It really is a pain being the offspring of parents of the 1970s. "You are against everything," is the collective moan, as I oppose yet another celebration, which inevitably means me being conned out of more money. Since August 18th, when the Leaving Cert results came out, Darragh has been in a constant state of celebration. As the friends come back from various foreign parts they have to be met, congratulated and then, well, je ne sais quoi, for he disappears for about three days. But there is a real mega celebration looming. The Debs, or rather the pre-Debs - for now it seems there must be a get-together before the big event so that everybody will know everybody else at the big event, even though they have all been at school together for the last six years!

I am totally bewildered about the Debs. I am of the generation that bought second-hand clothes, rolled my own cigarettes, drank plonky wine and took pride in doing things on the cheap. So to see my son hiring a dress suit, organising chocolates and flowers for a partner and having drinks beforehand with her parents seems like a "sell-out" to me. "You are aping the aristocracy," I tell him. "Your Dad and I took a stand on all this nonsense. I got married in a cheesecloth dress and he wouldn't even wear a jacket."

The school certainly did its best to defuse the nonsense. At the end of the school year a graduation night was organised: a religious ceremony was followed by a meal and parents and pupils and teachers met and mingled and everybody thoroughly enjoyed themselves. The price was deliberately kept down so that everybody could go. However, this egalitarianism was met with near-derision. Darragh (who worked during the summer for £3 an hour) will hand over £65 for a double ticket. My suggestion that he tries to find a girl who will share the cost is met with "cheapskate".

And now 11-year-old Aoife is at it. Recently she harrassed me - no, bullied me, to go to a disco. "It's run by the gardai," she assured me. "That would have been enough to put me off," I retorted. "Typical" was the response. "You are pathetic."

Taking back my role of parent, I asked who was going and how late it would last.

"I'll have to have a pair of hipsters," she declared, as she saw the first round going to her.

She wore me down and got the hipsters. My own weakness embarrassed me, so I told no one - but she insisted on telling grandmothers and any friends or relations who came to the house. "She's a bit young," volunteered my mother.

"Things have changed," I found myself saying.

And then the eldest. He is absolutely penniless, as he has returned to college, yet he drinks in trendy, expensive pubs while his Dad and I actively seek out cheapest pints. Am I really a miser? I ponder, as I collect the dress suit, iron the hipsters and leave a fiver for a pint for the eldest.