I've started to feel bitter in middle-age.

I've started to utter phrases such as "It wasn't like that in my day," and "What's the world coming to?"

But whereas most people who spout such things are looking at the past through rose-coloured glasses, and drawing unfavourable comparisons between today's lifestyle and that of yesteryear, I see things differently.

I think, compared with today, my generation had it tough when growing up. Take teenagers - what a cushy time they have nowadays, with all sorts of perks, like: High school proms In my day proms were something you saw in American films like Grease and Peggy Sue Got Married. When we left school, we simply left. Our exam results were pinned on the notice board, we glanced at them, then went home. For weeks we had worked hard, revised until the early hours, stayed in - yet no-one threw a black tie party in a posh hotel, with fabulous food and music, in our honour.

Now, pupils celebrate the end of their exams with a major bash. Posh frocks, limousines, champagne. The lads look gorgeous in their dinner suits (well, they would to a woman of 46), whereas I remember sixth form boys as a motley crew in ripped T-shirts and PVC trousers, trying desperately to pass themselves off as hardened punk rockers.

Mobile phones Young people today don't know they're born. They can have conversations with friends - in particular boyfriends - in the privacy of their own bedroom. Or the downstairs loo, or the garage. They don't have to suffer the embarrassment of having the conversation interrupted by a parent, telling you to hurry up while reminding you who pays the phone bill.

Mobiles, on pay-as-you-go contracts give young people a freedom that we never had. I know where most of my pocket money would have gone had I been so lucky.

Chauffeurs I know children are wrapped in cotton wool, and their freedom is severely restricted by paranoid parents. But every cloud has a silver lining. Kids get ferried from A to B to C to D. I used to have to take the bus to travel to friends' homes in neighbouring villages. If I stayed on after school for netball practice, I had to walk into town and wait for the bus home. I spent hours waiting for buses. Nowadays mum, dad, aunt or uncle are there to pick up their kids no matter what, where or when.

Gap years In my day, breaks of any sort outside official holidays, were definitely frowned upon. Anyone whose CV included a year building dams for sea otters in Chile would have been laughed out of court. We were always told how a continuous, unbroken, work record - and that meant proper work, in places like banks and offices - was necessary to get on in life.

Yes, teenagers have it good these days. Yet, when I really think about it, I wouldn't want to be in their shoes. What, with all that dressing up in starchy ball gowns, paying your own phone bill, having mum collect you from discos and sleeping rough in Cambodia.

No thanks.