Is America’s ‘despair epidemic’ about to arrive in Britain?

However stressful and bad things get for a parent of young children, there is always one thought that puts it all in perspective – just wait until they’re teenagers and they’re calling you up at 3am asking for a lift from a nightclub in New Cross. So reports like this one, showing that one in four adolescent girls suffer from depression, are bound to add to that gnawing feeling of dread.

Firstly the caveats – any statistic that claims ‘1 in such and such’ suffers from this, or is a victim of this, should be treated with scepticism. Depression is also an ill-understood term, a medical diagnosis widely applied by non-medical experts. But it’s safe to say that a lot of people are unhappy, and in particular a lot of young women.

The ‘paradox of declining female happiness’ is a well-attested fact of modern life, although the causes are much debated.  The most obvious factor must be the pressure to have it all, both a successful career and motherhood, something which is beyond the means of so many people and leaves them feeling like failures.