For every shocking case of middle class young defendant “of previous good character” hauled before the courts there are hundreds of looters whose ‘back story’ is predictable.
They are the ‘chavs’, the NEETs (Not in Education, Employment or Training) the ‘Underclass’ – call them what you will.
We don’t want to know their names. We wish they’d just disappear, preferably on a rickety old RAF Hercules to Afghanistan where the Taliban could deal with them.
Yet we ignore them at our peril, particularly the child looters we’ve seen in Manchester and Salford who have been arriving at court on their own because their feckless parents cannot be bothered to accompany them.
Absentee parents or absence of parenting is the most important issue facing our society and wrinkling our noses in disdain is not going to help. We must take a long hard look at hoodie-covered faces masking all but blank stares.
Rather than lamenting “Where are the parents?” we should be uniting behind the common cause to take action again these pitiful excuses for parenthood long before their children reach adolescence.
Having children is not a right. It is no more a right for the infertile middle class couple who are desperate to have 2.4 children than it is for the teenage single mother who adds to her growing brood because the state will pay her more.
Having children is a privilege and those who abuse that privilege do not have the right to parent. There is an old saying: “Show me the child at seven and I’ll show you the man.” But the key formative period is, rather, between the ages of 0 and two. Show me the baby who has not felt loved and secure from birth, who has not bonded with a parent, and I’ll show you the dysfunctional child.
The solution is to remove these children from neglectful parents at the earliest possible age and take them into foster care or, better still, put them up for adoption. Not only will the child’s chances of being a happy, normal, functioning member of society increase ten-fold but society will save millions.
A recent study has shown that each adopted child saves the country £1m – the cost of bringing up a child in care from birth to 18. Rather than populating an already over-populated planet with more children we should concentrate on re-parenting those children whose birth parents have lost the right to parent.
Yet our childcare agencies are hampered by screaming headlines about ‘child-stealing’ and ‘over zealous’ social workers.
And many social workers spend too long trying to keep families together when the chances of the child brought up in an abusive household growing up ‘cured’ of those early years of neglect, decline as each month passes. Moreover, the longer a child experiences domestic chaos the less likely are his chances of being adopted.
This is because infertile couples, who spend many anguished years and tens of thousands of pounds trying, and failing to conceive through IVF, before finally turning to adoption to fulfil their gnawing need to have a baby, want just that – a baby.
They don’t want a child who spent his early years scrounging for food, being sexually abused, or cursed and hit, because they know what a huge uphill task they face. Rapid action is called for as soon as neglect and/or abuse is identified in the home. We owe it to that child and we owe it to society.
Yesterday, David Cameron said that fixing the “Broken Society” is at the top of his political agenda. He should start by making it easier to remove parenting rights from those who are not fit to bring up the next generation.
Rain didn’t put a dampener on family fun
As one whose overriding memory of childhood holidays in Snowdonia was of nose pressed at caravan window staring at soggy sheep I knew what to expect when I returned earlier this month.
Sure enough, a downpour heralded our arrival. We spent the first night in a ‘characterful’ converted manor house near Llanberis. Character doesn’t come cheap – £135 per room per night. Luckily, next door’s coughing only kept me awake half an hour.
Breakfast TV was even more annoying than usual with jolly dolly weather girls trilling about how balmy it was in Devon, London and Norfolk. We set off hoping our next stop, an hour further inland, would be basking in sunshine. No chance.
Our lodge was glistening with rain drops. A lodge is a timber-framed caravan for middle class travellers who prefer to tell folk they’re staying in an Alpine-style wooden holiday home as opposed to a static caravan.
The price reflects this – up to £1,000 per week in peak season. And this is self catering so you’ve got all your meals to pay for and excursions. But despite needing your cagoule more than your cossie it was the ideal family holiday. Especially if you have a boy whose idea of supreme happiness is a steam train journey and chatting to anyone who’ll listen.
Best of all, it was only a two hour drive from Manchester, with no airport queues, worries about little ears being affected by air pressure or fears of being stranded abroad because your travel firm has gone bust. For family attractions, stunning scenery and affordable meals, North Wales ticked all the boxes. If only it didn’t rain so much...
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Lecturing the have nots,then smarming about what a wonderfully expensive holiday she's just had.Subtle as a brick.
A woman suggested that the reason her child had looted was the Governments fault for not providing her 12 year old with "anything to do".
I think back to when I was that age and I don't remember having "anything to do" provided by the Government. My mates and I made our own entertainment and it certainly didn't involve crime.
So basically a child who didn't feel love from one parent is low life who goes out looting???? you go tell that to all the children who have lost a parent due to them being killed in action serving in our army! think ill go get myself a new tv instead of having earnt my degree and got myself a respectful full time job!
Deanna, I seem to remember you calling young people who have been through the care system 'Disaster's waiting to happen'...
Not only will the child’s chances of being a happy, normal, functioning member of society increase ten-fold but society will save millions.
Shut it
What's this "We" business pale face?
Be careful how much you use it.
You appear to be using it instead of "I". The substitution provides you with justification to write so blindly and without authority.
Projection is a poor character trait the way you use it.
Coupled with the lack of discipline at school where they seem to do what they like. Bring back corporal punishment. There is no deterrent today.
"Not only will the child’s chances of being a happy, normal, functioning member of society increase ten-fold but society will save millions"
But the cost saving you identified is agaisnt keeping a child in state care, not leaving it with its parents.
Still pointing to a specific group and blaming them makes it easier for the rest of use I suppose. Especially when that group is probably the one least able to defend itself either economically or physically and has the least access to or speakers for it in the media and decision making groups.
Will there be many applicants to sit on the interview panels drawn up to decide if a new mother gets to keep her baby do you think?
Is this a spoof column? It appears to be a direct rip off from Private Eye's 'Pollyfiller'. Or is this person for real? Ignorant, sanctimonious and..er..a bit thick? To brag about a holiday after berating the poor is sickening. Nah, it has to be a spoof.
A woman talking about her brood on TV said that if they are being called scum then they might as well act it. Dumb poor excuse.
Why does the MEN not publish my opinion on only employing middleclass female writers?
She is quite right in what she says. That excuse for a foul-mouthed 'Mother' featured on the local news last night, made me so damned mad, I lost all semblance of speech. Apparently it's the fault of the Government that her 12-years old son joined in the rioting, she was not responsible for him or the brood of eleven other kids waiting at home (or likely wandering the streets). Sad thing is, there's hundreds more just like her and soon all her offspring will no doubt be breeding in the same gene pool.
As for talking about her holiday? So what. She works, earns a salary and doesn't take benefits from the tax payer. She's as entitled to a holiday as much as the next person; just as she is entitled to her opinion.
Everyone has the same opportunities if they want it bad enough. The culture today is to expect to be given handouts and fat salaries for doing next to nothing. It's bad enough that the underclass are given benefits at all, when there are plenty of jobs that need doing - if they dont like the jobs the are suitable for, improve yourself and get a better job - its that easy. Like many others I grew up in the 1970s in a single parent family in Benchill with very little money - no foreign holidays, flash cars or games consoles for us - a 'real leather' football was considered a big xmas present. My mother worked three jobs to give me and my sister a chance in life. No scrounging of the state for her as a matter of principal. As a result I worked my way through University, walking into town for three years because I had no money for bus fare and living on four pounds a week - tough but I did it - and now I have three degrees, two houses, and an excellent job and have had the opportunity to travel and work all over the world - all from a council house in Wythenshawe. I am now 44 and am still improving my skills at my own expense with a view securing my retirement. These so called chavs, using race/poor background/absent parents or whatever rubbish they want obvious dont want it bad enough.
Obviously the rioters are scum, especially the ones who threatened life, but I can't help but feel a tad nauseous at putting up with the bleating and smugness from those who've cornered their fair share of luck in this life, as if the riots were anything approaching what the elected leaders of this country have put the people of Iraq through, for example.
Our society, which has been crumbling for years, created these riots. The sooner everyone accepts that the better we all will be.
Unfortunately we are not all given the same start and opportunities in life, and as someone who has spent alot of time working with young people from disaffected area's all over the North West, and growing up in an area like that myself, I know this to be true first hand. I do still agree that regardless of your upbringing, this does not of course give people a green card to treat other people and their on environment as a punch bag to vent frustrations. What does make me angry though, is that once again the govenment have completely dissassociated themselves from having any responsibility for last week's events. Society has disintergrated to the point that people that people care so little about themselves and those around them that they dismantle their own environment, no one is asking how we've got here, and I guarantee the issues are much more complex than having no paternal role model or just having nothing to do. A large percentage of our society feel hopeless, worthless, angry, and as though they have nothing to loose, and surely they are the most dangerous kind of people. And how dare David Cameron, in the wake of a massive expenses scandle, sit and bleet about the moral make up of others, when his MP's claimed hundreds and thousands of pounds worth of luxury items at the tax payer's expense. Shouldn't morality begin at home Mr Cameron?
"No, it's the liberal elite who have been dictating social policy since the 1960s who have a monopoly."
Even someone who knows as many big words as you cant explain what a liberal is, its all very vague. And the liberal elite haven't been around since the sixties, it was two weeks ago sometime when someone here (maybe you) coined the phrase.
An elitist view on issues which the writer obviously has not a single ounce of true knowledge. Blaming the "underclass" is an easy way out of accepting that our society can do such terrible things. Yes many of those involved in last weeks terrible acts were children and teenagers and yes their parents should have known where their children were and hauled them home by the scruff of their neck. However, people seem to be forgetting that a lot of these rioters/looters are in their 20's and above and actually had jobs, but the allure of free stuff was too strong for those that are weak willed.
This is issue of 'Broken Britain' is not just an issue with the underclass its an issue with society as a whole from all classes. Blaming parents does not fix anything and taking children into care definitely would not solve these issues.
I suggest the writer of this article takes those blinkers off and looks at Britain as a whole rather that sitting in her £135 per night hotel room and casting judgements on a section of society she obviously has very little knowledge, these types of articles do not help fixing these problems.
Mention the middle class young defendants of previous good character in passing and then go on to advocate the removal of the babies of poor families from their parents and giving them to middle class childless couples just in case they are bad when they get older. Ignore that the children of middle class families also rioted and looted and suggest no draconain solution in their instance.
Dear Daily Mail - I do an embittered mix of snobbery and spite. Can I have a job? Love,Donna.
Feckless parents can be of any class; whether it's poor parents who totally neglect or abuse their children or those from the middle classes who indulge their every whim and material greed. We have created a generation of young people who know no boundaries - be that moral or material. You can give a child nothing or you can give them everything; often the results are frighteningly similar.
We should be taking action against them before they procreate and force them to take contraceptives unless and until the can prove they're fit to be parents.
I am fascinated by the often cited "lack of opportunities".
There's never any sort of clarity about what exact opportunities are being sought after,
So who is at fault when people in employment were involved in these riots then?
Take this for a thought, taking this story a little "off track" but ...... The recent riots that occured in various UK cities .... what would our Government have thought if another Country had rushed to support these rioters ???? well think about it ... after all, we have done similar in Libya have we not ? food for thought perhaps ??
Your comments on social workers taking children into care (and advocating for outright adoption at the start) by the age of two are just plain ill-informed and daft. Child development is a far more complex than the simplistic solution you put forward. The solution, as far as social workers are concerned, lies more in the social worker having high levels of skills in assessment and intervention planning than the knee-jerk reaction of outright adoption.