The girls among them will suffer less discrimination.

Of course our generation needs to do its bit. But I’m pretty sure that it will. There will be no shortage of generosity from parents who want their children, above all, to be happy. maryann.sieghart@thetimes.co.uk

Dear Mr Martin, please toe the line

A short news item made me laugh this week. Buster Martin, a 100-year-old man, has sought private treatment after being told that he would have to wait up to three months for an NHS operation on an ingrowing toenail. Mr Martin, “a lifelong NHS supporter”, plans to complain to his MP. Up to three months? For an ingrowing toenail? Listen, Mr Martin, you may be very old, but surely you can remember the time, not so long ago, when people were waiting up to 18 months for a heart operation and often died before they had a chance to be treated? I’m sorry, but “up to” three months for an ingrowing toenail sounds like progress to me.

Thin logic

What a spectacle the fashion industry has made of itself over the size zero debate! Models are still sashaying down the catwalks with concave upper arms (how has that ever been attractive?), while most modelling agencies meet press enquiries with a “no comment”.

Then we heard Alexandra Shulman, editor of British Vogue and usually rather sensible, opine that banning skinny models from working might amount to illegal discrimination. “We would not be allowed to discriminate in that way”, she said. “It would be like saying you can’t have black or white models.”

No it wouldn’t. It would be no worse than telling models, “You’re too fat,” which is exactly what agencies have been telling girls for years. Ask Miss England, Eleanor Glynn, who was rejected by three agencies despite being a size 8 to 10 – thin by anyone’s standards, apart from the crazy people who dictate fashion.

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