I read the above with interest - and then the comments that followed. I have a slightly different slant on things, but it does not come from having children.

I have always been angered by those who send their parents to an old age home, with the excuse that they must concentrate on their own children (I wonder whether it is those parents who end up with snowflake kids still living with them when they are forty).

Anyway, here is my thought. I have owned a creche (yeah, I know, odd, but I believe that if I surround myself with young minds, I'll stay young much longer). I did not spend my days running the creche, I had two ladies do that, but I watched and often talked with the kids.

I came to understand something very puzzling: they seemed to have a better understanding of what is fair - therefore, of the economics as you explained? than their older brothers or sisters or children we looked after from lunch till five.

Have you encountered this kind of reverse progress in children and, if so, have you an explanation?