http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0200wales/tm_headline=give-pregnant-mums--social-scan-&method=full&objectid=18515937&siteid=50082-name_page.html
"PREGNANT women should be given a "social scan" to prevent their children growing up on the wrong side of the law.
This would be a risk assessment, looking at whether they have any debt problems, whether alcohol is a feature in their lives, is there someone in their life who is violent?
These all have significant effects on the ability of a mother to be a mother and on the child.
... many of society's most intractable social problems, including crime, drugs misuse, unemployment, poor skills and endemic unhappiness, are rooted in the experiences of children during their first five years of life."
And then what?
Forced adoptions at birth because the parents have negative equity, or even worse forced abortions?
ASBOs for children still in the womb?
Licenses for childbearing?
On initial reading I thought that it was gonna be some all for sterilising potentially bad mothers!
ReplyDeleteNow I realise its a Government Flying Start initiative! It does seem a crazy situation that we need to spend tax money on telling future mothers that they shouldn't do drugs, drink, eat badly, beat their kids etc...but people are that stupid - and their stupid ways create stupid kids who are a problem for our society.
So I guess we have to just bite the bullet.
Why though?
ReplyDeleteThe ease with which we accept these intrusions into our private lives is unnerving. If you dare to buck the system then you are labelled as either non-compliant or high-risk.
I have a friend with a 2 month old Down's Syndrome baby. She has been labelled as high-risk because she has a dog, wooden floors and a sofa placed in front of a window.
She is also being put under tremendous pressure (do this now or you won't get any help later) to register her daughter for DLA.
If you refuse immunisations you are labelled as high-risk.
If you refuse a health visitor access to your home then you are non-compliant.
So it is no wonder that big-brother schemes like this are accepted so readily.
It's just another example of our general apathy to let the government take responsibilty for us and that attitude is the biggest contributory factor to the social problems described in this article.
We need to take back our individual responsibilty if we want to solve these problems, becuase the situation we have now is that if you steal a car it isn't your fault it is your mother's, if you do drugs it isn't your fault it is society's and so on. Universal victimhood is not doing us an favours.
What if instead of all this yoghurt knitting they just batter unsuitable mothers to death?! They're a burden on the state already and they think they have the right to procreate? They seem to think having babies is a job, which bearing in mind the financial support and the nice house they'll get it practically is.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong, I'm comfortable paying taxes to support people who aren't as privaleged as me and if someone has fallen on hard times then I'm happy that my taxes might help them and their family. But these pondlife who have no interest in working or building a stable environment for their spawn can go fuck themselves. As Bill Hicks said, stop the rutting for a moment, it's time we discussed this whole food/air deal!
Do you remember that case last year of a woman who had never worked in her life, had seven kids by five different fathers and whose 13 year old was pregnant? The council had given her two-semis to house her litter in and gave her a few hundred quid a week to clothe and feed them (and pay for her gin and fags). Seems a tad harsh on the people who are working five days a week to provide for their family (and hers) and would kill to spend more time with their kids.
gipperfan - I assume your friend has got some support but in case it's helpful, I recently built a website for a support group for people with DS and their families. The address is www.extra21.org.uk, they cover Essex and Greater London but if she lives elsewhere I'm sure they'd help her find a similar group.
ReplyDeleteAs I said in my first post, I see how this seems ridiculous - and of course people who DO accept their personal responsibility should be left to get on with it.
ReplyDeleteBut what do you propose we do about all the idiots?
Build a bonfire
ReplyDeleteSurely there is more than one problem identified here.
ReplyDeleteThere are plenty of ignorant people who live their lives in a way that produces social misfits. It is actually the states responsibility to ensure the good functioning of society. Surely a little bit of prevention could go a long way... if we can fix the problem before we have a murder or a thief for life that's a positive?
Do you deny these factors have a causal relationship to criminality?
I see no logic behind your statement that if left alone somehow people would be better and more responsible members of society.
I do believe the government tries to control too much. It's really as simple as information, positive and negative reinforcement and punishment.
Right now there is a positive rather than negative reinforcement for poor women to have more children. The only way to get around it is to let them drift even lower in life, maybe even die of starvation?
We basically pay the lowest classes to leave us alone. They then recycle the money into our capitalist system by spending everything we give them.
If we take it as a given that we don't want to see anyone starve to death, then families and women who do better in terms of risk assessment should receive extra money. Positive reinforcement. Those who don't need it can then do what they want.
I do object to the government putting these labels on families, but that's what we get the further we move from personal and real interactions. But how many of us want to deal directly with these issues in a personal way? It's not just personal responsibility, we have to be responsible for our network of friends and family as well.
good stuff iamjack... your actions speak louder than words.
When welfare was instated over here illegitimacy rates skyrocted, since the welfare reform of the 1990's illegitimiacy rates have begun to decline. By paying women to have children we are offering an incentive to as you say "leave us alone", but we are also trapping those children and their parents into a life lacking in dignity, self-respect and purpose.
ReplyDeleteWhat I am objecting to is the guilty until proven innocent premise behind such do-gooder schemes which opens the door to a self-fulfilling prophecy.
You are labelled a risk, you get help, you become further dependent and unable to take responsibility for yourself and your children, your children are raised in an environment where they learn that someone else will supply everything you need if you are incapable or unwilling to make the necessary sacrifices to earn it yourself.
No one wants to see children suffering, but in recent years men have been treated appallingly. Women have been taught that you do not need a man to raise a family, because the government has supplanted that role.
I have evidence in my very own family (I am ashamed to say). My 19 year old step-brother has just become a father and in order for him and his girlfriend to get a council flat and a larger social cheque she has claimed that she does not know who the father is and he has willingly gone along with this.
He has forfeited his parental rights for the sake of a handout and the government and society have said that this is acceptable.
My dear Gipperfan, I’m usually a polite and retired sort – but ARE YOU BLOODY DELUDED?
ReplyDelete“Intrusions into our private lives” ??!!!! I’d much rather intrude into the lives of the young mothers in question than allow them to raise children who will be maliciously intruding into and even destroying the lives of good law-abiding citizens.
I used to be optimistic about humanity – true, true. But in my old age, I have no choice but to recognise that most people are selfish greedy lustful savages, who need help from the state to understand and practice decent behaviour. You really think poor inner city kids who get pregnant at 14 know what libertarianism is? You think they have the capacity to understand self-determination and “individual responsibility”?! Give me a break!
That’s just such typical middle-class delusion, that everyone is as capable as us and should be free to lead their lives as they wish. I may be middle-class now, but I too come from the dregs of society and I promise you, these people would revert to nibbling ticks off each others backs, if Big Brother wasn’t around!
...having said that, now that Endemol's Big Brother IS around, I think we may all be reverting to that state anyway...
ReplyDeleteAnd you have the nerve to say I'm deluded when you seem to possess the attitude so endearing of pompous elitists, that you know what is best for everyone and should indeed have the power to dictate how everyone should live.
ReplyDeleteIt must be a hell of a view from your pedestal.
So does it just boil down to faith in humanity?
ReplyDeleteSome people are worried that the uneducated masses are messing up society so we suggest trying to help them more.
On the other side are people who say that it is this very 'mothering' that has made them into such idiots.
Fuck me if I can figure out which one is right! Chicken/egg?
It is chicken and egg,
ReplyDeletebut maybe we simply need both and to be practical.
Even the best policy, when implemented shoddily, ends up being crap.
So the government workers need to be responsible for how they implement the help.
This doesn't require more watchers of watchers, it requires people who are well educated, not just in knowledge, but responsibility as well.
ANY human being will revert to eating nits and battering their neighbours when push comes to shove. I'm sorry, intellectual, middle class, elite, yada yada ya, they are all just references to money and education.
Thank god we have an education system of any description which is trully the fundamental structure through which we encourage and enable mobility in society.
Easy access to capital is another...
Now the surplus of free information on the internet combines the two. But not everyone learns through reading.
And many people have enough intelligence to get them only a job at a mcdonalds.
I'd say the system we have: welfare, universal education, open banking, free internet, and a social government are all really great positives in the history of humanity. What are the modern day Dickens stories? I'm too poor to have the latest mobile phone? I squander all my money on weed and have to feed the family on pot noodles?
Would it be better to have them starving like rats in the street?
I like the system. I think it is going too far, responsibility is important. Bureacrats evade responsibility by nature, and they have to be incentivised, not by money, or by supervision, but by following the precedent set in law: what would a reasonable rational human being do...
the paradox must be embraced.
Milton Friedman had a good idea - negative taxation.
ReplyDeleteAn amount is decided that is your earnings before taxation allowance, for a family of four - say 20k.
You pay no tax until you reach this point.
If you have no income you receive 50% as a cash subsidy so 10k(cash only - no multitude of government programs).
If you earn say 10k you recive half of the remaining allowance so 5k as a negative tax, if you make 15k then you get 2.5k and so on until you zero out at 20k, then you start paying tax on any earnings over this amount (and a flat rate, because I am against progressive taxation).
The system would allow for an incentive to work, you will always be better off if you earn more money and it treats people with respect - you decide how you spend your money and it reduces government bureaucracy thus saving us all money.
You will always have people who do not spend the money "wisely", but we are already faced with that situation.
And after they reach the age of five what then. Off they go to their shitty schools where expectaions are low and their chances of a decent job are lower.
ReplyDeleteWe need to break the whole cycle of social exclusion and that means better schools, better housing and job generation.
You write very well.
ReplyDelete