My view: 'I'm sorry but' ... all children should be at centre of family life

I'm sorry, but ... actually, I really am no fan of the "I'm sorry but..." brigade – those sickeningly smug types who insist on countering any criticism they hear of their middle-class views.

For example, the criticism, raised again this week, that pushy parents do more harm than good by over-promoting their little treasures.

"Well, I'm sorry but..." trill out the pushy mothers in full-on Valkyrie mode, "...it's the pushy parents of this world who are responsible for its greatest achievements. You should be thanking us, not trying to guilt-trip us."

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There they go again, falling headlong into the trap set by cynical headline-grabbers who want to prod them into a hectoring, irritating reaction that makes a mockery of them, even when they do have a point ... as I believe they do, in this case.

This week's cynical headline-grabber is family therapist David Code, who has written To Raise Happy Kids, Put Your Marriage First.

"Families centred on children create anxious, exhausted parents and demanding, entitled parents," he says. "We parents today are too quick to sacrifice our lives and our marriages for our kids."

Hmm, it's hard not to fall into the "I'm sorry but..." brigade after hearing that, because what does he mean? That a child can have too much love and attention? That adults are more important than children?

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Well, I'm sorry but... if a child's parents don't put him or her first when they are too young to look after or decide for themselves, what hope is there for them?

Children need the security of knowing that they are the most important people in their parents' lives. Ask anyone who was brought up by parents who were engrossed only in each other, whether it was their love for each other or their hatred, and they will tell you that it's a pretty miserable, insecure place for a child to be, leading to problems with all later relationships.

If our society has shifted over recent decades to become child-centred, that can only be a good – indeed, a great – development. Gone are the days when children were seen and not heard, ignored and treated as second-class human beings. Sadly, this doesn't happen in all families and we see the results of negligent parenting on the streets and in the news.

"Man hands on misery to man" wrote Philip Larkin in 1971, when many parents treated children like inconvenient, potentially evil little beings who needed to be ignored or slapped down.

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But the modern generation of parents is trying to break the cycle, to stop the misery being handed down. Often they do so to the annoyance of their own parents, who presumably think they ought to be paying them more attention instead.

No ifs, no buts ... every child is entitled to the boundless love and devotion of their parents, above everything, and everyone, else.