As all UK readers will be aware more details of the Baby P case have been published in today’s papers.
What has upset me the most is how his mother did nothing to stop the appalling abuse that was metered out to him by her boyfriend and his brother and how despite being taken away by the Police Social Services let him return to the family home to be tortured and eventually murdered.
Doing nothing condemned that little boy to his terrible short life.
Take him away, leave him with; the damage was done when this woman had a baby. She obviously wasn't capable of taking care of one at this stage of her life. Instead of free condoms and The Pill that rely on common sense and a willingness to use them, perhaps the implant (quick and long-lasting) should be made compulsory for some people. (Talking of which; did you see 'The Trouble with Girls' last night on BBC2? I didn't mean to watch, but it was real car-crash TV. Those poor girls... in almost every sense... just needed to come to their senses. No employment, education or training... and a baby. Prime DSS babies. Something needs to shift in our society)
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that children are having children... which go onto having more children...
ReplyDeleteWhere will this lead....
How do you break the cycle...
& what sort of generation will there be...
Marion....
In many case abused children are the children of abused children perhaps the mother bore the horrible mental scars of a similar life so although we think "how could she?" Maybe there was no-one who helped her find a safe place without all the things we are protected from- I'm not defending her just trying to see the world from her shoes
ReplyDeleteWhat happened to Baby P was terrible. It makes me feel sick to think that the same sort of thing is very probably happening right now to another poor child somewhere. Sadly there will always be people who can't cope with parenthood for whatever reason - let's hope our social services system gets better at protecting the children of these families - but in response to some of the other comments I think it is important that we don't bracket all young parents* together and consider them potential abusers. My granddaughter was born to a mother and father of 16 years old and they are two of the best parents I've ever seen - really - to my astonishment. Yes, they need financial support from the government, but let's hope that with this help they will be able to continue the fine job they've begun.
ReplyDelete*Baby P's parents weren't actually that young by the way.
Poor Baby P was her 4th or 5th child I think.Her own upbringing sounds appalling. The whole sorry mess is beyond belief and far removed from many of our experiences of childhood/family life/parenthood.
ReplyDeleteA chap from ther NSPCC said there were one or two children killed by abuse every week in this country. So shocking.