Bad parents scourge of society

The Archbishop of Canterbury is right to warn of the pressure of family separations and commercial pressures causing a crisis in modern childhood. But he really hits the nail on the head with his comments on the modern plague of young parents unable or incapable of offering the right example to their own children.

This is not a new phenomena. Those who care to look will have seen this situation growing increasingly worse, generation after generation. Incompetent parents raising a generation of children who become even more incompetent parents.

In a world of freely available contraception and universal sex education there is no excuse for so many young parents. But on our streets we see more and more young girls and men incapable of behaving as responsible parents should. Their lack of care for their youngsters makes one wonder why they had their children in the first place. To get out of an unhappy home? To have someone to offer the unconditional love their parents never did? Or simply out of sheer fecklessness?

No one ever said raising children was easy. It is a huge responsiblity but too many people having children clearly have no sense of personal responsibility. So they blame society, or the schools or anyone else rather than looking at where much of the blame really lies. With themselves.

The crisis in childhood is in reality a crisis in parenthood. How long can we maintain the right of the incompetent to make a hash of raising children, ruining young lives with their selfish actions?

Children are not born to be bad parents - they learn the lessons from their own mothers and fathers. If we are to offer them the chance of a better life in future, then we must ensure they have better parents. And those parents must learn the discipline and self control they so badly need to pass on to their children.

Latest in a long line of silly laws

Just what we need. Another piece of useless legislation. Hardly anyone has been prosecuted for the offence of using a mobile telephone while driving.

Now we are expected to believe that the roads will be made safer by the compulsory use of car seats and boosters for all children under 12 who are less than 4ft 5ins tall.

At a time when we are plagued with crimes of burglary, street robbery and with anti-social behaviour it cannot be a sensible use of police time for patrols to stake out mums dropping off their children at school, tape measures at the ready.

It is already clear this law has more holes than a Swiss cheese. It can only be weeks until we see the first sharp lawyer beat this law as easily as they beat speeding fines. Another waste of time, money and effort.

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