What makes for childhood happiness? Friends. Family. Community. Fergus Finlayreveals some - mainly good news - findings from a Barnardos survey out today
In The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery said: "Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them."
A lot of parents, of course, think that works the other way around. But the sentiment expresses an important dilemma. Childhood is important to us - we see it as something to be treasured, protected. In doing so we tend to apply nostalgia about our own childhood, rather than try to see childhood as children are living it.
If we are to value and protect childhood, it might make sense instead to see it from the perspective of those who are living through it. That's why, today, Barnardos is publishing a national survey of attitudes towards childhood - the attitudes of parents, and the attitudes of young people themselves.
This is something of a departure for us, because our focus is working with vulnerable children and their families whose well-being is under threat.
Frequently that means working at the heart of some of the most disadvantaged and challenged communities in this country. Official figures of one in nine children living in consistent poverty, or one third of children leaving primary school unable to read or write, are not statistics in that work. They're the reason we do it. What does childhood mean today for the children Barnardos works with and for every other child? The findings we're presenting today are the results of interviews with 400 parents and 200 children. It's a good, independent statistical sample, what's often called in these situations a snapshot. Perhaps the term "family snapshot" might be more appropriate.
In gathering the data we learned how children and parents viewed childhood and each other, what's most important to them, what concerns gave them sleepless nights, how they were responding to the challenges of new communications, what new pressures are shaping children's lives.
There's good news in our results - but like all good news, it's qualified. Our children, by and large, are happy - and they're happy for a lot of good reasons. But children and young people are pretty focused on material routes to happiness as well, and there are grounds for concern in that. And some of our children, a small number, perhaps, but enough to alarm, are deeply unhappy. It's not surprising, perhaps, but I hope it's encouraging, that when parents and children are asked "what makes a happy childhood?", the vast majority say that a loving family is the most important consideration for them. For parents, the number two priority is access to education.
Children themselves put "friends" in the number two slot after family, highlighting that for this generation of young people their close personal relationships are still the most important elements in their lives.
What surprised us all, was that "safe community" came in at number three, for both parents and children. I think it is fair to say that people of my generation and even younger, took the notion of safe community for granted.
If we had had to rank what contributed to a good childhood, I doubt it would even have occurred to us. The reality, of course, was that in many dark ways, and for a minority of children who suffered grievous damage, our communities were not safe at all. But for most of us, safety was something we took for granted.
Parents, in particular, are deeply worried about their children's safety. They recognise, and value the fact, that this generation of children have more freedom than ever before, but at the same time their safety is more threatened. It's a conflict for most parents - trying to strike the balance between freedom and independence on the one hand, and their children's safety on the other.
We know from our research that drugs are a major worry for parents and, in particular, their apparent increased availability. Parents worry about their sons getting into fights, they worry about where their children are growing up. These are issues connected with "physical communities" - neighbourhoods and playgrounds. "Virtual communities" in some ways provoke more anxiety because parents think that they have little control over whom their children meet on-line. The neighbourhood has gone global and parents are racing to catch up.
Our aim with this research is to try to contribute to a national conversation about what childhood means in Ireland today. The challenges Irish children face - even those whose surroundings are comfortable and happy - come from a world that is more dangerous and complex than ever before. For example (and I could give many examples) we're all familiar with terms like alcohol abuse - but we live in a world where some marketers of alcohol, especially those who design and sell specifically to impressionable young people, are the real abusers. Strong family relationships, mutual trust between parents and young people, are critical protective factors in that dangerous world.
Nothing we are publishing today will dilute our determination, along with many other organisations, to continue campaigning to put childhood in Ireland on a central place on the political agenda. We need constantly to remind politicians and policymakers that children in poverty or living with a disability are discriminated against and that children from immigrant backgrounds can face a spectrum of challenges which State resources and services are struggling to respond to. We are fearful that children who are already suffering disadvantage and neglect will be among those expected to "tighten their belts" in the new era of economic retrenchment, and we are determined not to allow that to happen.
But as I said, our research shows that even in the context of unprecedentedly rapid social, demographic and economic change, relationships between parents and children in Ireland are still holding strong across region, class and generations. That's something well worth recognising and building on.
Fergus Finlay is chief executive of children's charity Barnardos