Don't know where my post from last night went, but if lack of Christian morals, presence of working mums and absence of marriage vows were really the crucial factors, you'd expect Scandinavian children to be absolutely miserable. Never heard of anyone in Sweden in my generation or younger who bothered to get married simply to start a family. I suspect there are other factors behind the relative unhappiness of English children:
*intense urbanisation which means it is impossible for most children to access the natural outdoors on their own.
pretty well all Swedish children have access to some kind of beach (or lake or stream) with clean water to swim in in summer, to some kind of wood to explore or fields to walk in
*unusually divisive class system which means that some children feel themselves and their families written off at an early age, due to the way they speak and dress and live
other countries have class divisions too, but ours seem particularly damaging
*relative unsafety of urban landscape (cars, gun, cars, knives, cars, cars, cars) meaning children either stay dependent on their parents or feeling unsafe
*a working culture which emphasises long hours rather than efficiency
*a media culture which always stresses the dangers and cynicism of modern childhood and makes it difficult to think of childhood as any kind of golden age
Scandinavian newspapers still do.
*the relative cheapness of junk food.
In Scandinavia junk food is expensive compared to everyday basics, so the temptation of substituting chips and crisps for boiled spuds is that little bit less.
Still, a fair few things mentioned in the article are things that I can influence. It is up to me as a parent if my children are spending hours gazing at adverts on television. It is up to me if they think that people can be pressurised into buying more and more things. It is up to me whether they drink energy drinks or tap water.