Yet it also rings so true. There are, of course, the other three out of four who, presumably, get by on some more traditional allocation of pocket money or an allowance, or do a variety of part-time jobs to generate some income. Paradoxically, when those young people do find ways of earning money, we often express concern about the appallingly low wages they usually receive, or the health-and-safety issues at stake, or the detrimental effect this may have on their education.
It is 50 years since Mark Abrams wrote The Teenage Consumer, heralding the emergence of British youth culture as a result of the new-found affluence of young people. TR Fyvel, in The Insecure Offenders, asked how young people were going to "cope" with the new opportunities that lay before them. Now we have an even more profoundly acquisitive and consumer society, but for many young people those opportunities are diminished. There are no longer decent jobs for minimum-age school-leavers and those pursuing further and higher education are burdened with increasing amounts of debt.
One way of squaring the circle is for young people to make additional demands on their parents' resources. Indeed, a recent report from the Economic and Social Research Council's youth research programme demonstrates how constructive pathways to adulthood are quietly oiled through a raft of parental support, including financial assistance.
Not all parents are in a position to extend such support, but many are.
They themselves are the beneficiaries of rising house prices and relatively secure and well-paid employment, on which their children cast their eyes with not a little envy. But even those with the available resources may feel it is inappropriate to lavish too much support on their children too early.
I have a close friend who is now a very wealthy property developer.
When he was a teenager, he spent most weekends repairing a battered old Hillman Imp. His eldest son recently passed his driving test, and immediately had access to a 10-year old Ford Fiesta. But his son is not too happy with that. The other day my friend phoned to say he had had a remarkable conversation with his son. "Dad," he had said. "Parents today are there to support their children, and now I have passed my driving test, you have to buy me a new car." Apparently that is what had happened with all his privileged contemporaries. No doubt he will soon be pressing for a legal contract guaranteeing a proportion of his father's income, if the recent research is to be believed.
