We do our best, us mums and dads. You may not think it, but we do

The conviction that we can deliver a happy childhood to those to whom we give birth is linked to two other unquestioned certainties: That every child is entitled to a happy childhood.

And that a happy childhood is the foundation for a productive and happy life.

YOU can’t pick your parents. It’s so unfair. You get landed with these two strangers you’d never have selected, offered a choice. You didn’t ask to be born to them. If you’d had a choice, you’d have wanted to be born to multi-billionaires. Or to parents who didn’t carry the trailing DNA wires of alcoholism, epilepsy or schizophrenia.