and the young men:
don’t think that they need to have sex until they are ready? realise that wearing a condom can stop a whole host of future problems and isn’t even a minor inconvenience? that actually loving someone and having children with them is more rewarding than having women who they don’t love chasing them for emotional and financial support?
and the bottom line being that they both need to truly understand what they are doing.
I, controversially, think that some young women should be advised to have an abortion. Science or not, it is clear that some young people are not ready; they are not building secure environments and families to raise children, and it is the children who are most likely to suffer, and unfortunately perpetuate the problem because they don’t know any better.
They may even see having a baby as somewhat of an accessory or even a badge of honour. And for every success story, which should not be overlooked and should be praised, there are others that are not successful.
Speaking to a teacher who works in a deprived area near Manchester, the true cost to these children’s lives manifests itself daily. The mother of a 9-year-old boy has referred herself to social services because she can’t cope with his behaviour. I am told this isn’t a regular occurrence as they usually don’t think or want to admit that there is a problem, they think social services are ‘snooping’ or they are too scared of the consequences from their partner.
She has been in two successive abusive relationships -which in this area is apparently not unusual- the violence of which has been witnessed by all of her children, and now her 9-year-old is repeating the behaviour, on her, because it is all he has known and therefore he thinks it is alright. He hits her with golf clubs and he cut the dogs ear off to name but a few incidents.
Society may well cry 'throw away the key, he’s obviously no good,' but when is this inherent social problem going to stop being ignored and be addressed in a logical way without the usual education policy spin and gimmicks? She tells me: 'no one has ever shown compassion for them, so why would they have compassion for anyone?' and: 'why would people want to better themselves if no one cares?'
The mechanisms for solving these problems are at best unworkable! A meeting was set up, by the teacher despite it being the job of social services to begin finally addressing behaviour that has long since been out of hand, and none of the relevant people turned up.
A desperate woman concedes that she needs help, and the people who in society have been given the job to help these people, don’t care. This kind of person, a ‘chav’ is the most likely label the red tops would assign to them, are parasites on society.
No doubt there is an ‘underclass’ and they have developed a benefits culture. But even when they want to better themselves, there is nobody there to help. Where is the logic???
The only learning, care and support that these children get is at school. They need to be taught respect, to feel respected, to value and to be valued, basic moral conciousness, love, humanitarianism, discipline and boundaries.
School used to be about that, not about teaching for tests. Teachers also need to feel valued, they are only human at the end of it all and they can only have so much devotion and patience for someone else’s children who are a product of all the modern ills of the society we live in.
Politicians can direct from afar, they can even make a complimentary visit to the ‘front line,’ but they need to listen to teachers, and people with problem-solving ideas, not spin doctors, and they need not to do things for political gain if they want to solve this pressing problem.
If they want to solve the problem, if they can even begin to understand that people’s lives are like this, and if they don’t just gain power, sit there comfortably for a while and then run off into a wilderness of after-dinner speaking with as few people as possible noticing their incompetence.
We do not need tit-for-tat, two-party, spin politics. We need action and all we ever get is words.
As someone who has never been pregnant, so have never had to face the prospect of abortion or the horror of losing a baby I can see that I present rather a dispassionate argument. But it seems that pro-life campaigners are arguing with an emotive chip on their shoulder, considering scientific evidence, logic and anecdotal evidence show that sometimes people for whatever reason make a mistake and they, and the child should not keep having to pay for it every day, perpetuating a cycle of poverty evident in our society.
Real problems need solving now and kicking around an age-old argument in Parliament from high up on their pedestals is coming absolutely nowhere near to helping thousands of sad, sad lives being lived by innocent children in this country every day. A revolution anyone?
Kirsty Styles