My brother, the second oldest of my five siblings, called this week to see if I could give his daughter - my niece and goddaughter - work experience at the magazine where I labour. I said that it was now termed an “internship” and I would have to see.

We receive about a hundred e-mails a week asking about unpaid slavery at our magazine. In fact, I'm not sure if there are any young people left who don't want to work in fashion or on a magazine, because, even if they ultimately wish to work in TV, they would still like a glossy on their CV. I know that this is due in part to The Devil Wears Prada and Ugly Betty, but perhaps these shows merely reflect girls' universal desire to dissect and discuss fashion for half the day, and then, like my niece Rebecca, pass the afternoon trying on Marc Jacobs at the Westfield shopping centre in London.

“What,” I ask my brother sternly, “happened to Rebecca's desire to be a doctor?” Obviously we need to ignoremy own influence on the girl as a label-bedecked, Marc Jacobs-toting fashion maven - that, after all, is my job - but the point here is that my goddaughter, apart from being charming, pretty, yada yada, was recently described by her headmistress as “the brightest pupil we've had in 20 years”. Wow, wow, wow, as Kylie would say. And I'm afraid that, since I will never now be a mum, and as Rebecca is probably the nearest thing I'll ever have to a daughter, I have of late deployed this story during office drones about colleagues' children's over-achievements.

Returning to my brother, I say: “Right, you do realise the waiting list for interns is currently 14 months, even if you know me? And, anyway, I thought Rebecca's ‘gap' year was building a hospital in Africa or something this summer. Didn't I just sponsor her to the tune of £350 to do this?”

“Oh, she's still doing that,” replies my brother. “But then she wants to come and stay with you and do fashion nonsense until she goes to Austria in November, skiing. All right, being a chalet girl.” He is now cackling delightedly at what he knows I find is a slightly offensive gap between my young niece's lifestyle and the - well, way of life - of our nine-strong, working-class family growing up in the suburbs in the Sixties and Seventies.

“Unless your surname actually appears somewhere on the make-up counter at Boots. Or on a Bond Street shopfront, she'll have to join the waiting list.” I hang up. I have to admit that I am - absurdly - slightly cross about my niece's unbounded indulgences and opportunities. I mean, how many seats on the front row does this generation think exist? At my niece's age, 17, my work experience extended to working in the local supermarket five nights a week. Juicy Couture? My five brothers and one sister shared shell suits for God's sake.

In truth I think I really might owe any success I've had as a magazine editor to learning early in life how to mediate between sets of squabbling siblings. But if I owe a debt of gratitude to any one person, it would be to my mother, who devoted her whole career to raising me and my siblings. Certainly it was from her that I - and probably my niece - inherited what smarts we have.

My mother could easily have edited Vogue or become a doctor, but instead cooked three meals a day, did four washes a day and skivvied for five boys. And the only interns she had were my sister and me, one of whom finally rebelled at cleaning up after her brothers. Which would be my advice to aspirants such as Rebecca: don't skivvy for anyone, and remember your Mum tomorrow.

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