Join the club

I’m bored.’ ‘Read a book.’ This sequence more or less summarises my childhood (along with ‘I’m hungry.’ ‘Eat some fruit.’) At the time, such instruction was loathsome and it never ceased to amaze me that the grown-ups didn’t seem to grasp the fact that I had obviously considered, and rejected, the idea of picking up a book. They never appeared to be sympathetic to my boredom, in spite of my heartiest attempts to reflect the ennui that was oozing from my every pore. In fact, boredom was positively encouraged by our parents — it was the mother of invention.

Those were the days. For many of today’s parents, boredom is not so much the mother of invention as the father of failure. It’s a prospect feared by the young, and abhorred by parents who can’t bear the thought of their little darlings not being subjected to a constant whirligig of entertainment.