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The State doesn't kidnap children does it?

Well, yes it does.

We learnt in a news report today that a record number of children are being seized from their parents so that they can be adopted. It's not a surprise to me. Camilla Cavendish has devoted a number of columns to the scandalous behaviour and misdeeds of Britain's family courts. She wrote this recently:

Government figures show a significant jump in the number of babies being taken into care, from 1,600 in 1995 to 2,800 in 2005: a 75 per cent increase in ten years. While there has been an increase across all age groups, it is much, much greater for babies. More 10 to 15-year-olds are removed, but the rate of increase was only 21 per cent. One possible explanation is that the authorities are now monitoring pregnant women, especially teenagers and substance abusers. But there are also numerous examples of relatives being turned down by local authorities when they offer to take the children of a family member. Some of them may indeed be unsuitable. But the turning-down sometimes seems very peremptory. John Hemming, MP, who follows these issues closely, believes that "the (hard-to-place) children the targets were established to get adopted are not getting adopted; instead a completely new group of children are being taken into care, then adopted".

Looks like baby farming to me.

Robbie Millen

The latest menace to our children: pollsters

Ok, the silly season, as we’ve already pointed out, is filled with banal stories. But this one got me wondering:

Almost 500 primary school kids were asked how they felt about their parents having jobs, and nearly three times as many children (46%) said that they actually liked their mum or dad going to work, compared to those who didn't (16%). In fact, almost a third (31%) said that the fact that their parents worked made them feel proud.

Hmm. Isn’t it creepy that the government is polling five-year-olds now? And all to emotionally blackmail mothers to promote their all-parents-must-work agenda? Maybe it's just me though.

Murad Ahmed

How to deal with teenage pregnancy

Is rising teen pregnancy something we just have to live with? Or can something be done about it? And what about marriage? Can Government policy really influence marriage rates?

Mickey Kaus has been trawling through the latest stats in the US:

The rate of teenage childbearing for blacks has been cut by more than half since its peak in 1991. It's now substantially lower than the teen birthrate for Hispanics. Though I'd like to credit welfare reform, causality here is complicated - new birth control technologies (e.g. Norplant) and fear of AIDS are big potential factors. And nationwide welfare reform didn't happen until 1996.

If you want to find evidence of a sociological impact for welfare reform, look at this chart. It shows that the percentage of black children living with two married parents jumped from 33 per cent in 1996 to 38 per cent in 2002 (when the Census changed the definition of "black"). Meanwhile, the percentage of black children living with "mother only" fell from 53 per cent to 48 percent.

Those figures still aren't very promising - the percentage of white children living with two married parents is 76 (and for Hispanics it's 66). Still, the improvement for blacks is significant. Why isn't welfare reform to blame? If a single mother is going to have to work, it makes sense to team up with another breadwinner.

Will someone please think of the children

Tesco has extraordinary business nous. I had no idea that anyone would want to buy a home pole-dancing kit. Apparently, they do. Well, this product has caused a stink. Adrian Rogers, the "family-values" campaigner, had this to say of the latest threat to childhood innocence, civilisation etc. 

Children are being encouraged to dance round a pole which is interpreted in the adult world as a phallic symbol. It ought to be stopped, it really requires the intervention of members of Parliament. This should only be available to the most depraved people who want to corrupt their children.

I like the idea of setting up a register of depraved people who are allowed to buy pole-dancing kits and the like. Perhaps, the list could be overseen by a bureaucratic body (let's call it PervCom) which could spend its time deciding what goods or services were suitably depraved. Given strong enough powers, it could save children's innocence from the pernicious influence of folk-dancers who want to groom children into dancing around maypoles.

Or better still. We could set up a register of self-styled, self-appointed family-values campaigners who will be banned from having contact with lazy, quote-hungry Daily Mail journalists. Though I admit I would miss Dr Rogers' incisive opinions on gay soldiers:

I would think the sailor, and officer, would always feel more comfortable fighting and dying beside heterosexuals who have a long-term interest in the future with children and family life. Why fight for your country if you don't have children?

or on gymslip mums:

It is cheaper to have immigrants come in than to have these feckless families producing children in this manner

or free IVF treatment for lesbians:

Heterosexual couples do deserve priority over gays because their children are likely to go on and have more and more children, therefore propagating the human race and supplying the country with hardworking youngsters.  And giving scarce sperm to a lesbian couple is bad enough, but it means that the child is more likely to be a lesbian

Robbie Millen

Chips aren't evil

The latest vogue cause gathers pace today with the news that the Archbishop of Canterbury supports an independent (of what?) inquiry into the DEATH OF CHILDHOOD.

I always find the Archbishop's public statements opaque, but I think he believes that commercialism and advertising to children are among the great evils of mankind. I am afraid that I find this deeply silly, but I know it is a popular view.

And while I agree that we should try to feed our children healthy food, there is so much suffering in the world that it seems almost decadent to be worried about someone's else's parents serving them chips for lunch.