Editorial: Child parents in a sexualised society
Ravi Chandiramani
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
The story of Alfie Patten becoming a father at 13 has unleashed a predictable moral panic in the past week over "Broken Britain", family breakdown and the welfare dependency of the underclass.
Three overriding considerations need to cut through the noise. The first is the quality of sex and relationships education, the key to which is the "relationships" element. Aside from providing an understanding of the facts of life and good sexual health, such education needs also to give young people the emotional ability to covet and value forming respectful and loving relationships. This is particularly crucial for those children who lack such relationships in their everyday lives, and are deemed typically as "at risk" of underage sex.
Second, is the importance of parental support and intervention with families where children are brought up surrounded by deprivation, substance misuse and criminal activity. The government is aiming for its Family Intervention Projects to reach 20,000 families by next year and wants all local authorities to "Think Family" and join up services through both adult and children's departments. Scepticism surrounds the scale of these commitments, but they're at least a start in trying to break the cycles of disadvantage and low aspirations passed down the generations - and that can be manifested in children having sex too early.
The third consideration is one that the children's and youth workforce unfortunately has limited power to influence - and that is the sexualisation of our culture. As Social Claire states in her CYP Now blog, the vilification of teenage pregnancy carrying on while our society "sells our children a constant diet of sexual imagery" is nothing short of "appalling hypocrisy". Consumer brands and advertisers have long abided by the motto that sex sells, but tedious sexual innuendos now engulf so much programming that is watched and listened to by young children.
On this matter the government has been toothless in its inaction, scared perhaps about coming across as old-fashioned or puritanical. Its reviews into the commercialisation of childhood and the Byron Review on the risks to children posed by technology have issued nothing solid and have failed to address the problem.
We don't know the true motivations of Alfie Patten and Chantelle Steadman - but these issues must be prioritised if their daughter Maisie is to be given a good chance in her life.
