This article seeks to raise a number of issues concerning children's well-being in late modernity. In order to provide historical contrasts, the first part of the article considers three "optimistic" periods: the Liberal Reform Programme, 1906-1911; interwar developments in New Psychology, progressive education and child guidance; the post-1945 Labour government and the Children Act, 1948. The second half of the article critically examines the culture of Narcissism, which is held to be a fundamental feature of post-1960s society, in part exemplified by the increase in diverse family forms, which have been encouraged by feminism and other self-interest social movements. The argument is that whereas historically we may speak guardedly of optimism and hope, since the 1970s we have been embroiled in anxiety and relationship therapy to the detriment of children. (Contains 116 footnotes.)