Baby P Grew Into A Feral Parasite Infesting Our Streets
MAGNETITE writes on Baby P and what he wold ahve turned out like:
It comes to something when a self-confessed Hicks-loving cynic like myself, and the Chief executive of Barnardo’s are on the same page on a subject. It’s probably one of the signs of the impending apocalypse.
Martin Narey, Chief Executive of Barnardo’s - which has promoted its cause recently using some very shocking and arresting advertisements - said last night:
“The tragic probability is that had Baby P survived, and following a childhood of abuse, he might have been unruly by the time he was 13 or 14. At which point he’d have become ‘feral’, ‘a parasite’, ‘a yob’, ‘helping to infest our streets’. All quotes used recently, on newspaper websites about children. And our response? We’d probably have locked him up.”
It looked like he was back-pedalling a bit on the show - but I’d interpret his words as a condemnation of the way the story and how we deal with (and help) our youth is handled by the press and an overly fearful public; rather than an attempt to tar anyone growing up in loveless, or worse, households with the ‘criminal destiny’ brush.
Maybe I’m not as cynical as I think I is.
The cynic and the charity ware walking hand-in-hand
If only, said the charity, the law would understand.
Posted: 28th, November 2008 | In: Media Comments (75) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
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November 29th, 2008 at 1:28 am
good night magetite
November 29th, 2008 at 1:20 am
magentite, the only plasma tv i’ve seen in poor households is the type where you have to chuck coins in and if the kids have 150 pound trainers on their feet it is afforded by catalogue purchase with a 30 per cent interest rate. there are families out there who get themselves into huge debt and difficulties to give their kids what the ‘tv’ says is right or good, regardless of whether they can afford it or not. if they can’t afford it or don’t want to, even on a sink estate they are then down and under. pester power is nothing compared to peer and society pressure. and every part of society has such pressures, it might be plasma tv and expensive trainers in one class, in another class it might be the ‘right’ school and car and house or to be seen sipping cocktails at lunch time in the right club in the right area. it’s all the same thing.
November 29th, 2008 at 1:13 am
I’m going to lay my head down myself. Good night, God Bless, sweet dreams to you too sam, and to anyone else still here.
November 29th, 2008 at 1:01 am
oops forgot to bid Chenier goodnight myself. ‘night. God Bless sweet dreams (another legacy from my departed dad. I can’t stop saying that, though I have little faith in a God)
sam, I’m not an expert but from my own experiences I think those early years define the human being you are going to be, and the puberty years afterward refine how we relate that human being we are to others around us. A bad time in the early years makes it harder to recover from those influences in the latter years of our development, and a good time in those early years buffers us against what may happen for ill in those later years. For those who receive nothing but negativity at both times, the world must seem a dark and terrible place.
November 29th, 2008 at 12:53 am
Rich nation. You said it yourself sam. The 19 to twenty-somethings around now were targeted for pester-power advertising in a much more sophisticated way than their parents. They became of huge monetary value in society. Companies talk of the ‘kid’s pound’ and how to sell things to them. As advertisers have very few tools at their disposal other than sex and greed and envy, is it any wonder that we create successive generations who just want, want want the trappings that they see their idols and the beautiful ones enjoying on the box. It’s about all they see.
Music videos developed a slant toward money, and objectification of women being the best things since sliced bread in the 80’s - some would say before - and have only become more polished in their own sales tactics now. When the business world is trying to force our kids to become adults before their time in order to sell them stuff how can the befuddled, easily led or not very bright resist that spell when the educated, urbane and wordly cannot either?
That’s why we see plasma TV’s in the living rooms of families whose kids walk around with shoes hanging off their feet, or even worse 150 pound trainers wrapped around them - yet not a book in their house, not a thought beyond the superficail in their heads.
November 29th, 2008 at 12:38 am
chenier, good night
November 29th, 2008 at 12:37 am
magnetite, i agree with the early years, hence i think it should be right and possible fro parents to stay at home until the offspring is about six years old. our children go to school too early. a bit of nursary is okay but all day and everyday from the age of three is not right. the govmint is pushing people into work without taking into account, (and to be fair often the middle class thinks it’s right too), that kids need longer. by the age of seven a child is shaped, i cannot remember from where that quote comes but there is a lot of truth in it. and that shaping should come from the parents and family and not from this or that school.
November 29th, 2008 at 12:28 am
i read that baby p is not an only or rare victim of such mishandling, nearly 300 children a year, most under the age on one, die in britain due to abuse. i don’t know what the actual figure is of those who are abused but do not die, it’s not really something that bears thinking about to long. we are a very rich nation with one of the modern worlds’ worst figures when it comes to child poverty and abuse. and that just can’t be right.
November 29th, 2008 at 12:18 am
sam
the important things seem to have stuck pretty well, so I wouldn’t worry about the times tables!
I must get off to bed now; sleep well…
November 29th, 2008 at 12:17 am
Without going t much into the details I can tell you that I am a product of my upbringing and the vagaries of chance. No;1 Son isn’t biologically mine. I met her 14 month old self not long after I met her mum. The biodad was a waste of skin who, despite having two parents and a less working-class background than I (closer to how we defined middle-class back then), did the dirty and buggered off. His sister is a gem. Same parents, same house but they are chalk and cheese.
As my father, who looked after me on his own just as much as I looked after him on mine turned out to be quite the neglectful type in his marriage to my mum their marriage had broken up a few years before his health deteriorated. I knew none of this. Stuck in a book, or the BBC MIcro, I was oblivious and thought him a saint. We’re none of us perfect. We’re all hammered on different anvils, annealed in different ways. I’m a softy who just wants to look after those in my care and affections. Didn’t stop me cheating on three of the four women I’ve loved though. Dumbass that I am. Five year itch and all that.
What do we do about the opposite? The kind of man who will pursue an escaping ex across the country because she’s ‘got his kids’ even though he doesn’t really want them himself, but his pride and the mockery of his peers will not allow him stand for another man raising his child(ren). I’ve seen that happen in my street twice, let alone my estate. There’s a 1930’s mentality that exists not only in the village I grew up in but in many sink estates all across the country.
I grew up with Not the Nine O’ Clock News and Who Dares Wins on the box, and watched an incredible amount of pre-watershed telly too but apart from the foolish infidelity I’m a passable dad and an okay human being. I can’t claim to be any more, though I try to be. Anything else would be a different type of egotism on my part to the kind I usually succumb to.
I think the difference is in the very early years. The bonding that happens then. My parents read to all of us even before we were out of our cots. I made up stories for mine and capered about their rooms acting them out when I wan’t reading to them at the same age. I think that even if they are sat in front of the TV from about 6 onwards as long as some attempt has been made to engage them creatively and intellectually before that, then even Celebrity or Hollyoaks can’t wreck that. What can we do for those who won’t, or can’t bond, in those early years the way I and my parents did with their kids?
November 29th, 2008 at 12:16 am
chenier, my english grandma used to say all the poems and verses when i visited, family is important. i can’t think of any dangers of learning things by rote, it is how it was when i was in school, i seem to have missed out on the times table though, that never stuck.
November 29th, 2008 at 12:11 am
Spongebob
Baby P’s death involved dreadful sadism, and had nothing to do with bad parenting.
There is nothing that can be done to cure personality disorders, which means that the therapeutic model which social workers are trained on is of no help in this sort of case; the difficulty is in recognisng when the therapeutic model is a trap.
I can’t think of any way of doing that beyond having a forensic psychiatrist on the child protection committee whose job it is to remind all the other team members of that particular nasty fact…
November 29th, 2008 at 12:03 am
I don’t know the answer to that Chenier. What I do know is that the barbaric cruellty shown to the wee baby P is not indicative of simply bad parenting. What happened to that wee soul goes well beyond it. There are evil bastards in the world.
Fuck only knows why it wasn’t caught, and all responsible should have the book thrown at them. But remember why the social workers are there in the first place, and that they are are dealing with a horror of not their making. A horror of a job, in my opinion, and thank fuck someone does it
November 29th, 2008 at 12:02 am
Saul
I didn’t actually watch tv at all until I was 8 or 9, and nowadays I watch it very infrequently; I am pretty sure that using it as a kind of brain dummy really causes a lot of problems. On the other hand I once greatly embarrassed my daughter by not knowing who Swoony Clooney was…
sam
It’s interesting that you provide a running commentary; I’m sure that’s very, very helpful for someone who is having difficulty in putting language together. My mother knew vast amounts of poetry off by heart, and used language very well indeed; it’s one of the reasons I am dubious about the alleged dangers of learning things by rote. So much of what we do is down to practise, and if the kids don’t get the practice it may be too late when someone finally twigs that there’s a problem…
November 28th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
chenier, sometimes i think i’m all blab, i know what worked for me but i don’t know or doubt if it would work for others. everyone in this family has or is on the autistic spectrum. and then it is probably different.
November 28th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
chenier, i can’t really compare, my youngest plays xbox practically all day but i’ve always talked, i’m the kind of person who does running commentary on everything they do and i think that’s what has helped my kids with their language. we’re different.
November 28th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
sam
Did you get as far as the bit about
‘our nighttime economy areas’?
Anyone who can, in all seriousness, talk about pubs and clubs as ‘nighttime economy areas’ is beyond hope…
November 28th, 2008 at 11:51 pm
“Stick a child in front of the TV”
The root of all our ills. Get back to chidrens television and then out to play. This sounds really archaic, but when I was a kid childrens TV finished at around 5:30. Ask any school kid about Big Brother or I’m a Celebrity. Why the heck are they watching this stuff, let them be kids. There is plenty of time in the future for them to be adults. If there is a watershed then it displays the unsuitability of television. Clean it up, or switch it off.
November 28th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
Spongebob, Magnetite
You are both demonstrating that families do, indeed, need fathers; sam and I are wondering how we get the teenage boys to grasp that, particularly when they may well not have fathers of their own. They may have dads, but fatherhood involves a great deal more than biology…
November 28th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
June
It is unworkable. You must know it. I have respect for your views, having read them over the period, but you are onto plums here..,it is dangerous stuff.
I take it you pass the test?
Do I? Being a Madeleine ‘pro’? Hmnn, there must be many tests to be had
November 28th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
i mean look at this, we’re giving free flip flops for women to stagger home so they don’t hurt their pretty selves after a bit of a binge
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/article5247930.ece
but innoculating young girls with virii cos that’s easier than teaching boys to use condoms and to wash ?
November 28th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
sam
I’m sure that you are right in noting that family structures have changed so very much that we can’t compare like with like; I am sure also that there is a very big difference between sticking a child in front of the tv for all the hours of the day and night, instead of talking to that child.as you do all of the things you have to do.
I really don’t know the answer…
November 28th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
Rgiht, I’m back for what it’s worth. She’s developed a Regency consumptive’s cough now that its become tickly, and I’ve got my headphones on with loud music a-playin’. It’s to drown out Hollyoaks Later not her though, so I’ve given her a twelve pack of AA batteries to throw at the back of my head when she needs my attention. I hope she uses them one at a time.
Heavy but interesting reading from that Spin Doctors and Moral Crusader’s link.
Saul’s right on the changing educational focus though. How about a lesson a week on ‘Boys Are Shits’? We may get kids complaining about getting double Boys Are Shits, but at least they’ll know. More seriously it’s going to take more than just hauling around a ag of flour or a computerised baby. Morw scare tactics from those whose lives have been affected, the way ex-drug users and ex-convicts come in to give talks?
Okay, she’s doing practice throws to see if she can actually hit the back of my head now.
November 28th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
chenier, part of the problem i have with vaccinations is that we inject virii into peoples bodies which do lodge and stay, including in the brain. it’s just not good enough when a bit of sharp talk, free condoms and a washcloth would do.
November 28th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Chenier
I have sons. They will know how to cook, how to iron, how to throw a punch (in defence only), how to buy condoms, how to respect other people, by the time they leave home.
I am looking forward to meeting the girlfriends in years to come. Or perhaps, the boyfriends. Either way, I have the photos to embarass .
Such is the joy of being a parent.
November 28th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
june, you can’t license people fit for parenthood, that’s not much different than what the nazis did, it is a facist type of thinking, some are fit for parent hood and others not. who decides ?
November 28th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
sorry chenier, misread,or was to quick. if children don’t aquire that culture is it perhaps because families as they used to be don’t exist anymore ?
November 28th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
sam
Part of the problem on the vaccination of girls not boys is that what is supposed to be a cost-saving measure re-inforces all the wrong attitudes, so that even where parents are working really hard to bring their sons up, society is undermining the parents’ efforts.
Unless we are hoping that teenage boys will nobly rise above peer-pressure, which seems a little over-optimistic…
November 28th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
But sex education should begin in the home, not that long ago many a father showed his pregnant daughter the door, but did anyone ever tell her how to avoid the pregnancy?
Sponge Bob , you may well deride ‘licencing ‘ people to have children, but what is so good about the present system?
BabyP and the Sheffield situation can always be amongst us, to a greater or lesser extent, but how many people start a baby on a rosy glow of talcum powder adverts only to face the reality of a crying baby with colic, or worse problems for the child. Or some dewy eyed girl finding she is married to a paedo….
November 28th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
chenier, i am very concerned about that vaccination as it puts the onus on the girl again without one really knowing what the side effects of such vaccinations are, and not on the lad who should be taught to use condoms, wash often, certainly before sex, and not sleep around.
November 28th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Saul
We could just get them to learn the Ten Commandments, which would certainly cut down educational costs…