Putting the brakes on growing up

8:19am Tuesday 4th March 2008

At what age does childhood end? According to Jacqueline Wilson, the "children's laureate" and author of those Tracy Beaker books, it's pretty much all over by the time they're 11, when they start boozing, taking notice of fashion, texting rather than speaking and, presumably, becoming initiated into the shadowy world of what exactly goes on in other people's underwear.

There are people close enough to me to be knowledgeable experts on the matter who would say that my childhood has never really ended, given the big boxes of comics in the loft, my propensity for rubbish jokes and the fact that I consider it my parental duty to sit with the children for four hours on Saturday mornings watching cartoons.

As far as Wilson's assertion that 11 heralds the dawn of a scary new adult world, she's probably right in many respects. At 11 you go off to high school, which is populated by older children who in some cases have beards or breasts (or, in the case of my high school, both) and where you become instructed in washing between your toes and between your legs after getting battered half to death at rugby, to avoid frightening-sounding "fungal infections". It's all a far cry from doing star jumps in your black pumps and drawing pictures of space aliens, which is about as much as I remember from primary school.

But... 11? That seems awfully young to me. Thinking back to me being 11, I can recall long summers spent wearing my wellies (despite the heat), train-spotting, playing football (usually all of those at the same time); lighting fires and running away when someone came by; camping in the woods and telling ghost stories; and searching for the absolutely perfect stick which could serve as a rifle, sword, wizard's staff or diverse other implements. One particular summer was spent trying to walk the whole length of a pre-cast concrete wall that encircled our local cemetery. It took the full six weeks for me to be able to do it without falling off once, but by God, what a sense of achievement!

Some of the statistics produced for the study Jacqueline Wilson was responding to, created for her publishers Random House, include: l 71 per cent of parents allow their children to drink alcohol at home before they turn 18.

l 45 per cent of parents let their 16-year-old children sleep the night at a boyfriend or girlfriend's house.

l 53 per cent of children aged 16 and under are permitted to stay out past 11pm To which I can only say: you kids today aren't half lucky beggars. I remember once having a set-to with my parents over something or other, and grandly informing them: "Well, I'm 16 next year and I can do what I want, with who I want, when I want."

To which my Dad sagely replied: "Aye, but not where you want. So you'd better start looking for somewhere to live."

It is a fact that children can't wait to grow up, and it's only with hindsight and retrospect that we look back and wish our childhoods could have lasted a bit longer.

I'm sure my children will be the same when they get to that age, and hopefully I'll be able to do everything I can to encourage them to stay children for as long as possible.

After all, I don't really want to be watching those Saturday morning cartoons all on my own in seven or eight years' time.

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