It was the telescreen, no doubt....
Posted on 02/17/2011 8:32:47 AM PST by MissTed
Lovely. A mom in England was ticketed for "cruelty" for leaving her 14-year-old son in charge of his 3-year-old brother for half an hour while she went out shopping.
Well, they don't call it a "ticket" in England, they call it a "caution" -- but forget semantics. The fact is, by allowing her teen to babysit for less than an hour, the mom lost her job as a health care assistant, because now her record shows her "committing an act of cruelty on a child or young person."
Feel free to scream.
What, exactly, is so cruel about letting your teenage son act responsibly? What is so cruel about showing him that you believe in him, and that you like the young man he's becoming?
And what is so cruel about letting your younger son be cared for by his older brother? Is anyone in the English establishment aware that many of today's parents were themselves babysitters at age 11 or 12?
In fact, has it dawned on these government goons that since the beginning of human history, teens have even been popping out children of their OWN? That those teen parents must've been doing something right, because our species survived to this day? And, by the way, prehistoric pubescent parents didn't babysit for half an hour, they raised their children to adulthood. In caves. With food they killed themselves.
But no -- half an hour of babysitting at home is just too much for modern day kids.
David Lancy, author of "The Anthropology of Childhood," estimates that, to this day, somewhere between 40 percent and 60 percent of the world's children are raised, in good part, by their siblings. Their moms are too busy eking out a living to spend every last minute minding the kids. Maybe we should send every lawmaker in England a subscription to National Geographic.
My elderly neighbor was just lamenting that "kids today" are so inept. "They don't know how to do anything. They expect everything done for them."
It's an old-lady whine, but she has a point –- she's just wrong about the culprits. It's not the fault of indulgent parents, or spoiled kids. It's the fault of a society that deems young adults indistinguishable from infants: They're all helpless. England's Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children actually states no one under the age of 16 should be allowed to babysit!
Glad they weren't around when our species was getting off the ground.
Wow! Most places I’ve lived, a 12-year-old can babysit for a short period of time. What’s the big deal?
I really do hate !#$@~% libtards...
I left my youngest home with his teen age brothers many times.
He survived quite nicely.
What if the 14 yo is left home alone with a child he fathered??
Here’s the original news article:
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/227553
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The NSPCC advises that no child under 14 should be left home alone and no child under 16 should care for someone younger than themselves.
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Everybody should pick out a government protector to protect after TSHTF.
“What if the 14 yo is left home alone with a child he fathered??”
For the mental health of the mother, such a child should have been aborted. So in liberal-logic, a teen dad’s needing to babysit could never happen.
So, old enough to pilot a Glider or Balloon - but not old enough to babysit for half an hour.
It was the telescreen, no doubt....
My God. When I was 15 and my brother 12 we were left for up to a week at a time to fend for ourselves (the kitchen was well stocked) while our parents went camping.
It would have been more cruel to make us go camping.
Last time I heard, Britain has the most number of police surveillance cameras in the world of any country. There are no rights in that country for individuals like her in the States. It has been a nanny state so many decades that they don't know what freedom is if they ever did. This is just how they do things there.
The 14 year old would be charged for not killing his baby. I’m sure it’s already on the books somewhere. But babysitting a 3 year old sibling is a crime.
I genuinely hope that Islam conquers England.
In England it’d be perfectly okay with the authorities if the 14 year old boy was getting drunk and making 13 year old girls pregnant though.
Islam is the best thing that ever happened to England in 30 years.
That Island is so unbelievably idiotic that I’m cheering on the head-choppers. At least they make sense.
I’m sure the 14 year old is considered “mature enough” to get birth control or an abortion with Mom’s consent, but is too young to watch a 3 year old for half an hour.
Agree, this is insane!
Down, down the UK goes. Where it stops, nobody knows. Hot to worry! America is following right behind them.
As the oldest of 9, imagine how many times I babysat, between the ages of 14 and 17......
This takes the term “nanny state” to a whole new level.
The laptop school computer the 14 year old brought home from school with a built-in camera probably was used to find out this was occurring.
I clearly remember it being proposed that cameras be installed in the homes of thousands of “problem families” so that the government can make sure kids are being fed, going to bed right and eating correctly.
I do not know if this proposal actually got carried out.
My wife started baby-sitting other people’s kids when she was 11. So in England they don’t allow a 14 year old to watch his own sibling? What, is there a Day Care union or something that was feeling threatened? Ridiculous.
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