The son of a senior political figure in Scotland attended a course in the south of England last week and as it was too far for him to drive to Edinburgh on the Friday night came to stay with us. My daughter who knows him well decided to come home from university in Newcastle, and her boyfriend who is at Oxford was not going to leave his girlfriend in the company of another good looking male so he came home too, although he completely denies this motive of course. My youngest daughter unaware of any of this invited three of her friends to a sleepover on the same night. Despite having been at work all week I realized that the hardest work was about to begin. I abandoned any hope of cooking a meal and booked us all into the local pub.

How facinating it is to listen to six young adults discussing the issues of the day and how amazed was I to hear my 21 year old thoroughly modern daughter say “I blame the breakdown of society on the fact that the role of women has become confused. When I get married I am going to stay at home and look after my husband and children and be a homemaker” This from a young woman deciding which post grad course she should take next year? Having finished the meal I left them and went and joined my own friends - only to have them come up and keep asking me to go back and sit with them.

What is up with youth today? They want to become home makers and sit and talk with adults? It’s not supposed to be like this – have teenagers forgotten how to be obnoxious? Or are we at the beginning of a generational change in social attitudes and values?