At this time of year, I always perform in pantomime, which involves working with children. These youngsters are, without fail, exceptionally wonderful.  

As the curtain comes down at the end of each show, there will normally be a small hand slipping into mine as a child, bewildered by the artificial darkness caused by the lights going down, looks to me to protect her.  

Because I don't have any offspring of my own, this is the only contact I have with children, through my work in such shows as Aladdin, this year, and the children's TV series Barmy Aunt Boomerang, Brum and Teletubbies. 

So to suddenly have a child putting her trust in me evokes very strange emotions. As I try to guide this little soul to safety, her sense of wonderment is tangible: the hopes and dreams which she has are all clearly there, waiting to take more mature form.  

It may seem strange in a world that often revolves around children, with people saying that having children is the point of being alive, but I have never wanted one of my own.  

Considering all the problems in the world and the maze of difficulties that the passage from childhood to adulthood takes, I believe parents are either saints or masochists. As for myself, I cannot think of one good reason for giving up my peace or my sanity.  

I come from a background where my parents constantly told my sister and me never to have children. They wanted us to be financially independent, but never made us feel unwanted.  

My sister hasn't got children, not because of this advice but for the same reason that I don't: we were part of a generation of women who believed that to have a career meant you should NOT have family.  

And the absence of children doesn't stop there. My husband's sister didn't have children, my aunts never had any and virtually all my close friends don't have any either. The truth is that I am simply not capable of compromise, especially with the young. 

For example, if I was in a supermarket with a child having a tantrum because it was demanding something I couldn't afford, or which was bad for their health, I would walk away and let the little devil find their own way home.  

However, I don't see myself as inhuman or unusual. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would put a child's safety before my own, although I would never, ever pander to their whims.  

And that is one of the greatest challenges of being a parent today. For I see children as collectively 'our' children. They are our future. I like to think that I am still responsible as a role model, with my work in children's theatre and television being an example to future generations.  

There is a profound difference between those children with whom I work in pantomime (whose magic revolves around the fact they still behave as youngsters) and those types that you see hanging out on the streets. On stage, there is discipline and focus; out on the streets, they are charged with aggression.  

If I governed this country, I would make it illegal to sell a child a violent video game, a thong, a midriff-revealing T-shirt, or anything that encourages them to get plastic surgery or to become a size zero. 

Do you think it is healthy that a young girl under the age of 14 should idolise glamour models such as Jordan?  

I admire her self-made success, but I am a 48-year-old adult. When I was a child, the fairy princess in my imagination wore a ballgown that covered her entire body. Breasts didn't even figure in my fantasy.  

Instead of Jordan, our children should be shown another role model, the world's first female space tourist, Anousheh Ansari. She came from a poor family in Iran. As a child, she loved astrophysics, but since the mullahs had closed all educational opportunities for girls, her family fled to America where Ansari could follow her dream.  

Starting a telecoms company with her family, she was worth $750million by the time she was 35 years old and was able to buy her ticket to space.  

Education is our gift, our privilege and our freedom. We are so lucky to have freedoms and choices, so why do we take them for granted? Instead, we are hit by headlines such as the one about a four-year- old expelled from primary school for sexual misconduct, a 12-year-old stabbing a classmate in the face with a pair of scissors or a sevenyearold selling drugs.  

Why do we allow children to become disillusioned, overweight and aggressive? Where has the spirit of adventure and intelligent rebellion gone?  

These days, a child can't even climb a tree without a school or a playground being sued. When I was a child, we were all writing and printing our own magazines and selling them outside school!  

I suppose my parents motivated me by making me fear I wouldn't be able to provide for myself in the future. Cash handouts weren't so readily available then, so education and getting a job were at the top of my future wish list. Today, there is an increase in street gangs, which are nothing more than children self-policing themselves to make sure no one ever has a chance to shine and break away from the crowd.  

What has gone wrong? I think that the poor diet that so many children have is the main offender, not only junk food, but a bad cultural diet, in the shape of violent DVD games and sexual images on TV.  

I blame computers and hardsell advertising (if I see another advert selling frozen foods on primetime TV, I'll scream).  

Sportsmen selling products and not the beautiful game have a lot to answer for. Who gives a sod what aftershave David Beckham wears? It's his talent on the pitch that children should be seeing, not a man raking in the cash for looking good.  

We have given children the wrong impression of our intentions. By giving in to them on so many fronts, in some cases parents have become a laughing stock by being too scared to stand up to them.  

A few years ago, I was in Leeds, filming the children's series Adam's Family Tree. The school in which we were shooting was in the centre of a notorious housing estate and we had to be ferried there in an armoured bus.  

What I saw on that two-minute journey made my blood freeze: cars burning, with children running up to the flames and pushing their hands in.  

I had only ever read about this sort of thing in the 1975 Doris Lessing novel, Memoirs Of A Survivor, where the author warned her readers that children could become our oppressors. Suddenly, here was the reality.  

Whereas I have supported both my parents since I left home and started work at the age of 18, a high percentage of children now don't leave home, preferring to gather their savings to purchase a first home in their 30s. It fills me with horror to think that, if I had children, I could have to subsidise them for so many years.  

Am I self-centred for feeling this way? That's partly true but what is far more disturbing is to have a child because you feel that is what society expects - even if, like me, you have no biological urge.  

As such, the next generation cannot afford to be lazy and uninspired because the State cannot support us all for much longer using the present pensions system.  

You may think that I am proud to be a grumpy old woman. That's true. But I am not proud to be a childless woman. It has always perturbed me that I've never felt the biological urge, but I accept my fate.  

However, what I do have is monumental respect for every parent out there who takes on the challenge...  
 

Daily Mail
3rd January 2007