What's Love but a Second-hand Emotion?
The Children’s Compound Parents are now under attack from all sides. The battle-lines have been drawn.
Robert Buckland, the Conservative MP for Swindon South, is elated at the news that his proposal to make ‘failing to love your children’ a criminal offence, punishable by ten years in prison, is to be enshrined in the Queen’s Speech. No, it’s not April Fool’s Day yet.
This will set off a maelstrom of judicial activity, trying to define what exactly is ‘love’. Mr Buckland, who is, of course, a Barrister, would have known that. Jobs for British workers eh?
Over on the other side of the pond, more depressing news for parents. Some parents who have been trying to at least give the impression to their children that they love them, by doing their home work for them, are to be told to desist forthwith. Not, as you might imagine because this is against the ‘spirit’ of the task, nor because it isn’t actually helping the little horrors to learn anything – but because learned academic analysis has uncovered the startling fact that the parent’s efforts are lowering the overall ‘stats’ results, with damning effect on the school’s advertised performance…whoops!
Combine the two and little Johnny will shortly be able to sue his parents for not loving him enough to get his homework right….
Mr Buckland calls his law the ‘Cinderella Law’ and states, possibly for the purpose of the required media sound-bite, that his target is the proverbial wicked Step-mother, which makes his proposal all the more nonsensical. Society has never yet found a way of forcing genetic parents to actually ‘love’ the brawling, squalling, mucus covered, little git that God blessed them with; nor to show overt interest into what goes in one end nor out the other. They either do or they don’t, and the threat of ten years peace and quiet at Her Majesty’s Pleasure, far, far, away from the trials and tribulations of dealing with the end result of that unwise coupling isn’t going to seem like much of a deterrent.
Nobody takes on the role of step-parent out of positive choice, they do it because it is part of the package – love me: wash, feed and clean my brat too. If you are now going to face criminal prosecution if you are unable to grovel gratuitously act appropriately to keep said little brat away from the doors of the local chain of ‘sue-merchants’, who in their right mind would ever take on the task? A generation of newly divorced singletons will take refuge on the back seat of the Corsair, rather than co-habit or do anything that might be construed by junior as being held responsible for having to ‘love’ them.
‘Scape-goating’ a child is also to be made a criminal offence. Now ‘scape-goating’, for the benefit of Mr Buckand, is helpfully defined as the practice of singling out a person for ‘unmerited blame’. T’would be wise to only have one child in future – for to tell little Johnny that you don’t actually care which of his siblings left all the bingo balls at the bottom of the stairs, he WILL go and pick them all up before Grand-ma breaks her flippin’ neck, is likely to result in a swift call to Slater & “are you being scape-goated, we can help” Moron.
Very shortly I can see an entire junior generation being handed over to the State for safe-keeping in wired compounds. Only a few brave enthusiasts will want a live specimen in their household; they will be viewed with the same enthusiasm we reserve for those who persist in giving house room to a fully grown Python or Siberian Tiger.
I can now see why they legalised homosexual marriage – there has to be some outlet for sexual urges that doesn’t carry with it the possibility of a lethal end result.
Your suggestions for a legal definition of ‘Love’? Over to you.
- jonseer
March 31, 2014 at 9:34 am -
Well Dear Anna.
I once had described to me “love is a fellow feeling, & jealousy as another fellow feeling”
But whether such simplicity will be accepted by a legal profession with no rules, who knows ?
Keep well.- Mudplugger
March 31, 2014 at 10:30 am -
I suppose ‘fellow feeling’ is what can lead to gay marriage.
- Ho Hum
March 31, 2014 at 12:06 pm -
Or to be a Deputy for a trip to the courts, so to Speak, er?
- Ho Hum
- Mudplugger
- TotallyConfused
March 31, 2014 at 9:38 am -
This has been going on for years already…people just didn’t notice. This reminds me of my daughter at 13 years old. She went to school and made up some outrageous stories about her home life. Her best salvo across our bow was ‘My Mummy doesn’t hug me enough.’ Of course what she omitted was I was working full time as a single parent, paying for her private school, all her dancing lessons, clubs, trips abroad, volunteering my time to youth club, PTA, etc and trying to also look after her two brothers; one of which had a life threatening illness that required a lot of hospital treatment and physiotherapy daily, and the other still breastfeeding. (I know, terrible parenting; breastfeeding each child for 18 months each; next will be the law suit accusing me of feeding them for ‘unnatural co-dependent personal needs’.)
Of course, I had child protective services on my doorstep. What did it all really boil down to? She was pissed off because I chose to buy her two brothers shoes instead of a pair of ‘jazz pants’; yep, a temper tantrum. What did CPS say? ‘We will have to investigate further because 13 year old girls NEVER make up allegations to get their own way or attention.’Give birth at your peril!
- chasf
March 31, 2014 at 10:42 am -
“What did CPS say? ‘We will have to investigate further because 13 year old girls NEVER make up allegations to get their own way or attention.’”
Clearly, the CPS ought to get out more.
- Eric
March 31, 2014 at 10:45 am -
Much easier to go after Mums who don’t hug their 13 year old children enough than actual crime.
- Eric
- chasf
- English Pensioner
March 31, 2014 at 10:05 am -
I hope this law will apply to the social services and others who take children into care. Judging by what one reads in the media, the last thing any child in care gets is love.
- Eric
March 31, 2014 at 10:43 am -
God yes. To be fair the state carers aren’t allowed to ‘love’ the children in any sort of negative way. Putting up boundaries, saying, no you can’t do that. If a 14 year old girl is going to work as a Prostitute (and says so) they can’t do anything about it. Part of caring for children, is, IMO, saying ‘no’, sometimes, telling them off sometimes, and being unpleasant to them sometimes.
My children have occasionally made a semi-serious comment about Childline and their rights on occasion – they get it from school I think. Never actually about anything, usually some minor tantrum. I usually replied along the lines of ‘Yes, and you don’t have the bl**dy right to go to Disneyland either’ and a few choice words about what Children’s Homes are actually like. That Beaker show has a lot to answer for (the original book is darker).
The pathetic joke about the ‘care’ of the state is it is so awful (and it’s far worse now than it was in Anna’s days !) that in reality unless a child is being sexually abused or the parents are really violent the child is better off a home.
That’s *really* violent – a regular smack round the face, they’d be better off and safer there than in a Children’s Home.
I recommend Winston Smith’s book about Residential Care. If you thought the blogger books on Schools, Cops, Nurses, Doctors were bad, this will probably finish you off…….
- TotallyConfused
March 31, 2014 at 10:51 am -
Yep….I had the ‘Give me what I want or I will ring Childline’ attempt at blackmail. Gave in for a while out of fear. (nasty divorce) Finally, one night I could take no more …..’You ring them- go on- and you will learn the real world real fast girly- here is the phone.’ She did it. Within a week, ‘Mummy, I am sorry, can I come home.’ But after that, I have never ever completely trusted my daughter and now keep her at arms length. I love her dearly but I can not risk the emotional stability of the rest of the family unit just for her.
When I was a kid, you had a tantrum…’I’m gonna run away from home’. The correct parental answer ‘Here, let me help you pack your bags’. That stopped my generation in our tracks..’oh, maybe I should shut up and stick around…just in case….and clean my room.’
- Joe Public
March 31, 2014 at 1:06 pm -
I can now understand why you adopted that moniker.
- TotallyConfused
March 31, 2014 at 1:24 pm -
???????
- TotallyConfused
- Joe Public
- Duncan Disorderly
March 31, 2014 at 11:55 am -
“My children have occasionally made a semi-serious comment about Childline and their rights on occasion – they get it from school I think. Never actually about anything, usually some minor tantrum.”
The ‘Childline gambit’ saved me from a few wooden spoon beatings in the 80s. I understand threatening parents with ‘The Social’ was the done thing before Childline.
- TotallyConfused
- JuliaM
March 31, 2014 at 10:50 am -
English Pensioner, the last thing many children in care get is care…
- Eric
- Stewart Cowan
March 31, 2014 at 10:33 am -
“T’would be wise to only have one child in future.”
As all recent UK Governments have been following the Fabian agenda of family destruction as the only possible route to a totally socialist state, coupled with the ‘family planning’ eugenics to reduce the population, perhaps this is yet another arrow in their quiver?
Or maybe, it’s yet another method of gaining access to other people’s families.
“Children’s rights” is a term which sounds wonderful, but is in reality a way of removing parental rights and giving them to the State.
Peter Tatchell talks about “children’s sexual rights” so add the two together and one day soon, mum and dad (or both ‘mums’, both ‘dads’ or to borrow from Boris Johnson, “three men and a dog”, will get arrested for not allowing their 12 year old to sleep around.
You can imagine the ‘judge’ of the future declaring, “This degree of cruelty cannot go unpunished. I sentence both/all the parents to the maximum prison term allowable, being as it is at present, a paltry ten years. The dog shall be impounded in kennels for the rest of its natural life”.
It’s barking mad, Anna.
P.S. When can I marry my dog?
- Rightwinggit
March 31, 2014 at 10:44 am -
Nice try with the title Anna, but I’ve got “what is love” by Howard Jones running ’round my head instead!
- Crazed Weevil
March 31, 2014 at 11:03 am -
“Your suggestions for a legal definition of ‘Love’?”
I’d go with the Arnold Rimmer definition: Love is a device invented by Bank Managers to make us all over drawn
Not that I’m cynical about it or anything. *cough*. No not at all.
- Anne
March 31, 2014 at 11:13 am -
It would be better for the system to deal with the likes of the parents of Daniel Pelka and baby Peter, why were their plights ignored? Failing to ‘stimulate’ children could be a crime too?? What does that mean? Bringing Yewtree into the family home?
- TotallyConfused
March 31, 2014 at 11:22 am -
So, here is how CPS/SS investigate….
Question: Describe a normal Sunday at home…..
13 year old: My Mum starts drinking at 11 am and is pissed by 6.
11 year old: Well, my mum does my physio with me and then we go to church- my mum makes us go to sunday school- we come in right before communion. Then we hang out in the park and the local shop with our friends until about 2. We have to be home by then because my mum makes us all have a roast dinner together. After dinner, my mum does the ironing to the Eastenders Omnibus. When that is over, she checks our homework and makes sure we have done it. Then we play games or watch a movie. At 7 we have our tea. We have to have our school bags packed, clothes laid out and had a shower and cleaned our teeth by 9.- well my sister does; I have to have my physiotherapy as well. We have to go to our rooms after that.
CPS report: The 11 year old is not reliable or believable; no single parent could be that organised. The 13 year old is highly intelligent. Therefore, the 13 year old is telling what is really going on.
Now the questions to Mum:
?Do you take Communion? Yes
?Do you have a glass of wine when doing the ironing? Yes- it is my reward for the chore I hate.
?What do you do after 9 pm? Sort the baby out, make my lists of all the bills I have to pay in the coming week, shopping, activities, work commitments, review meeting notes.
?And once the baby is asleep and you are doing all this, do you have a drink? YesBingo! ‘The 13 year old must be telling the truth.
- Eric
March 31, 2014 at 3:27 pm -
If you were drinking from 11-6 then it would be obvious visibly – not that I’m saying you were.
This is fairly typical (ref Tarbuck ‘being on Top of the Pops in 1963’) in that it’s checkable – you can check with the friends, and definitely with the physiotherapist. But they can’t be bothered.
I read somewhere the comment the Social Workers are incredibly optimistic with all parents except those who actually care about their children. So the most awful parents get incredible amounts of leeway and others are slaughtered for trivia.
Which is why children die.
- TotallyConfused
March 31, 2014 at 5:17 pm -
I read somewhere the comment the Social Workers are incredibly optimistic with all parents except those who actually care about their children. So the most awful parents get incredible amounts of leeway and others are slaughtered for trivia.
—————————————————-
That is pretty much my experience as a McK F in the Family Court for the past 6 years. (I got so annoyed with the experience, I decided to see what I could do to change this ridiculous system.)Example: 35 year old woman with lovely blond blue eyed children; somehow came to their attention. (oldest child has autism and doesn’t think before he speaks….thought he would be ‘cool’ and claim step-father hit him ONCE; special needs teacher made a report because after all, we have to believe the children no matter what.) So out toddle the social services. Find a lovely 4 bed detached home in a nice rural middle class setting. Mother told to remove ‘the risk’; kicks him out. Still not good enough; ‘let’s put the children into care (with of course the youngest being 3 weeks old) just to test her commitment to making sure he is gone for good.’ (He is.)
2 weeks ago a Judge ordered that older children go into permanent foster care (Father deceased of natural causes) and two youngest be put up for adoption. This was the very first time I failed to get children returned to their Mother and it is eating all involved alive.
And the irony? Mother was in the second year of studying to be ….a social worker!
- TotallyConfused
- Eric
- Ed P
March 31, 2014 at 11:32 am -
I love your, “sue-merchants” – with its echoes of sous-chef underlings, it’s doubly disparaging to lawyers.
- Kevin B
March 31, 2014 at 11:39 am -
Surely, in the modern world of social media, it should be “What’s love but a second=hand emoticon?”
- Ho Hum
March 31, 2014 at 12:12 pm
- Ho Hum
- rabbitaway
March 31, 2014 at 11:39 am -
‘The Pendle witch child’ was repeated on BBC4 last night. Just in case anyone thinks things are bad now, than goodness, King James and Charles 1 had some sense !
- Fat Steve
March 31, 2014 at 2:35 pm -
@Rabbitaway Re Pendle Witch Child —For me quite the best analogy not just of Savile et al but of recent history
- Fat Steve
- DtP
March 31, 2014 at 11:51 am -
It makes you wonder what the point of being Tory is, well, another thing to make you wonder. Shheesshh.
- Dick Puddlecote
March 31, 2014 at 12:45 pm -
We don’t seem to have three choices of mainstream party any more, just a variation on the same isolated and voter-ignorant political and media class. This article describes it extremely well.
- TotallyConfused
March 31, 2014 at 1:23 pm -
Or as my mother would say ‘The peasants are revolting- and they are unhappy too.’
- TotallyConfused
- Dick Puddlecote
- Ho Hum
March 31, 2014 at 12:37 pm -
I’m not naturally disposed to supporting anything of this nature, which all too often sounds like the product of a mind which has lost even a fingertip hold on reality, but given that report in the DM, an organ which has for some time seemed quite capable of demonstrating that it too has done that, I’m a wee bit doubtful if all might really be as simple as it is being portrayed
If you look at Mr Buckland’s own website, and his interests eg (only one URL to avoid moderation – you can explore the rest yourselves) …
http://www.robertbuckland.co.uk/about-2/
…. there is enough content there that, to me at least, from my own experience with my kids, aligns him more with the angels, rather than the villains.
The real villains are all too often the swine who then misuse a well meant piece of legislation, taking it far beyond its intended remit, to foster and implement their own less well principled agendas
You don’t really see this bloke as being of the kind of pernicious revolutionaries that would infest the UK’s children with the sort of mindsets that would send their parents to their deaths in the Lubyanka, or to servitude courtesy of the Gulag, as kulaks, counter revolutionary enemies, failed Bolsheviks, Chekists who have outlived their usefulness – although I might be tempted to make exceptions for those latter two – or other progress wreckers, do you?
As for ‘love’, it’s doing what is good and right, regardless of the effort, cost or risk to oneself
- Ho Hum
March 31, 2014 at 12:44 pm -
BTW, that doesn’t actually mean that whoever is the recipient of one’s love is going to either understand it, or like it, and that you will be immune from any risk arising from them. All too often, if you see someone digging a hole for themselves, and maybe try to help them by taking away the shovel, they will then turn round and hit you with it.
- Eric
March 31, 2014 at 3:28 pm -
No, not really. Anyone with 20 minute experience of SSD or Residential Care knows how this will be abused.
- Ho Hum
March 31, 2014 at 4:50 pm -
True. Some within our legislature sound as if the mean well, but are clueless as to what will happen to their good intentions in the real world. Some sound as if they are good intentioned and mean well, and are anything but clueless as to what will then happen in the real world
- Ho Hum
- Ho Hum
- Fat Steve
March 31, 2014 at 12:52 pm -
The way to hell so to speak…..I was once one of a large group of litigants who had the misfortune to loose very very large sums of money in a rather unusual set of legal circumstances restricting rights of redress It a little too complex to go into here but raised points about rights in Law. Some of the litigants ran a point on human rights ……which was met by the Judge becoming rather annoyed and expleting mid hearing so I am told ………’I will tell you what your Human Rights are’…..and so it is once laws are made that are capable of defining rather than simply restricting…….well love next so it seems ….only time before its back to the good old days of what God is or is not —and all the institutions and rituals that accompanies such certainties ….The modern day equivalent of the Inquisition no doubt in suitably privatised and efficient form….. the modern equivalent of auto da fe being perhaps a slot on prime time T.V.
Hey lets get my position right before I am flamed about not caring —-I reckon one can take a reasonable shot on what love is not and a few other metaphysical concepts besides …..but what it is? …..or should or ought to be? ….what it must be?
Primum Non Nocere when one starts arrogating notions of moral right to one’s cause but that’s not what History teaches happens though well it might.
Be Afraid,be very afraid much as a European must have been afraid when the certainties of Religion were fought over at the start of the 30 years war but elided as such things do into issues of secular control/power over others justified on metaphysical truths which by their nature are not fully knowable. - Carol42
March 31, 2014 at 2:35 pm -
One thing you can be sure of is if this becomes a law it will be misused, as now ordinary parents with be targeted while the real villains that the SS are afraid of will be left alone. Who would be a parent these days?
- TotallyConfused
March 31, 2014 at 5:21 pm -
Remember that even if a criminal court clears parents of any wrong doing, the family court works on ‘the balance of probability’. ‘So the Crown Prosecution Service cleared you, but we think on balance it could have happened.’ So an even worse no win situation than already exists.
- Ho Hum
March 31, 2014 at 7:27 pm -
And as we have seen all too recently, the prosecution’s theme tune is now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qOnInTJsos
They probably play it every morning as the company song. Hits all sorts of bases.
- Ho Hum
- TotallyConfused
- Robert the Biker
March 31, 2014 at 3:40 pm -
So what exactly happens?
Precious phones the helpline and then?
Social takes Precious away, Precious very rapidly learns that the grass is NOT greener in the care home. Parent is meanwhile rapidly going skint spending on lawyers and soon there is NO family home to return to.
Precious is housed (not unlike a battery hen) until the age of eighteen when he/she is unceremoniously chucked out into an uncaring world with no chance of even FINDING Parent who, if they escaped prison, need Precious in their lives like a hole in the3 head!
Lawyers and social shit happy, world a sadder place.
Glad mine are grown up. - prog
March 31, 2014 at 4:02 pm -
I can already see one conflict looming….
Proverbs 13:24
http://www.biblestudytools.com/proverbs/13-24-compare.html
(Though not with the modern, trendy Church).
- Ho Hum
March 31, 2014 at 4:15 pm -
Not a parliamentary problem, though. Politicians are all too keen to show their love for us by introducing rafts of punitive legislation to discipline and enforce us, for our own good, to conform to their precepts, convictions, principles and dogmas
- prog
March 31, 2014 at 4:20 pm -
Not unlike some relegions…
- Ho Hum
March 31, 2014 at 4:30 pm -
True, but the modern trend to confuse ‘dogma+compulsion’ with ‘preaching+free will’, as if one and the same, is a pain+derrière
- Ho Hum
March 31, 2014 at 4:42 pm -
Just seen this since posting that. A fascinating demonstration of the potential outcomes of those types of positions
- Ho Hum
- Ho Hum
- prog
- Ho Hum
- David Duff
March 31, 2014 at 4:45 pm -
I, too, turned bilious on hearing the news that it will shortly be illegal not to love your ‘likkle kiddie-winkies’. It produced an instant blog post from me entitled “And yet another total Tory tit – Robert Buckland MP”. In it, I urged the electorate of Swindon to vote for a mouth-foaming Marxist if that was what was needed to remove this utterly useless man from parliament. In my rage I also sent a copy of it to the Swindon Advertiser although whether they publish or not remains to be seen. However, I was pleased to see, dear Ms. Raccoon, that you share my instant suspicion that this ex-barrister and soon to be ex-MP can see a nice line of work flowing through the sewage pipes that link Westminster to Chambers!
- Ho Hum
March 31, 2014 at 4:57 pm -
To quote your goodself:
‘And what, I wonder, will constitute failure to love your ‘likkle kiddie-winkies’?’
If you don’t know the answer to your own question, how can you reach the conclusions you did? – in particular
‘Well, Mr. Buckland has already undertaken his first act of cruelty to children by having two of his own. No child should have to grow up with such a total tit of a father!’
Or is it just that one has to live as a Great paridae to recognise another?
- David Duff
April 1, 2014 at 8:17 am -
Ho Hum, you should change your name to ‘Ho Ho’ because “Great paridae” was exceedingly witty – even if I did have to look it up!
Of course, anyone who can trot out a word like “paridae” is obviously something of a swot so I will defer to you in seeking answers to my question as to what, exactly and precisely, will constitute failure to love you children whilst bearing in mind that its 10-years in the slammer if you get the answer wrong!
Also, and this is obviously a thought that has never crossed what Mr. Buckland calls his mind, there is a presumption in his ridiculous law that one should always and forever ‘love’ one’s children. Why?
- David Duff
- Cascadian
March 31, 2014 at 6:30 pm -
I think your response is correct, though a bit (not much) overstated.
The voters of Swindon South would do well to consider if their constituency is so problem-free that their representative can ignore them in favour of some more fantasy legislation. Once again the camoron government shows itself completely adrift from the realities that face the country-upcoming energy shortages, future natural gas rationing, an Islam insurgency, failing education systems primary through tertiary, failed health services provision, failed border security, inept and under-resourced armed services ……..when do I stop? Having considered those issues they might think about switching their vote at the next general election from this bunch of under-achievers perhaps to UKIP, but in reality certainly NOT conservative, liebour or lib-dumbs.
- Ho Hum
- The Blocked Dwarf
March 31, 2014 at 6:47 pm -
The day my, then teenage, spastic son -aka “Daddy’s Little Cripple” or “Sméagol Gollum” (think the 1978 LOTR animated version, please) discovered that he could undo his girlfriend’s bra -reaching around her while she straddled his wheelchair- ONE handed through her t-shirt was the day he suddenly stopped grizzling about his “abusive” childhood and his unloving parents. Suddenly the manifold daily litany of parental chiding of him to “keep your fucking wrist straight, Kid!” , the constant reminders to ‘unspaz’ his hands, the ‘whacks’ on his bent wrists at the meal table (not as ‘punishment’ you understand but it helped him concentrate on the ‘offending’ limb) all seemed WORTH IT!
For those who don’t know, opening a bra ‘blind’ with one hand is a feat of legerdemain that even Houdini would be proud of, the Gold Standard of Fine Motor Skillz.Now he lives independently, cooks for himself and can even open the Kitty-Kat Gourmet pouch for his cat himself (try it sometime!)…as well as flying a ‘normal’ QWERTY keyboard well enough to spend every waking hour on Fecesbook.
He does still however jump at loud noises. But I’m guessing he’d rather that than have to be spoon fed because his hands/wrists had ‘fused’.
So yes, according to the law, we ABUSED him and even back then, in Germany, it was an offence to strike a child -doubly so with an object. Those mealtime forks across the wrist could have very easily landed me in jail.
So my definition of LOVE? Probably best summed up in the phrase *SHOUTY ANGRY UNLOVING VOICE* “Kid, you may have been born a spaz but you sure as fuck don’t have to act like one, now get your wrist straight!!!”
- Ho Hum
March 31, 2014 at 7:06 pm -
Good for you, and having the courage of your convictions. My Mum summed it all up nicely, when I was little, in that well kent saying
‘Sometimes, you have to be cruel to be kind’
- TotallyConfused
March 31, 2014 at 7:11 pm -
In response to that and the person who put Howard Jones in my head all day (thanks bud…..) I retort with:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0l3QWUXVho
TC
- Ho Hum
March 31, 2014 at 7:22 pm -
Thanks for that dash of sadism. I’d quite happily forgotten it till now. LOL
Staying on theme, he probably wishes now that his mum had cut his hair
- Ho Hum
- The Blocked Dwarf
March 31, 2014 at 7:25 pm -
@Ho Hum, thanks but I don’t know about courage, can you imagine striking a disabled child-forcing him to do something that he can barely do? It still makes me sick to think of it to be honest but the key is in the ‘barely do’. The parental chestnut of this ‘ hurts me more than it hurts you’ was never more true when i reduced him to tears with shouted reprimands to straighten his hands (and stop dribbling at the table and in bed). He was born with something like 0.1% normal control of his hands/wrists but we found out by pure chance that he could – if ‘motivated’ enough- move his wrists a little…a very bloody little and over the years, the years of “*sob*B-b-but D-daddy I CAAAAAAN’T *wail*” he gained an almost normal level of control.
Like I said, he still jumps at loud noises but can play the guitar and is taking driving lessons-in a car adapted only for his lack of leg movement not his manual dexterity. Apparently he still dribbles in his sleep though…
- Ho Hum
March 31, 2014 at 7:32 pm -
I have a child with a congenital disability too. Of a different nature, but I can really empathise with your predicament, and what you sometimes need to do in such circumstances.
That’s one reason why I’m not too sure about the out of hand condemnation of Mr Buckland. The sorts of things he’s developed an interest in are not the sort of areas that most people just fall into for the fun of it
- Ho Hum
- TotallyConfused
- Ho Hum
- Johnny Monroe
March 31, 2014 at 6:56 pm -
If the law had been in place when I was a child in the 70s, then this little Johnny’s father would still be doing time. Oh, and my mum would have a had a spell behind bars on account of me bunking-off school. They didn’t know when they were well-off!
- Ho Hum
March 31, 2014 at 7:16 pm -
And on the sex offenders register too, given some of the pics they took of us, their little darlings, in all our, and their, innocence
I think Leonard Cohen got it quite wrong in his vision of ‘The Future’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrLC7LDFX6s
We may not have the Berlin Wall, we definitely don’t have St Paul, but we’re well down the road towards the likes of ‘Stalin and his Hangmen’ – should read that, absolutely enthralling – and everything of theirs that they want to measure you up against
- Ho Hum
- ian R Thorpe
March 31, 2014 at 7:06 pm -
It’s no good trying to talk your way out of it, with spy cameras and mics in your laptop, tablet, mp3 player, games consoie and Google Goggles nanobots in your food and rfid chips under your skin, they’ll know if you did something trivial like locking the little darlings in the cellar all day, or committed a really serious “love” crime, like failing to make them understand same sex relationships are superior to the more common sort preferred by ignorant, bigoted knuckle draggers.
- TotallyConfused
March 31, 2014 at 8:03 pm -
Ian…
When I was 7, my father could only afford the 20th row for me to see Donny Osmond. (Shows my age) Do you know a good solicitor….I mean he obviously seriously abused me as a child.Oh and I had to kiss Great Grandma every other sunday on the cheek (face- don’t be a perv) both coming into her house and leaving…the trauma is overwhelming….the nightmares!
And my parents in their cruelty, allowed me to get a job when I was 15 as a full time babysitter/child minder for two children in the summer holidays. One day the ‘boyfriend’ of the lady I worked for came in unexpectedly while I was washing the lunch dishes…and he…oh the shame…the horror…the flashbacks…he pinched my bum!
I am not making light of real abuse- it happens and is wrong. It MUST be dealt with. But where has the sense of proportion gone? We are not living an Orwell book….but more…pre thought crime is here. YEAH!
Not I will go as I have a reputation to live up to at this hour….you know that whole ironing and glass of wine thing. (note the time please!)
TC
- TotallyConfused
- Henry
March 31, 2014 at 9:38 pm -
We’ve talked elsewhere recently about the corruption of the meanings of words like “racism” and “abuse”. Other terms like “freedom”, “equality”, “misogyny” all get slyly redefined and misused by political wind-up merchants or journalists.
Of course our language – despite being very rich – doesn’t describe everything perfectly. The worst examples might be “love” and “hate”.
“Hatred” is something Guardian readers go on about an awful lot. It’s a good word to sling about on Twitter. You get these ridiculous implicit side-swipes on CiF about the “hatred in some of these comments” without naming or giving an example. It’s also found its way into legislation with “hate-speech”, despite being largely meaningless.
Ah “love”. I was told (but haven’t checked), that ancient Greek had 3 or 4 words for love, one meaning “brotherly love”, another meaning sexual love – can’t remember the rest. And of course we use the word with ridiculous lack of care. A man can love life, love his sister, his job, his mother, his wife, his mistress, his daughter, his best friend, father, brother, his lego set, his God, and you can bet he’s doing or feeling a different thing in every case.
We haven’t been able to define “love” despite centuries of trying (this is why philosophers are sometimes useful – though they often mess it up)….and lots of bad poetry. Good job an opportunist politician has finally worked it all out – or even better, he trusts a bunch of public sector twerps to do so for us.
- Surreptitious Evil
April 2, 2014 at 12:07 pm -
Eros – sexual love.
Agape – love for everybody. The “love” commonly used in the bible.
Philia – deep friendship / brotherly love (but see below)
Storge – similar to Philia but usually kept for family. This is “I love my child” stuff.
Ludus – like between young children. Less mature and more playful than philia.
Pragma – deep love. Essentially what philia or eros may grow in to with plenty of time.
Philautia – love of self. Can be bad, pace Narcissus, but its absence is also rarely good. Self-esteem, in a modern context.
- Surreptitious Evil
- Moor Larkin
March 31, 2014 at 10:02 pm -
Surely none of this can have anything to do with actual children, since they will have no idea that what is happening to them is either good nor bad; it will simply be their life. The only point at which this becomes relevant is many years later when they can lodge a complaint for historical crime. The BBC website seems to demonstrate this very aspect in it’s write-up.
“Collette, whose father is black, was frequently told by her white mother and stepfather that she had been “a mistake”. “When my mother met my stepfather and had children with him, I was in the way. “My stepfather was racist and she had no excuse for having a mixed-raced child. “The result was me being treated like Cinderella but without the ball and happy ending. “I felt like I shouldn’t have been born, I’d been told often enough. “I would watch how my parents would be so different with my younger siblings and burn with anger and jealousy. “I was placed under the mental health act and have been receiving help ever since. “I was finally diagnosed with severe depression, post-traumatic stress, bipolar and anxiety.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26814427- Ho Hum
March 31, 2014 at 10:17 pm -
Can probably sue the lawyers for professional negligence too, for their forgetting to advise her to include the stepdad’s once wearing a shellsuit
- Ho Hum
- Harold stewart
March 31, 2014 at 10:17 pm -
my dad used to play football with me he didnt have a ball
- Chris
March 31, 2014 at 10:20 pm -
I had to put up with ’emotional cruelty’ when I was younger due my father being a bit… emotionally lacking (jealous, moody, irrational, controlling… in hindsight ‘a little bit Aspergers’ and a man with low self-esteem). I could recall umpteen ‘incidents’, and he’d still be doing them now if he wasn’t so knackered. Stuff like leaving me (9), my sister (6) and my mum (7 months pregnant) in tears at the side of a motorway somewhere down south cos my sister spilt a small amount of orange squash on the seats of his one-month-old Ford Capri, before returning 15/20 minutes later and ‘forgiving us’. If I wasn’t the ‘progressive’ type of libertarian I am, one could spend my entire recalling such events – but I’d rather forgive the product of a demanding narcissistic mother and a buffoon father, and avoid repeating any such idiocy – he’ll never change so what’s the point?
I’d have loved kids of my own, but not here. That would be child cruelty in itself – what chance would they have of becoming anything more than infantilised daleks? I thought long and hard about this 9 years ago when I thought I was going to be a dad – and that was then!- Moor Larkin
April 1, 2014 at 8:28 am -
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.My dad Philip wrote that………….
- Moor Larkin
- Ms Mildred
April 1, 2014 at 8:59 am -
Surely we can all sit down and think up incidents in our childhood that would get our parents arrested these days. A whack with the bristle side of a hairbrush anyone? Sending up to bed early without an evening meal. Never attending school functions……war on….were there any? Later on nagging to get me to help with housework, when mum at home all day and me slaving as a put upon cadet nurse at the local hospital. Not flogging likely. Even as a stupid teenager I could work out mum’s distress. Dad called up late. Lowered income. Strangers in the house billeted on her by the air ministry. I recall ‘the dear little six year old’. No toys allowed. Made to sit on the settee with eyes cast down. Called ‘backward’. Four younger brothers by a brooding step father and another one on the way, causing terrible rows, and me seeing grasp bruising and reporting the injuries….eventual result was the child’s adoption by parental request. Just that one episode made it all worth it. Cinderalla got out from under, with the assistance of an informed group of professional ladies who showed a little waif of a Cinderella some lurve. All this childrens rights stuff is total B******ks. Gives kids too much power too soon. Sort out the adults first. Debt, ignorance, poverty, serial dads, too many kids, too fast, to get benefits, dragged up, then ignored.
- Moor Larkin
April 1, 2014 at 9:10 am -
Whatever happened to those soppy cartoons that were so popular in the 1970’s ?
Might have guessed they’d have a website…… http://www.loveisfan.com/historyPerhaps no coincidence that the “lovers” were drawn to look like kiddies.
- Ms Mildred
April 1, 2014 at 11:25 am -
You only have to tell your teenager off for being an Emo or a Goth these days Anna to get a visit from the SS. My Gran threatened a grown up son…..my dad, with a poker for wanting to buy a motor cycle in the nineteen twenties. My mothers father hit his wife in front of teen age kids, and he and his 17 year old son had a fight over the assault, they separated but never divorced. Parents very often get it wrong….very wrong indeed. How not to criminalise well meaning parents trying hard to love their kids by giving manipulative children too much power is the question.
- TotallyConfused
April 1, 2014 at 11:41 am -
long post just disappeared….into the ether….
- Moor Larkin
April 1, 2014 at 8:46 pm -
…………… or the saloon bar………..
- TotallyConfused
April 2, 2014 at 4:08 am -
lack of pork scratchings…..
- TotallyConfused
- Moor Larkin
- TotallyConfused
- Bill Sticker
April 1, 2014 at 2:34 pm -
Whoever dreamed up this silly law has never brought up teenagers.
- Lucozade
April 1, 2014 at 8:22 pm -
I’m in two minds about this – it’s probably a good thing in severe cases where the neglect is sever or deliberate, but in cases where it’s not intentional or done knowingly, it might be a better idea just to offer the family some help….
- Lucozade
April 1, 2014 at 8:29 pm -
At the end of the day ’emotional cruelty’ is deemed serious enough to be grounds for divorce, so if it is really happing to a child from their parents then their probably going to be affected by it far worse than an adult from their spouse. I do think it should have to be *proven* before action should be taken against the parents (depending on the severity and whether the parents knew what they were doing), but if someone does make a complaint about it it would he a good thing if they could be offered some help and support, advice etc none the less whether it can be proven or not – that’s probably the most important thing….
- Ho Hum
April 1, 2014 at 8:44 pm -
The problem with this sort of thing is that it will all hinge on whether or not the parents had, or had not, bought a whip before or after the date that the child then said, 30 years later, that they had been subject to flagellation at the hand of their nearest and dearest
With any luck I shall be dead by then, and not in any danger of succumbing from the seizure that would be brought on by such nonsense.
- Ho Hum
- Ms Mildred
April 6, 2014 at 12:10 pm -
I have just read Peter Hitchens in The Sunday Mail today. He has written about this ‘childrens rights’ issue to be included in the Queens speech. He comments on how dangerous this will be for all parents. Parents who want children to behave themselves. Very strangely there are no comments invited. Things happen in later life that set grown up children against parents. If it is left open to report at any future time on parental ‘unreasonable behaviour’, then shudder all ye who take on parenthood. I know perfectly well that some adults look back on childhood with bitter resentment, usually at one or other parent. For put downs, criticism, favouritism, over strict, being ‘picked on’, affairs, told they are dumbows etc. Why arn’t you more like some other clever dick cousin? Some kids are so sensitive they dissolve at the faintest of reproofs. Poor old Queenie for having to stand there encrusted in jewels and spout such nonsense. Not deemed, by some, to be a fantastic parent herself either…..oh my!
- Harold stewart
April 7, 2014 at 12:13 am -
oh my god read Atlas Shrugged
- Harold stewart
- Delphius
April 7, 2014 at 10:26 pm -
I just wonder how exactly local authorities plan to love the young charges in their care with just the “right” amount of love, without triggering a whole raft of lawsuits.
Who deems the levels of “not enough” and “too much”?
A case of damned if they do and damned if they don’t….
- Harold stewart
April 8, 2014 at 3:37 pm -
er were does this place incest
{ 84 comments… read them below or add one }