I was bought up in a period when the physical chastisement of children was the norm. If you were naughty in school you would be caned by the headmaster; if you were naughty outside school you would get the belt from your Dad. When I was a youngster I felt that the system was cruel, unjust and arbitrary. I was caned and belted for things that I either hadn't done or for things which I hadn't considered particularly bad when I did them.
I generally support the abolition of the physical chastisement of children.
If I went home after school and told my Dad that I had been given the cane by my headmaster I would have received a second beating from him for bringing the family into disrepute. If I was told by my son that he had been beaten by his headmaster in the way that I was beaten by mine I'd throttle the headmaster!
But I am confused by the alternatives.
One of the things I was punished for both at school and at home was an I'll show you mine if you show me yours incident with a younger neighbourhood girl, when I was about ten or eleven years old.
Yesterday two young boys of a similar age were in the Old Bailey accused of rape, convicted of attempted rape and have had their names put on the sexual offenders register for similar naughtiness!
That is not a reasonable alternative to the cane, the belt and the birch of my childhood.
If we want to abolish the corporal punishment of children we must find an alternative way of dealing with naughtiness that doesn't involve the draconian use of the criminal law and the courts in the sickening way that this case has done.
These two boys were very naughty boys, without any doubt, they deserve to be punished, but they are not attempted rapists or sex offenders or even criminals!
They would have deserved six of the best 40 years ago, they don't deserve to be criminalised today – I oppose both. But what the happy medium between the two options is I don't know, but it is a subject that must be discussed and resolved if we want to remain a civilised society.
Showing posts with label Child Care. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Child Care. Show all posts
25/05/2010
10/04/2007
Mobile Mammas make me sick
Whoever dreamt up Labour's Mobile Mammas scheme needs shooting, not so much for the policy but for the title. As Richard Hazlewood has noted it sounds more like a takeaway pizza van franchise than a scheme to support working parents. Rather a sexist term too. It suggests that men would not be allowed to join the scheme; given Rhodri Morgan's comments that single mothers would be the main beneficiaries of the scheme surely a few Mobile Pappas might provide the children of single mothers with a welcome male role-model.
What Mobile Mammas are are community nursing assistants who come in to your home to look after your kids when they are sick, so you don't need to take time off work. Rhodri claims that these assistants won't be strangers but people that you and your children get to know and trust. But surely only children with long term illnesses (who have community nursing assistance already) could get to know and trust their Mobile Mammas - you cant build up a relationship with somebody who pops around just once or twice a year when your off school with the bug.
When my kids have been feeling poorly only their Mam and Dad are good enough to comfort them, even people they know well like their Nain or an aunty are a poor second best to Mam and Dad. Telling a mother that she can't stay with a sick kid who's pining for his Mam, that she'll have to call in a virtual stranger instead, seems to me to be an extremely callous policy.
It doesn’t appear to be a very well thought out policy on public health grounds either. Fresh from looking after little Mary who has the flu - Mobile Mamma comes to our house to look after little Johnny with a broken arm, spreading the flu germ in the process to add to poor little Johnny's woes. Thanks but no thanks!
As Numpti is likely to be out of a job after May 4th, he might consider taking his Mobile Mamma's scheme to BBC 2's Dragons Den to see if he can get some backing for it as a little home spun business. That would be a much more appropriate place in which to try and sell the scheme than is an Election Manifesto launch.
POST SCRIPT
As the scheme is to be part funded by the Department of Works and Pensions, this is not actually an assembly election pledge announcement, but an announcement of a Westminster government pilot scheme
Another blog post on this subject Ordovicius: "Labour Insults Working Families" say Plaid
What Mobile Mammas are are community nursing assistants who come in to your home to look after your kids when they are sick, so you don't need to take time off work. Rhodri claims that these assistants won't be strangers but people that you and your children get to know and trust. But surely only children with long term illnesses (who have community nursing assistance already) could get to know and trust their Mobile Mammas - you cant build up a relationship with somebody who pops around just once or twice a year when your off school with the bug.
When my kids have been feeling poorly only their Mam and Dad are good enough to comfort them, even people they know well like their Nain or an aunty are a poor second best to Mam and Dad. Telling a mother that she can't stay with a sick kid who's pining for his Mam, that she'll have to call in a virtual stranger instead, seems to me to be an extremely callous policy.
It doesn’t appear to be a very well thought out policy on public health grounds either. Fresh from looking after little Mary who has the flu - Mobile Mamma comes to our house to look after little Johnny with a broken arm, spreading the flu germ in the process to add to poor little Johnny's woes. Thanks but no thanks!
As Numpti is likely to be out of a job after May 4th, he might consider taking his Mobile Mamma's scheme to BBC 2's Dragons Den to see if he can get some backing for it as a little home spun business. That would be a much more appropriate place in which to try and sell the scheme than is an Election Manifesto launch.
POST SCRIPT
As the scheme is to be part funded by the Department of Works and Pensions, this is not actually an assembly election pledge announcement, but an announcement of a Westminster government pilot scheme
Another blog post on this subject Ordovicius: "Labour Insults Working Families" say Plaid
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