Psychologist Nigel Latta's excellent television series on the confessions of a non-PC parent should have been compulsory viewing for all parents, would-be parents and grandparents.
He says kids deserve to know that life isn't always fair, that only their Mum and Dad think they're special, and that we can't always be there to catch them when they fall.
It's not a pretty picture facing our children.
We live in a throwaway society of cellphones and PlayStations.
Parents are too scared to trust in this violent society, so they keep their children in cotton wool to protect them from the world we made.
At the same time, television and the internet expose children daily to ideas, concepts and issues they cannot fully comprehend - if at all.
Parents are often to blame.
As they race around at breakneck speed to meet their hectic schedules, little time is left for the children they conceived.
I was brought up the 1940s.
My parents did their best to shield me from the horrors of World War 2, with its uncensored daily photographs of Hitler's death camps in Auschwitz, Dachau and Bergen-Belsen.
I remember my mother hurriedly cutting them from the overseas pages of the papers as soon as they arrived from Christchurch at the railway station.
My parents experienced their early married life in the 1930s, during the Great Depression, and both suffered unbelievable hardships.
It was finishing a year before I was born, but its stark images of bank managers carting dirt in wheelbarrows and queues outside soup kitchens lingered.
Then the horrors of war began.
I remember the years of World War 2 well, and the toll the war took on my family, schoolmates and friends.
My father grew a surplus of vegetables and fruit, making him in today's pampered society a New Age greenie.
Mum's cake tins were always filled, so life as a child was centred on my home.
But life was not always a bed of roses.
My parents came from a mixed religious upbringing.
I had a stern Catholic Irish bigoted grandmother who placed an enormous pressure on their marriage, causing many altercations.
But this never made us dysfunctional, for my parents taught us to respect our elders and act responsibly to achieve excellence.
My childhood was uncomplicated.
We were allowed to grow up at our own pace in a world untainted by PC, social engineering and the nanny state, so life as a youngster was simple and straightforward.
We were left to be kids.
My late wife and I married in 1958.
Our three boys were encouraged to be boys and live life as such.
At the same time, we encouraged competition with an emphasis on excellence.
While young, they believed in all the fictitious characters, such as Father Christmas, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.
Today's kids grow up with peer pressure from schoolmates, which is not always desirable.
It robs them of their childhood and innocence, and the onset of adolescence come earlier than it did for their grandparents.
My three youngest granddaughters are able to escape to an idyllic holiday home with no television, no computers, and no PlayStations.
They can't wait to get out there.
They entertain themselves by spending hours in the dell, exploring the native trees and birds along a small creek.
On wet days, they make cards and pursue other indoor activities.
Almost daily, they go fishing, diving and swimming.
It's certainly a quintessential lifestyle for youngsters, bringing fresh air into their lives.
They sit down for meals together, ride their bikes, and have jobs to do.
Maybe their rooms are not quite so tidy, but they live as a complete family.
No phone is glued to their ears; instead netball, ballet and St John's keeps them occupied.
Fortunately, they are still children slowly growing into adulthood, not pre-pubescent adults who are out of touch with their parents, insubordinate and obstinately disobedient.
Their parents are in touch with their daughters' world.
They develop common interests, and all lines of communication are always open.
Sadly, other pre-teens have to suffer absentee or lenient parents, ugly divorces, sexual and social abuse, and a lack of responsibility and care.
Their place in the family is sometimes overshadowed by financial commitments, contemporary lifestyles, drugs, alcohol and gambling.
Parents who are unable to cope with their responsibilities should never be permitted to breed.
I know the technology and living standards have changed drastically since I was a father of three young boys in the 1960s and 1970s.
In those days, hardly anyone had a television, let alone a car.
As a result radio, outdoor activities, family cycling and walking trips were our main source of entertainment.
Every time I look at my grandchildren, I thank God for their parents' common-sense approach of not permitting them to grow too fast by force-feeding them materialistic ideas and consumer culture.
A word from Nigel Latta sums it all up.
"When I was young, my mum and dad chose my school simply on the basis that it was the one at the end of the street. No ERO reports, no visits, no Google."
Noel Gillespie is a Christchurch writer.
