Time was (and it was my time as a teenager) when the worst parents had to worry about was whether little Tommy was doing well enough at school. That was as complicated as it got. Parents had the responsibility for getting their kids to school and the rest was down to the kids and their teachers.

My mum never had to sign a contract to promise she would share responsibility for my education. She never had to get involved with my homework. She was never asked to sign my schoolwork off in a diary. She never had to worry about coursework. She never had to spend hours researching league tables. She didn't just get used to one system and then have it all change. The 11-plus exam would make school choices for us.

Outside school I was fed, watered, sheltered, clothed and well cared for. Beyond that I was left to my own devices. Parents then, back in the '60s, had it easy.

The worst my mum had to worry about was that I might squabble with my sister, get my clothes muddy or not be home in time for tea. She never had to worry that I would die under the wheels of a speeding car, be molested by a pervert or that I would sniff glue or take drugs.

In the long run I would do well and get a career, or do well and get a job.

I would certainly never fail because my grades were not all A*, the seven O-levels I was to take would not overwhelm me, I would not have to be a performing academic monkey and I would never be judged and compared by league tables. Contextual value added had not been invented, key stages were operated by locksmiths and no one cared much what the national averages were.

Now, rabid parents are failing in their duties if they do not pore endlessly over education graphs and charts, and the Government is ever willing to provide more and more complex tables for them to worry over.

They have routine chops and changes in educational emphasis to deal with, key stages to contend with, SATs to wonder about, parents' evenings to attend (mostly held in the late afternoon so those at work break their necks getting there in time), modules and sections to worry over, choices and decisions to make, parents' evenings to attend, exam tiers to work out... is the homework getting done, is the coursework on target, has the revision been tackled, is there a parents' evening soon... and now work to be done on computer, sourced through the Internet and submitted online, and what, exactly are they looking at for all all those hours locked in their bedrooms?... there's broadband access, memory sticks and did I mention the parents' evenings... phew! It's exhausting being a parent in the 21st century.

And while my prized possessions of youth extended to a bike and a fishing rod, today's parents have a never-ending procession of audio and visual electronics equipment to keep up with; computers and consoles and DVDs and CDs to keep abreast of; webcams and MSN and Facebook and You Tune and My Space to get their heads round.

I'm not saying that all I had was good and all my kids have is bad. But kids today are under siege in ways we never dreamed of, and so are their parents.

Frankly, I've lost count of the number of GCSEs my youngest son will take this summer. I do know the number is considerable but not considered exceptional these days. The expectation seems horrendous and so seems the workload. I've no doubt he will do well and go on to further education and the big, bad world of work which beckons all too soon beyond.

Being an old fart now, I reminisce around the Sunday lunch table about my own carefree childhood.

Far from being bored by my oft-repeated tales of the almost absolute freedom, he implores me to tell the tales over again. Of adventurous summer holiday bike rides into the countryside dining off scrumped apples and strawberries, daredevil races in the street in homemade karts, football using lampposts and jumpers as goalposts, fishing expeditions yielding catches from the most unlikely looking mud-filled holes, building treecamps and excavating dangerously dodgy underground dens... doing what boys did then, free from the constraints (real or imagined) of today's modern living.

And my point is? Let kids be kids while they're still kids.

• Footnote: The boy woke up ill this morning (Monday). Really ill – cough, cold, shivers, aches and pains, but felt the pressure of doing well in his mocks meant he had to drag himself in, regardless.