for the

Family

for the

Youth

for the

Future

Bulletin 137: Autumn 2009

In this issue:

 

How parents are being replaced by institutions

Care manager Neal Shelton-Green reflects on a definite shift of focus in the government’s Sure Start programme.

I initially qualified with a degree in nursing and public health and worked as a health visitor in a large UK town. After subsequent experience as a practitioner and team manager I undertook post-graduate studies, eventually becoming a deputy manager for a third wave Sure Start project, having served on the management board that set up and established the project. Before leaving the UK to take up my present post in Canada, I undertook the National Professional Qualification in Integrated Centre Leadership (NPQICL).

In that time I witnessed first hand a very fast change in vision for Sure Start. As a health visitor I was involved in very practical issues that were the result of poor parenting or lack of parenting. Teenage parents, child abuse, domestic violence, mental health issues and poor self-esteem were daily issues. It was very clear both in practice and from research that adequate parenting was essential if children were to achieve their potential.

Sure Start set out to create opportunities for children to reach their potential through supporting parents to engage with their children. Parents were taught how to talk with their child, how to play with their child, how to care for their child. This was such a basic element of childhood that many parents had not experienced themselves and needed support with. Much was done to increase the self-esteem and sense of worth of parents which would ultimately improve the results of their parenting and outcomes for their children.

Change of direction

The last year of my experience was very much focused on managing the change of direction stipulated by government and local authority departments. The driving force became focusing on supporting parents to return to, or enter, the workforce. Funding for developing parenting skills was reduced, with targets being set for parents to be supported with CV writing and interview skills etc. To allow this to happen, child care was offered either at highly subsidised rates or free of charge. No longer was the aim to increase children’s potential through parental involvement but to provide institutions that would effectively replace the need for parents.

It saddened me to see this change of focus and the impact that it had on families I had known. The goal for achievement and success was replaced with enabling parents to access child care and gain independence from their child. Those who didn’t access the child care funding and kept their child with them throughout the day were viewed by their peers and local services as failures. My studies on the NPQICL demonstrated and confirmed that providing child care for all was now the gold standard for children’s services.

The role of fathers

I am currently working as a health case manager for clients infected with HIV. This means that on a daily basis I deal with mental health issues, addictions, prostitution, homosexuality and abuse. Working with those who have succumbed to addictions and homelessness can be very humbling, as many of them are willing to share their life stories with someone they feel they can trust. This has been for me a profound experience that has confirmed within me the need to support parents in parenting and to value the role of parents – particularly fathers.

In interviewing a number of addicts and homeless people it became frighteningly clear that there was a common theme to their  backgrounds.  So much so that I started to ask a specific question and could almost predict the response.

When clients were telling me their life stories I would ask them: ‘At what stage in your life do you believe things went wrong?’ The response was always the same: ‘When my father…’ Either abuse was recollected or a significant incident that had happened which involved a parent, and it was usually the father.

There is an overwhelming body of evidence and research that demonstrates that the way to reduce issues such as addictions and involvement in criminal activities is to support children and parents in the early years of life. Parents need to take responsibility for the outcomes of their child; some may need support such as through Sure Start, but the majority need just to be made aware that the future achievements and outcomes of their child rests with them.

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Why does the government immediately associate the word ‘motherhood’ with registered childcare?

For most of us motherhood is synonymous with warmth, love, gentleness and tender care, but mention the word to the government and it conveys the image of day nurseries and third party care where children are away from their mothers.

Speaking at the conclusion of a House of Lords debate on children and families, government minister Baroness Morgan remarked:

‘The noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, talked about the importance of motherhood. I reassure her that the Government have a very strong commitment to the provision of quality childcare, particularly for children in areas of deprivation. As of March 2009, there were more than 1.3 million registered childcare places, more than double the figure in 1997. In 1997 there was one registered childcare place for every eight children; now there is one for four children under the age of eight. Taking into account turnover, at August 2008, more than 664,000 new Ofsted registered places have been created since 1997.’

What hope for a family policy that is truly in the best interests of children when government ministers have no appreciation of something as fundamental as motherhood?

HL Hansard, 14 May 2009, col 1149.

 

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The health benefits of full-time motherhood

Children of working mothers tend to have less healthy lifestyles than children whose mothers stay at home, according to new research from the Institute of Child Health. A study of 12,576 five-year-old children revealed that those whose mothers worked part-time or full-time consumed more sugary drinks between meals, spent more time in front of television and computer screens, and had less exercise than children whose mothers had never been employed. Children whose mothers worked full-time were less likely to primarily eat fruit or vegetables between meals or to eat three or more portions of fruit daily.1

One of the authors of the study, Catherine Law, from the Centre for Paediatric Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Institute of Child Health, told The Times that it was unclear whether the link between maternal working habits and child health was associated with children’s habits while the mother was at work, or whether it might be a consequence of time pressures when she returned home.2

This latest research is consistent with findings from 2007 in the Millennium Cohort Study which found that children were 14 per cent more likely to be overweight or obese at the age of three if their mothers had worked since they were born.3 Both studies took into account factors that might influence the results, such as socioeconomic background, family structure and household income.

Notes
1. S S Hawkins, T J Cole, C Law, Examining the relationship between maternal employment and health behaviours in 5-year-old British children, J Epidemiol Community Health, Published Online First: 29 September 2009. doi:10.1136/jech.2008.084590.
2. S Lister, Working mums have the unhealthiest children, research finds, Times, 29 September 2009.
3. S S Hawkins, T J Cole, C Law, Maternal employment and early childhood overweight: findings from the UK Millennium Cohort Study, International Journal of Obesity (2008) 32, 30–38; doi:10.1038/sj.ijo.0803682; published online 17 July 2007.

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Polyamory – The Perfectly Plural Postmodern Condition

Dr R Albert Mohler

Once a sexual revolution is set loose, it inevitably runs its course through the culture.  While the current flashpoints of cultural conflict are focused on same-sex marriage and gender issues, others are biding their time.  As Newsweek magazine makes clear, some new flashpoints are getting restless. Polyamory, reports Newsweek, is having a ‘coming-out-party’.  Polyamory is the current ‘term of art’ applied to ‘families’ or ‘clusters’ comprised of multiple sexual partners.

As Newsweek explains, this is not exactly polygamy, because marriage is not the issue. Advocates of polyamory argue that their lifestyle is not ‘open marriage’. Indeed, they define their movement in terms of the moral principle of ‘ethical nonmonogamy’, defined as ‘engaging in loving, intimate relationships with more than one person – based upon the knowledge and consent of everyone involved.’1

Legal theorists and opponents of same-sex marriage routinely (and rightly) make the argument that the legalisation of homosexual marriage will, inevitably, lead to the legalisation of polygamy. Once marriage is redefined to allow for same-sex unions, any determination to maintain legal prohibitions against polygamy will be seen as merely arbitrary. At the same time, once strictures against adultery were eliminated in the culture and in the law, something essentially like polygamy was inevitable.

A growing movement

The article in Newsweek, written by Jessica Bennett, presents polyamory as a growing movement that now involves persons in the cultural mainstream. As the magazine reports:

‘Researchers are just beginning to study the phenomenon, but the few who do estimate that openly polyamorous families in the United States number more than half a million, with thriving contingents in nearly every major city.’

The movement now claims a number of recognised books, blogs, podcasts, and even an online magazine entitled ‘Loving More’. According to Newsweek, actress Tilda Swinton and Carla Bruni, the First Lady of France, have emerged as prominent spokespersons for nonmonogamy. As should be expected, the Kinsey Institute for Research  in  Sex,  Gender  and  Reproduction at Indiana University now features a ‘polyamory library’.

Roots

Jessica Bennett suggests that the contemporary polyamory movement has roots in utopian movements of the 19th century:

‘The notion of multiple-partner relationships is as old as the human race itself. But polyamorists trace the foundation of their movement to the utopian Oneida commune of upstate New York, founded in 1848 by Yale theologian John Humphrey Noyes. Noyes believed in a kind of communalism he hoped would fix relations between men and women; both genders had equal voice in community governance, and every man was considered to be married to every woman.

‘But it wasn’t until the late-1960s and 1970s ‘free love’ movement that polyamory truly came into vogue; when books like Open Marriage topped best-seller lists and groups like the North American Swingers Club began experimenting with the concept. The term ‘polyamory’, coined in the 1990s, popped up in both the Merriam-Webster and Oxford English dictionaries in 2006.’

New vocabulary

In one sense, the polyamorous defy easy categorisation. The movement includes couples who openly and with full knowledge of each other engage in sexual relationships with others. Some are involved in group sex and others experiment with bisexuality. The Newsweek article introduces readers to a new vocabulary. The most revealing word is ‘polyfidelitous’ – which means that the multiple partners keep sexual activity within their own self-identified cluster.

Interestingly, Bennett observes that the movement ‘has a decidedly feminist bent’. If men can have multiple wives or female partners, then, the logic goes, women must have the same in order to achieve ‘gender equality’. Bennett quotes Allena Gabosch, director of an organization known as the ‘Center for Sex Positive Culture’, suggesting that polyamory sounds scary to people because ‘it shakes up their worldview’. But, she insists, polyamory might well be ‘more natural than we think’.

Subverting marriage

Perhaps the best way to understand this new movement is to understand it as a natural consequence of subverting marriage. We have largely normalised adultery, serialised marriage, separated marriage from reproduction and childbearing, and accepted divorce as a mechanism for liberation. Once this happens, boundary after boundary falls as sexual regulation virtually disappears among those defined as ‘consenting adults’.

The ultimate sign of our moral confusion becomes evident when virtually no one appears ready to condemn polyamory as immoral. The only arguments mustered against this new movement focus on matters of practicality. Polyamory is certainly not new, but this new movement is yet another reminder that virtually all the fences are now down when it comes to sex and sexual relationships.  What comes next?

Notes
1. Jessica Bennett, ‘Only You. And You. And You’, Newsweek, 29 July 2009. http://www.newsweek.com/id/209164

 

Dr Albert Mohler hosts a one-hour radio programme every weekday with a focus on moral, cultural and theological issues. This article is taken from his blog entry for 10 August 2009 and is reproduced by kind permission.

 

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Children must be taught about the ‘right to sexual pleasure’, say government advisors

As the Department for Children, Schools and Families prepares to launch a consultation on revised guidance on sex and relationships education this autumn, influential sex educators with the ear of the government have called for a strong emphasis on teaching children about sexual pleasure.

Gill Frances, chair of the government’s Teenage Pregnancy Independent Advisory Group (TPIAG), told Children & Young People Now that ‘discussions on sexual pleasure help children realise sex should be enjoyed, allowing them to take responsibility for decisions and recognise issues around coercive sex’.1

Her support for a shift of emphasis in sex education was supported by director of Brook, Simon Blake, who is a member of both TPIAG and the Independent Advisory Group on Sexual Health and HIV (IAGSH). Mr Blake said: ‘We need a grown-up conversation with young people. We need to make sure they are having sex when they are ready and for the right reasons, are able to enjoy it and take responsibility for it.’

Pleasure booklet

His comments came after the publication earlier in the summer of a 16-page booklet produced by the Centre for HIV and Sexual Health at NHS Sheffield entitled Pleasure. The booklet sets out to tell health workers ‘why and how to raise the issue of sexual pleasure in sexual health work with young people’.2

Written by Steve Slack, the Centre’s director and a member of IAGSH, with input from TPIAG member Professor Roger Ingham, the booklet warns: ‘Young people will be adults in intimate relationships in the future. If they don’t have knowledge about giving and receiving sexual pleasure, their relationships could suffer.’

The publication goes on to stress: ‘A key message to convey is that everyone engaged in consenting sexual activity has a right to fun, enjoyment and fulfilment or, in other words, to sexual pleasure.’

According to Dr Slack: ‘Sex education, which includes information about sexual pleasure, is not about promoting sexual activity. It is about promoting the sexual rights of all individuals. Everyone needs accurate information and skills to make informed choices and to negotiate the type of sex which is good and pleasurable for them.’

Promoting sexual activity

However, Family Education Trust director, Norman Wells, warned that the approach advocated by the booklet would inevitably encourage self-indulgence and hedonism among young people. He observed: ‘I can’t think of any more effective way of promoting sexual activity than to combine information about sexual pleasure with the message that ‘everyone’ has a ‘right’ to it. It is what advertisers do to sell their products all the time.

‘The message conveyed by the Pleasure booklet is: “Sex is fun, it’s fulfilling, you have a right to it, you deserve it, you can have it when you want and how you want, it’s yours for the asking.” If that is not about promoting sexual activity and encouraging self-indulgence, I don’t know what is.’

No place for love

The idea of sexual intimacy having anything to do with commitment and self-giving is totally absent from the booklet, and love receives only passing mention. The whole focus is on the short-lived pleasure to be derived from fleeting sexual encounters, rather than on preparing young people for the lasting pleasures of a lifelong union based on something deeper than physical attraction and self-gratification.

The booklet quotes a PSHE teacher in Sheffield saying: ‘When we teach about condoms in school, we always bring in, show and pass round a range of different condoms – the ribbed, flavoured and other varieties – and talk about how these can make sex even more fun and exciting.’

However, no mention is made of the fact that condoms provide only limited protection against any sexually transmitted infection (STI) and offer very little protection against other STIs, including HPV, that can lead to cervical cancer.

Norman Wells commented: ‘Such a lighthearted and casual approach to sexual intimacy is totally misplaced. It is not “fun and exciting” for young people who have done as they have been told and used a condom every time if they contract an STI, or if they suffer emotional damage from a string of sexual relationships and end up feeling “used” to the extent that they find it difficult to establish a lifelong trusting marriage.

‘It is short-sighted and irresponsible to focus on the pleasures that sexual intimacy can bring without taking account of the longer-term physical and mental health consequences. The advocates of lessons in sexual pleasure have not thought through the implications of pursuing a hedonistic lifestyle for the future happiness of young people. If we are interested in promoting secure marriages, stable families and strong communities, sexual pleasure should never be promoted as a “right” or as an end in itself.’

Notes
1. Children & Young People Now, 24 September 2009.
2. Centre for HIV and Sexual Health, Pleasure: A Booklet for Workers on Why and How to Raise the Issue of Sexual Pleasure in Sexual Health Work with Young People, NHS Sheffield.

At the time of printing, the consultation on revised sex and relationship guidance is still awaited. Full details will appear on the DCSF website at: http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/consultations/

 

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New UNESCO Guidelines aim to desensitise children, parents and teachers and promote liberal sexual attitudes worldwide

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has prepared some International Guidelines on Sexuality Education as part of a social engineering exercise aimed at foster liberal sexual attitudes and behaviour across the world. The guidelines present sexuality education as ‘part of the duty of care of education and health authorities and institutions’ and a ‘need and entitlement’ of all children from the age of five.

Sex education for 5-8s

According to the guidelines, children as young as 5-8 should be taught that: ‘Many different kinds of families exist around the world (e.g. two-parent, single parent, child-headed, guardian-headed, extended and nuclear families, same-sex couple parents, etc.).’ They should further be subjected to a programme of sex education that includes the following elements:

  • Different kinds of love and different ways of expressing it;
  • Gender roles and gender bias;
  • Examples of gender stereotypes;
  • Difference between consensual sexual activity and forced sex;
  • Girls and boys have private body parts that can feel pleasurable when touched by   oneself;
  • It is natural to explore and touch parts of one’s own body;
  • Touching and rubbing one’s genitals is called masturbation;
  • Masturbation is not harmful, but should be done in private.
Sex education for 9-12s

For children aged 9-12, ‘a broad, rights-based approach to sexuality education’ will cover:

  • Importance of gender equality in terms of roles and responsibilities within families;
  • Specific steps involved in obtaining and using condoms and contraception, including emergency contraception;
  • Overcoming gender bias and inequality;
  • Specific means of preventing unintended pregnancy;
  • Correct and consistent use of condoms and contraception to prevent pregnancy, HIV and other STIs;
  • Relationship between excitement and vaginal lubrication, penile erection and ejaculation;
  • Masturbation is often a person’s first experience of sexual pleasure;
  • Definition and function of orgasm;
  • Concept, examples and positive and negative effects of ‘aphrodisiacs’;
  • Options available to teenagers who are unintentionally pregnant;
  • Definition of abortion;
  • Legal status of abortion locally and globally;
  • Legal abortion performed under sterile conditions by medically trained personnel is safe.
Sex education for 12-15s

At 12-15, pupils progress to learning:

  • If sexual active [sic], using communication skills to practice safe and consensual sex;
  • Respect for the different sexual orientations and gender identity;
  • Masturbation is a safe and valid expression of sexuality;
  • Contraceptives and condoms give people the opportunity to enjoy their sexuality without unintended consequences;
  • Both men and women can give and receive sexual pleasure with a partner of the same or opposite sex;
  • Regardless of their marital status, sexually active young people have the right to access contraceptives and condoms;
  • Obtaining and using condoms and contraceptives (including emergency contraception where legal and available);
  • Overcoming barriers to obtaining and using condoms and contraception;
  • Identify local sources of condoms and contraceptives;
  • Use and misuse of emergency contraception;
  • Access to safe abortion and post-abortion care;
  • People living with HIV have a right to sexuality education and to express their love and feelings via sexuality.

The learning objectives contained within the guidelines do not represent an exhaustive list, but are rather part of ‘a basic minimum package’ that should feature in a comprehensive sexuality education programme. According to the document, the aim is not limited to teaching children and young people what they ‘need to know’ but also includes what they ‘are curious about’.

Desensitisation

In a remarkably candid section, the guidelines admit that ‘only some of these learning objectives are specifically designed to reduce risky sexual behaviour’ and that there is a much more wide-reaching agenda in operation. ‘Most’ of the sexuality education learning objectives are intended ‘to change social norms, facilitate communication of sexual issues, remove social and attitudinal barriers and increase knowledge’.

The framers of the guidelines are fully aware of the fact that many politicians, policymakers and parents will be horrified at the thought of such an explicit approach to sex education. In order to ‘minimise opposition’, they recommend holding discussions ‘at and across all levels’ to ‘desensitise’ the critics, and are particularly concerned to win over the teaching profession:

‘Teachers responsible for the delivery of sexuality education will usually also need desensitisation and training in the use of active, participatory learning methods.’

There is little doubt that the UNESCO guidelines will be appealed to by sex education campaigners in the UK as the government continues to review the sex education curriculum and consult on new sex and relationship education guidance. It is therefore important to be clear that the International Guidelines are not legally binding. The document itself states:

‘[I]t should be noted that the International Guidelinesare voluntary and non-binding in character and do not have the force of an international normative instrument.’

Parents should therefore not allow any local authority or PSHE advisor to tell them that schools are now ‘required’ to provide explicit sex education to children as young as five. The current position remains that governing bodies have discretion to determine how sex and relationship education is given and, in the case of primary schools, there is no obligation to provide any sex education above and beyond aspects of reproduction covered in national curriculum science.

International Guidelines on Sexuality Education: An evidence informed approach to effective sex, relationships and HIV/STI education, UNESCO, June 2009.

 

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£6m government-funded programme fails to reduce teenage pregnancy, drunkenness and drug misuse

A government-funded programme aimed at reducing teenage pregnancy had the opposite effect, according to a study published in the British Medical Journal.1 The Young People’s Development Programme (YPDP) was a three-year initiative operating from April 2004-March 2007, targeting young people aged between 13-15 deemed by teachers or other care professionals to be at risk of teenage conception, substance misuse or exclusion from school.

Over the three years, £6 million2 was invested in an intensive programme that included education, training/employment opportunities, life skills, mentoring, volunteering, health education (particularly sexual health and substance misuse), arts, sports, and advice on accessing services (such as family planning and substance misuse services).

However, researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Institute of Education at the University of London found no evidence that the intervention was effective in delaying heterosexual experience or reducing pregnancies, drunkenness, or cannabis use. In fact, some results suggest that the programme had an adverse effect in that teenage girls who took part in the programme more commonly reported teenage pregnancies, early heterosexual sex, and expectation of becoming a teenage parent, as well as temporary exclusion from school and truancy, than girls in a comparison group attending youth projects not in receipt of YPDP funds.

‘Informed choice’

In a letter published in the Daily Telegraph, Family Education Trust director, Norman Wells, noted that contraceptive-based sex education was central to YPDP and even though all of the participants were aged 13-15, and therefore below the age of consent, youth workers involved in the study set out to enable them to make ‘informed choices’ about sex. Mr Wells commented that:

[O]ffering ‘informed choices’ is inadequate. It allows children under the age of 16 to make the ‘informed choice’ to engage in unlawful sexual activity just as much as it allows them to make an ‘informed choice’ to wait. The advocates of informed choice are setting their sights too low. It is not informed choices we should be aiming for, but wise, moral and lawful choices, and there is certainly no evidence that programmes will ever achieve that so long as they are devoid of a moral compass and keep parents out of the loop.3

Notes
1. M Wiggins, C Bonell, M Sawtell, H Austerberry, H Burchett, E Allen, V Strange, Health outcomes of youth development programme in England: prospective matched comparison study, BMJ 2009;339:b2534 doi:10.1136/bmj.b2534.
2. HC Hansard, 16 July 2009, col 674W.
3. Daily Telegraph, 13 July 2009.

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The Death of Respect

In a two-part BBC television series broadcast in July, the award-winning broadcaster John Ware presented evidence demonstrating the adverse social consequences that have followed the decline of marriage and the growth of family breakdown and instability over recent decades.

The two hour-long documentaries entitled The Death of Respect were initially put on hold until after the local elections in May because of their ‘sensitive political nature’ and were finally scheduled for broadcast on BBC at 11.20pm because the content on family breakdown was considered ‘too dark’ to be shown earlier in the evening. Reflecting on his findings, John Ware wrote:

‘In striving to be nonjudgmental about different family structures, the socially liberal among us have found it hard to accept that the fragmentation of society is closely linked to the decline of marriage. This started in the 1970s with the increase in unmarried parents, lone parents, cohabiting parents and step-parents. In its wake came generations of children who have been shifted from pillar to post.

‘Recent statistical evidence suggesting that marriage is the most successful arrangement yet devised for raising stable, happy children is convincing. Those growing up in lone-parent families (and step-families) are more likely to drop out of school, leave home early, be in poor health, possess few skills, earn little and, crucially, become involved in crime.’1

The gold standard

The programmes featured Mr Justice Coleridge, a senior judge in the Family Division of the High Court, who argued that promoting marriage as ‘the gold standard’ of family structures is long overdue. In the court service he had witnessed the growth of family breakdown ‘from a trickle of human misery to a torrent’ that had now reached ‘epidemic proportions’. He commented: ‘We should have blown the whistle on it ten years ago when the trajectory was clear for all to see’ and reasoned that governments could not remain neutral about marriage any longer.

Judge Coleridge’s remarks were not calculated to win him the favour of an administration that has consistently chosen to ignore the evidence on family breakdown. Indeed, John Ware noted that: ‘It was made clear to Mr Coleridge that ministers would be displeased if he agreed to be interviewed for this programme, but as a senior judge he was free to ignore them.’

Although ministers and their advisers seem reconciled to the relentless rise in family breakdown and single parenthood, viewing it as an irreversible social trend, the programmes presented a powerful case for opening up a public debate on the benefits of marriage. The second programme in the series concluded with the following plea:

‘It must surely be possible to have a national conversation about the merits of marriage instead of pressing the mute button for fear of being judgmental…

‘The values embodied in marriage – commitment to someone other than ourselves – help build what the human condition craves most: security and a sense of belonging, the very thing our post-war experiment in individualism erodes.’

Note
1. John Ware, ‘Yes family breakdown IS behind broken Britain’, Daily Mail, 11 July 2009.

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The Surveillance State

ContactPoint, the national database holding the personal details of every child in England, will contain parents’ mobile phone numbers, according to the government. Asked whether parents ordinarily resident in England and with a home telephone number will be required to register mobile telephone numbers on the ContactPoint database, Baroness Morgan of Drefelin confirmed that while parents themselves were not required to register any details on ContactPoint, their mobile phone numbers would be recorded on the database if they had been given to their child’s school or the family doctor. The Minister stated: ‘If a parent has provided their mobile telephone number to one of ContactPoint’s national or local data sources, such as a school, general practitioner or the Department for Work and Pensions, then that organisation is required to supply that information to ContactPoint.’1

Meanwhile, the Conservative Party has given a clear undertaking that it will scrap ContactPoint if it is elected to power following next year’s General Election.

In a report entitled Reversing the Rise of the Surveillance State, Shadow Justice Secretary Dominic Grieve and Shadow Justice Minister Eleanor Laing, describe ContactPoint and the National Identity Register as ‘costly systems, which are seriously flawed and expose the public to unnecessary risk and the taxpayer to unacceptable contingent liabilities’.

Both systems would be abandoned by a Conservative government which would be guided by the following principles on information sharing:

  • Fewer – not more – giant central government databases.
  • Fewer personal details, accurately recorded and held only by specific authorities – on a need-to-know basis only, and for limited periods of time.
  • Wherever possible, personal data will be controlled by individual citizens, who have the power to decide which agencies can access or modify this information.
  • Greater checks on data-sharing between government departments, quangos and local councils.
  • Stronger duties on government to keep the private information it gathers safe.2

Notes
1. HL Hansard, 29 June 2009, col WA5.
2. Dominic Grieve and Eleanor Laing, Reversing the Rise of the Surveillance State: 11 measures to protect personal privacy and hold government to account, The Conservative Party, September 2009.

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Home education: the fight to keep the family free

Following widespread concerns about the conduct of Graham Badman’s home education review and the intrusive nature of his recommendations (see Bulletin 136), the Children, Schools and Families select committee has launched an inquiry.

In his evidence before the committee, Graham Badman quoted with approval from an article published in the Child and Family Law Quarterly, which defended compulsory registration of home educators on the basis that: ‘Parents who home educate are not simply performing a private duty, but also a public function.’

However, speaking to representatives from local authorities and child protection agencies, committee member Graham Stuart MP, considered that there needed to be ‘a high hurdle of need to pass’ before regulation and registration were introduced. ‘There shouldn’t be an assumption that the state regulates and registers us all in business or our personal lives for its convenience,’ he said.

The committee is expected to publish its findings in November.

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21st Century Boys:

How Modern Life is Driving Them Off the Rails and How We Can Get Them Back on Track

Sue Palmer, Orion Books, 2009, viii + 342pp, £14.99, ISBN 978-0752890111

Set against the background of a plethora of moral and social problems affecting boys and young people in general, this title serves as an entertaining and often enlightening guide to one of the fundamental dilemmas of our time. According to UNICEF, British teenagers are the unhappiest in the developed world and the worst behaved in Europe, with high rates of binge-drinking, drug abuse, underage sex and youth crime. Girls are outperforming boys in most subjects and young men aged between 15-24 are the group most likely to commit suicide, with suicide the second most common cause of death within this group.

Sue Palmer argues that modern society has failed to recognise that men are naturally wired to be the providers for the family, while women are wired to be those who care for children. Men are organisers or ‘systemisers’ (the S-type quality as she calls it), while women are ‘empathisers’ (the E-type quality). She identifies five factors which parents must focus on in order to obtain the correct S/E balance in their child: love, language, discipline, play and literacy. A failure to nurture an empathetic quality in today’s boys has led to social chaos and an increasing number of boys with behavioural conditions like ADHD and Asperger’s syndrome.

Negative aspects of modern parenting

Throughout the book Sue Palmer makes welcome criticisms of some of the negative aspects of modern parenting: the daycare industry, ‘the electronic cradle’ whereby television becomes a substitute parent, and ‘game theory’ whereby control of a child’s upbringing is considered safer in the hands of state professionals rather than parents who cannot be controlled through ‘regulation and target-driven incentives’. She seeks to remedy these with a return to a more traditional form of parenting based on the core principles of nature, nurture and culture.

In response to the obsession with health and safety, 21st Century Boys urges the necessity of allowing young children space to play, run and playfully fight, and argues persuasively for a later school start at around ages six or seven as is the custom on the continent. The need to encourage healthy reading habits in boys is also addressed, since the amount of time children spend reading is the best indicator of future success. Real discipline is needed to address the behaviour of troublesome children, and not ritalin.

Sue Palmer dismisses the current emphasis on PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Economic education) as an attempt by schools to teach qualities that are best acquired naturally. She also laments the decline of masculine boys groups like the scouts and writes of the need for male role models which becomes especially important as boys enter their teenage years. She calls on politicians to recognise the limits of what ‘politically-inspired systems can achieve’ and ‘the limitations of legislation in creating a healthy society’, and ends with an appeal for all adults to take personal responsibility for the next generation.

Reservations

Each chapter of this book ends with a useful summary of its contents as well as helpful tips for parents, teachers, politicians and the wider society. However, I was left with two reservations.

Firstly, although there is a strong emphasis on male role models, the importance of fathers receives only passing mention, and little is said about the wealth of research that demonstrates the benefits of being raised by both a father and mother who are committed for life to each other as well as to their child.

Secondly, I was uncomfortable about the book’s adoption of the slogan ‘It takes a village’ – a catchphrase popularised by Hillary Clinton and widely interpreted as critical of traditional parenting. Sue Palmer asserts: ‘Throughout history, adults have collectively shouldered the responsibility of bringing up the next generation – it has never before been seen as merely devolving on parents or teachers. If a community is to survive, its members must get together to rear its young.’ While it is true that parents have always looked to the extended family, community groups and social networks to assist them in fulfilling their parental responsibilities, care needs to be taken to ensure that the role of parents as the primary carers and educators of their children is not undermined and that ‘global village’ rhetoric is not used to justify a greater degree of state interference in family life.

Piers Shepherd

 

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Contemporary Social Evils

Edited  by David Utting, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2009,
ix + 245pp, £17.99, ISBN 978-1847424099

 

The genesis for this book was a study of social attitudes conducted by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) on public attitudes to social evils. In addition to an online consultation which received 3,500 responses, the JRF commissioned the National Centre for Social Research to capture the views of what it called ‘unheard’ groups including carers, unemployed people, the homeless and ex-offenders. The book can be divided into two main parts. Firstly, the survey responses are set out in detail, and secondly, some of the results are analysed and commented upon by a number of prominent people from the worlds of politics, academia, research and journalism.

While the majority of respondents acknowledged the existence of evil, that declining values are a problem and that there is a need for virtue, there was no consensus as to what constitutes evil, values or virtue. Only a very small number of respondents saw homosexual activity or radical feminism as social evils, but rapid social change was generally viewed in a negative light, with many respondents objecting to pornography, the objectification of women as sex objects and the cult of celebrity.

Some of the most interesting responses came from the ‘unheard voices’. Those who had perhaps suffered most from family breakdown more readily recognised the need for family stability. However, moral relativism holds sway on matters such as teenage sex, which is viewed simply as a ‘complex issue’.

Divergence of opinion

There is considerable divergence of opinion among the various contributors   to   the   report.  For   example, Shaun Bailey,  co-founder of the youth charity MyGeneration, defends parental responsibilities and opposes attempts to ban smacking stating: ‘We have handed power over to children, which means we often cannot act in their best interests, because as parents and adults we unreasonably fear the rights of children.’ Bailey sees the main problem facing young people today as ‘the continuing development of a global Western youth culture based on disrespect, money, sex and violence, all of which stem from major aspects of our adult culture.’

On the other hand, according to the philosopher A C Grayling we are currently living in the best times ever and we cannot allow what he calls the ‘more conservative and fretful members of society’ to ruin things. While Grayling has some positive things to say about responsibility and self-discipline, he appears to regard all ‘progress’ as a great good. In his view, concerns about a ‘decline in community’ can be dismissed because new virtual communities are forming via the Internet, and the inherent dangers of these brave new communities are only acknowledged in passing. While Grayling acknowledges that a one-parent family is a problematic environment for raising a child, he sees this only in materialistic, utilitarian terms and believes that homosexual couples can be just as good parents as heterosexuals.

Valuable insights

Other contributors present a number of valuable insights. Rabbi Julia Neuberger provides a powerful critique of the current obsession with CRB checks, showing how this had tragic and counterproductive consequences in the Abigail Rae case. And Anthony Browne, the Mayor of London’s policy director, makes pertinent observations on the ‘rights’ culture and the welfare state, though he regrettably regards relaxed attitudes to homosexuality and pre-marital sex as a positive development.

The destructive nature of ‘individualism’ is a constant theme that runs throughout the book, with most contributors prescribing more state control as the remedy. However, while radical individualism has undoubtedly had a pernicious influence, a statist mindset has arguably been even more damaging to the family and to the social fabric as it undermines the vital principle of personal responsibility.

Piers Shepherd

 

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Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty: Emerging Conflicts

Edited by: Douglas Laycock, Anthony R Picarello Jr and Robin Fretwell Wilson,
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc, 2008, xiv + 329pp, £22.99
ISBN 978-0742563261

Sweden has recently joined the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Norway, by becoming the fifth European country to pass legislation to permit same-sex marriage.1 While there are no formal proposals to legislate for same-sex marriage in the UK, the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, recently condemned the decision of the Californian electorate to limit marriage to unions between one man and one woman. The Prime Minister declared that the ban on same-sex marriage, backed by a referendum in the American state, was ‘unacceptable’ and would ‘undo good that has been done’.2

The purpose of this title is not to debate the pros and cons of same-sex marriage, but rather to consider the implications for religious freedom if same-sex marriage were to be approved. The book arose out of a gathering of seven prominent legal scholars and practitioners in December 2005 convened by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a legal and educational institute dedicated to protecting the free expression of all legal traditions. The issue is stated very plainly by Marc Stern:

‘The legislation of same-sex marriage would represent the triumph of an egalitarian-based ethic over a faith-based one, and not just legally. The remaining question is whether champions of tolerance are prepared to tolerate proponents of a different ethical vision. I think the answer will be no. Within certain defined areas, opponents of gay rights will be unaffected by an embrace of same-sex marriage. But in others, the impact will be substantial.’

The threat to religious liberty

Although all of the contributors to this collection of essays are in agreement that same-sex marriage constitutes a threat to religious liberty, they represent widely differing perspectives and offer a range of proposed solutions to the conflict. For example, according to Chai Feldblum, heterosexuality and homosexuality are morally neutral characteristics, like hair colour. She believes that ‘acting consistently with one’s sexual orientation is a morally good act’ and that ‘truth and justice demand full liberty for LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender] people’. In her view, ‘A belief derived from a religious faith should be accorded no more weight, and no less weight, than a belief derived from a nonreligious source.’ She concludes, ‘Society must make a choice between liberties and come down on the side of protecting the identity liberty of LGBT people.’

On the other hand, Robin Fretwell Wilson argues in favour of conscience clauses akin to those employed in heath care, in order to safeguard the religious liberties of those who are unable in good conscience to be involved in facilitating a same-sex marriage. She observes:

‘How society responds to the question of which person’s claim should take precedence reflects how committed society is to safeguarding the dignitary interests of same-sex couples or the religious and moral convictions of conscientious objectors…

‘Legislatures that enact conscience clauses are valuing more heavily the moral and religious convictions of the objectors; and legislatures that refuse to enact conscience clauses are valuing more heavily the dignitary interests of same-sex couples.’

Given that all the contributors to this volume are based in the United States, there is a strong reliance on American case law. However, many of the principles and arguments are equally applicable to the UK scene, thus making this collection of essays a valuable resource for those with an interest in the implications of the gay rights agenda for religious liberty.

Norman Wells

 

Notes:

1. Sweden allows same-sex marriage, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7978495.stm

2. Brown attacks US marriage ban, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7928563.stm

 

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