Daniel Finkelstein: Happily, children don't have such a hard time

Yesterday, with great fanfare, the results of The Good Childhood Inquiry were published. Knowing you, you probably read all about it. But let’s just say, for a moment, that you didn’t. I will provide a brutal summary. Not at all, all part of the service.

The inquiry concluded that children in Britain are unhappy. This is largely caused by the behaviour of their parents, especially working women. And this damaging behaviour results from the social evil of excessive individualism. There were a couple of hundred more pages, but that just about does it.

Here is an equally brutal summary of my response. Children in this country are not unhappy. The inquiry presents no convincing evidence at all that children are being damaged by the behaviour of their parents or by women working. There is no reason to believe that our individualism is excessive or a social evil. And even if it were, it is impossible to divine what might connect individualism to the happiness of children or the behaviour of parents.

Read it all.