For those who came in late, we were talking last week about how the relationship between parent and child had shifted.

The fact that parents can no longer ignore their children to the extent that they were once ignored has become an issue which is impossible to ignore.

As the Grumpy Old Men said, somewhere along the line, somebody changed the contract.

You only need to look at the humble neighbourhood park, which is hardly as humble as it once was, as an example.

The original agreement I recall was that the park was an open, shade-free paddock where you played force-em-backs with the neighbourhood kids, completely bereft of adult supervision save for the wino foraging through a rubbish bin for cans.

There might have been a see-saw and a swinging plank suspended by rusty hinges in a far-flung corner, an iron frame shaped like an Apollo rocket to climb on, and a constantly-running tap emerging at a shin-crunching height like a periscope from the ground, forming a stagnant tadpole habitat to splash in.

Now, the average playground looks like the crèche at NASA.

Ergonomic obstacles and technicolor tubes interconnect under expansive shade sails – all of which have been designed to encourage maximum parental participation, making it virtually impossible for guardians to be otherwise spending this time, as their forefathers did, at home listening to the cricket on the wireless.

Other examples where the role reversal has become evident include:

The Pool: Under the old system, you were dinked to the public baths on the bicycle handlebars of a brother’s mate, put your 10c in the well-worn turnstile and bomb-dived your way through another blistering summer’s day without a grown-up within cooee.

However, under the modern interpretation of the law, kids arrive by Subaru, have a yearly membership paid in full and undergo intensive stroke-correction by a former Olympian while scores of parents absorb every drop, stopping only to sip cappuccino.

That’s correct. The pool kiosk serves cappuccino, in a seismic shift from the Big Charlies, Fizz Whiz and White Knights of yore.

The Party: From memory, I might have attended perhaps two birthday parties for people other than my own family members throughout my entire childhood.

One of them was when I was in Year 1 at Camp Hill State School and needless to say it was a “drop and run” arrangement by my father, who was not about to forfeit a golden opportunity to go back home and feverishly paint something Mission Brown or clean out the grease trap.

So there we were, a gaggle of five and six-year-olds, seeing how many surfaces we could get the super-ball to ricochet off under the house, when we must have made sufficient noise to remind the boy’s mother playing Mahjong with her friends upstairs that she had other company.

A bowl of Cheezels and some cordial was hastily arranged and then we partook in a fun relay game, racing each other to the guinea pig hutch at the edge of the yard and back, permitted to tread only on sheets of newspaper.

The second one I can remember was a slumber party for my friend Robert Neilson’s 10th-or-so birthday.

Embarrassingly, I was the only kid whose mother had packed short pyjamas, contravening the strict dress code of long stripy ones, and made even more noticeable by the fact that they were decorated with little tug boats.

This birthday was also noteworthy for the enormous hamburgers we were served. I simply had no chance of finishing mine and hid what sizeable portion remained in the garden.

Under the new world order, children are invited to parties every second week. These are held at purpose-built venues where they play in mazes or shoot ray guns at each other, and professional party hosts take care of the catering.

Our little girl, who has just turned six, was the focus of such an event last weekend, so for me the memories, or mental scars (call them what you will), are very fresh.

It was long, it was loud, it was hectic and hot, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world … and that’s not just because I was contractually obliged.