The latest Journal of Liberal History (published by the Liberal Democrat History Group) is a special issue on liberalism and women, including an interview with Shirley Williams. One question looked at what changes in society she thought were still needed when it comes to issues of gender, and this part of her answer caught my eye:
Societal change has to be in two ways. One which has already happened is the move towards flexible working … The second big societal change is to teach children at school about parenthood, certainly in secondary schools. What we have is lessons about sex, but nothing about the consequences of sex – which is a bit silly. Parental responsibilities should be emphasised as part of the conversation about sex. That should include, for example, children having some time in the school year where they spend time looking after children. In a lot of cases you could get fifth formers to help inter-school for two hours per week so they get to know how demanding young children are. Children take up a colossal amount of time, and grasping that would be a key part of accepting the key roles they would have to play.
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9 Comments
Shirley has a point but shouldn’t most children be learning about parenting from their…er…parents?
Is giving schools yet another task in the grand plan to solve all of society’s problems really the way to go? Aren’t they busy enough?
CQ – I think parents should tell their kids about parenting.
What Shirley means is schools Showing kids what it means to look after children.
Not many families with 15 year olds will have babies and toddlers around, except for friends and relatives kids.
True. But ‘the next 10 words’ is: what should we do when parents don’t fulfil that responsibility?
Britain has a chronic problem when it comes to parenting – not least that, too often, children are seen as impediments.
Part of the explanation for the Portugese police and media’s suspicions of the McCanns was their incredulity that parents would leave their kids alone and unsupervised while the parents were off for a meal. In the UK, there was a guilty shrug of, “Well, we’ve all faced the dilemma, haven’t we?” It’s an incomprehensible attitude in most of continental Europe, where kids are a happily accepted part of night-life. Unlike in the UK, where kids are too often ignored by their parents, and barely tolerated in public spaces.
The point of the state getting involved rather than leaving it to parents is surely to ensure that everyone gets at least the basic level of education.
Surely it’s a basic tenet of social progressive politics to ensure that children aren’t merely at the mercy of the family they were born into… so those with poor and/or bad parents aren’t so disadvantaged relative to those with rich and/or good parents.
Stephen – isn’t the continental child-care thing a bit of a myth? From my time abraod, I don’t seem to remember young children hanging around in bars and restaurants in the evenings.
Is British parenting really so terrible?
Graham – at a time when most people are having their first children in their ’30s, does teaching parenting skills to 15 year olds really count as the “basic level of education”?
Are we trying to teach every teenager to be a good parent, to scare teens away from early parenthood or help teenage parents bring up their children better?
Shirley’s proposal seems to relate to the first, but I’d have thought focussing on the second and third makes more sense.
Good old Shirley! Spot on.
Incidentally, she is easily our best orator – in her own quiet, unassuming way – if you haven’t voted yet…
Paddy wasn’t bad, but I suspect his lead in the currnt poll is the result of familiarity and his undoubted other leadership skills (tally ho!), rather than the considered opinion of those who have heard both of them (as I have, many times!) and are weighing up the effectiveness of the oratory.
Costigan – my continental experience is chiefly from Spain, where it’s not a myth (and I’ve visited most regions). The quality of life, and the quality of child care provided by families, is massively better than in the UK.
The quality of parenting varies a lot in this country. It really is the luck of the draw as to whether you have good parents or not.
Does anyone imagine that these boys who committed gang rape in Hackney benefitted from good parenting?
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