Neglected children cry out for political support of family life

LIZ Walker (Yorkshire Post, June 9) paints an appalling picture of the state of such a large and ever-increasing number of neglected children.

There have always been a small number of children suffering from neglect but their numbers have been greatly increased by the actions (or perhaps to be fair, inactions) of successive governments – of all political persuasions.

One would think it obvious that children are best nurtured in a stable family relationship, and that the benefit to the country (and the savings to government) from this relationship are considerable.

Therefore any politician with half a wit would of course seek to encourage the establishment and continuation of the traditional family group.

It would obviously be criminally stupid for the tax situation and local authority benefits to be skewed to favour the unmarried mother above the stable family.

One may have a great deal of sympathy for the teenage girl, armed with all that contraceptive information, who still is careless enough to get herself pregnant – were it not for the fact that she can then leave home, get on benefits and be provided with a subsidised flat. This is encouraging the sort of promiscuity which results in so much of the childhood neglect to which Liz Walker refers.

It would be wrong to blame just the teenage girls – those who adopt and discard relationships so casually – or who marry but then divorce, sometimes repeatedly – are equally responsible for childhood reglect.

It would surely not be too difficult to adjust the system to give some very slight favour to the couple who fall in love, wait until they have saved up enough to make a good start in married life, and go on to raise their children in a proper manner so that they become a credit to the parents, and of constructive benefit to society?

From: Craig Shaw, White House Gardens, York.

LIZ Walker’s column will undoubtedly infuriate many of those who fail to provide their children with a good upbringing, or who think it’s no-one else’s business anyway.

They are of course wrong on both counts.

All children should be entitled to a good upbringing, to fit them for a suitable place in society – put simply, if you want to have children you should expect to give them the very best you can, not to provide the lowest common denominator.

And those who do not benefit from good parenting often become dysfunctional adults and a drain on society, if only through welfare provisions, which most certainly makes it everyone’s business.

Some of Liz’s conclusions may seem a bit radical but without concerted action we will inevitably have an ever-increasing underclass – which isn’t fair to them or to anyone else.