• family
• divorce

It is the conceit of every generation that their own childhood took place during the end of an era. I’m guessing that this more accurately reflects the rose-tinted spectacles view of our childhood that many of us have. In truth there are so many changes happening all the time—the motor car, world wars, television, computers, the internet, sliced bread—that it is easy for our internal pundit to draw the conclusion that, say, the invention of the toaster really did signify the end of one era and the start of another. I need then to be especially careful when I propose that Things Have Changed with respect to the family. I think I have a basis though.

When I was aged ten and in junior school I was fairly sure—in the way that small boys can be sure about these things—that I was the only one in my class with divorced parents. This is not to imply a school in a particularly affluent or advantaged area, …