Are happy childhoods overrated? Just ask Gen X...

The latest World Happiness Report suggests life satisfaction in Britain is falling. Will Gore wonders if Gen Z could stand to learn a thing or two from baby boomers about the joys of an unhappy upbringing...

Gen Z seem to feel like they have the weight of the world on their shoulders, and you can’t blame them (Getty)

In the sunny, optimistic uplands of 1996, Sheryl Crow told us that “If it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad”. For us late Gen X teenagers, it made absolute sense – even if, on reflection, Sheryl sounded slightly resigned when she sang it. We were, after all, a mostly happy bunch, convinced that the world was heading in the right direction and that we had a golden future ahead of us.

Compare that to the teens of today who, according to the latest World Happiness Report, are generally having a right old time of it. The UK public as a whole, benighted as we are, has fallen to 20th place in the happiness index. But when you only take account of the feelings of young adults and teenagers, things are worse still, with the UK sitting at number 30. Only oldies are loving life, it seems.

It’s not a surprise on the face of it. Gen Z and late-born millennials have been stymied by Brexit, crushed by Covid and stung by the apparent fact that they’ll never be able to buy their own home. Their mental health is on the floor, the world is burning, and all the preceding generations are relying on them to come up with a fix – even if they can barely afford to keep avocados on the table.