Dear Chief Secretary to the Treasury,
I'm afraid to tell you there's no money left.
Signed, Liam Byrne

(Outgoing Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury. May 2010)
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Tuesday 9 February 2010

Underage.

Underage pregnancies (my bold) :
Over the past eight years, no fewer than 15 girls found they were expecting when they were aged just ten. A further 39 found out they were pregnant when they were 11.

Since 2002 there have been 63,487 pregnancies among under-15s in England and Wales: a total of 23 conceptions every single day among girls too young to legally have sex.
And how many of the adults who are supposed to keep these children safe, whether 'single parents' or not, have been prosecuted for allowing their children to be in a situation where they could get pregnant?

A quick search of the 'DirectGov' site leads to the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, which says right at the beginning, with regard to Prevention of Cruelty and Exposure to Moral and Physical Danger. Getting pregnant before you've finished growing has to count as being exposed to physical danger, even if being sexually active whilst still a child is no longer 'immoral'.

It's hard to understand why, in these days where every adult male is a sexual predator and a kiddy fiddler, parents aren't taking more care of their children - after all, children are the central tenets of almost every government policy.

It's so easy to get very angry about statistics like these, and angry about the useless adults who are meant to be caring for their children, but one of the junior members of the wider Rigby family once put the whole thing into context.

This 'junior' had more sense than the rest of us put together and said it's because children are raising children, and don't know how to be adult role models. How can, say, a girl who gives birth at 13 be a good role model to her own child when that child reaches school age when she'd still probably be in full time education herself.

It was also pointed out that if a girl gets pregnant at 10, 13, 14 and so on then she'll only be 20, 26 or 28 by the time her child reaches the same - and might even think it's funny or cool to become such a young grandparent because it might mean getting your picture in the newspaper.

10 comments:

Leg-iron said...

Adult males are kept well away these days. Some of us are very happy with that because we'd rather have rats than children in the house. They do less damage, make less noise, cost less to run and don't attract the Socialist Services.

What the idiots in charge forget is that a sexually mature 15-year-old (or even less) has free and unfettered access to all around him, and since he's underage too, he'll get away with it.

No consequences and no discipline. It's how they are taught now. This is the logical result.

Cavemen were better behaved than the children of Labour. They had morals.

Mrs Rigby said...

Yep! Can't disagree.

Witterings from Witney said...

Mrs. R,

It is worth remembering that children, regardless of upbringing will always get up to 'naughties' if they are so minded - I know I did, but obviously not this type of behaviour. Never having had children, maybe I am not in a position to pass comment but it seems to me that without 'using the apron strings' solution it is a problem that will only be solved by good parental 'teaching' and 'discipline. The latter is a problem of society and possibly our education system?

As you so rightly say, if those begatting are so immature, what chance for the begatted.

Just a thought......

Wrinkled Weasel said...

It started when we started calling them "Young People"

Unknown said...

"What the idiots in charge forget is that a sexually mature 15-year-old (or even less) has free and unfettered access to all around him, and since he's underage too, he'll get away with it."

Being underage is no defence.

Mrs Rigby said...

@ WfW - Yes, kids rebel, that's what's good about being a kid or a teenager. Even so there are things you don't do as "rebellion". None of the wider Rigby 'clan' has, in living memory either made/been made pregnant outside either a long-term relationship or marriage. The Rigbys aren't particularly straight-laced either, nor horribly strict, and only one or two have been to private schools - so it isn't necessarily the 'fault' of the educators, it has to be parental/familial.

@ W.W. - Ah, perhaps. The junior Rigbys are all "kids" or "children" even though they are nice young people - there's a difference, no?

@ 418 - Yep, until they reach 18 when they're expected to become responsible adults in an instant.

Witterings from Witney said...

Mrs. R,

No personal criticism intended and none taken, I trust.

When referring to the 'education system' I was meaning to refer to this 'children have rights' crap and that, so I understand from parents I know, is prevalent within the education system.

As a product of boarding school, needless to say I am all for it. It taught me a discipline I could never learn at home, it taught me to respect my parents and it taught me to cherish my freedom as a result of the ordered discipline I had at school, ie everything happened at a specified time.

just a thought.....

Mrs Rigby said...

@ WfW - We're singing from the same hymnsheet.

Ordered environments leave room for rebellion - safe rebellions that won't hurt anybody, whilst leaving everything else (the structures) intact.

An 'anything goes' society has a problem - partly because it ends up making its' own rules that only serve to enhance the prospects of group leaders, who are often bullies of the worst kind who can, and will, make all sorts of rules ....

If children are raised in a muddled home (I don't mean messy, but a home/family without love, routines and clear boundaries) and are left free to roam the streets, they learn from their peers rather than from the adults ... in school they don't know how they should behave, and so it goes on ...

Think about it ... I could write far too much, and have many posts in draft about this, but each one has ended up as an unpublishable rant.

Witterings from Witney said...

Mrs. R,

Being a gentleman I must leave the last word with the lady - especially when we are both singing off the same hymnsheet!

Mrs Rigby said...

"Being a gentleman I must leave the last word with the lady"

And I must respond to make this come true.