Kids basically are still the same as we were when I was one but you have to admit that what has changed is what the kids today count as entertainment. And even more different is what the kids today eat…

When I was a little girl you went to a birthday party in your best and frilliest dress. The party was always held at a house. The party table was decorated to look like something out of a Disney film – the Mum was always dressed in a pretty frock with an apron tied around her waist, Dad was there but seemed busy blowing up balloons or hiding in his backyard shed.

The cake (either chocolate or vanilla with pink icing) was a work of art as Mum (or Nan) had spent the previous 24 hours making it herself. Then you’d all play games very politely, there was always one kid who ended up crying for some reason or other, and you’d all sit around the party table for ‘the party’.

The food was proper party food too. Sweets, crisps, sausage rolls, little frankfurts with tomato sauce – and cordials. And you’d take home a slice of cake and a bag of sweets.

Now thesedays. I took my son to his friend’s birthday party on the weekend – his friend was six. It was held at one of those ‘climb and play’ places and the party food was part of the package. The party food was designed to cater for all the allergies that kids today seem to suffer from; there were kids with nut allergies (of course), a couple with additive allergies, one with gluten issues and one very challenging little chappie with ADHD. Boy, was he a barrel of laughs…!

Chicken nuggets and chips with juice in a tetra pak - that was it. The cake was made so that all those allergy-prone kids could eat it, which meant it looked like nothing more than a large biscuit with candles poked into the top. Towards the end of the party some of the kids – remember these were six year olds – took out their mobile phones to call their parents to come collect them.

One kid boasted that there were 3 playstations and a Wii in her home, another stated he had a playstation, a Wii and an Xbox and one little boy near me told another that he had dumped his girlfriend during the week.

When I tried to take photos of my son with his friends at the party table an employee of the ‘climb and play centre’ stepped up to warn me it was against their ‘child protection policy’ to use a camera to photograph children on the premises. I took the blasted photo’s anyway.

Somehow I think we had it so much easier when we were kids. But one thing was the same – the frazzled look on the host Mum’s face at the end of it all.