Too much Government

BG: Average 6.6; 7 Day Average 6.6; 14 Day Average 6.7; 28 Day Average; 6.9; Cigarettes 2; Wine 2 Glasses;

This caused me to cringe. Ms. Tubs has just turned 11 and I can’t think of a single occasion when either Mrs. Tubs or I have had to use any form of physical punishment against her in order to enforce a lesson. We just don’t see it as a viable piece of parenting strategy, but that’s us. I do think there is a limit to the state’s involvement with the family and the notion that anti-spanking legislation is helpful definitely impinges upon that limit. The state should be involved in promoting family well-being and not involving itself in the management of the family. What next? State prescribed pocket money? This sort of legislation helps no-one, how will it be enforced? My father physically abused me, sending me, on a number of occasions, to school covered in bruises – teacher’s reaction – nothing, the only reason the state didn’t get involved was because my father restrained himself and didn’t injure me seriously enough to warrant a hospital visit.

On the one hand the state expects parents to be responsible for their children’s behaviour (fines for truancy, fines for anti-social behaviour, fines ad nauseum) and yet is determined to strip the ways and means of controlling those for whom we are responsible away from us. The House of Lords (JD v East Berkshire Community Health NHS Trust, 21 April 2005) have ruled that parents cannot sue either the NHS or Social Services if wrongly accused of abuse, yet being wrongly accused of abuse must inevitably have some impact on the family. Paradoxically, children can sue the NHS or Social Services if their parents are wrongly accused of abuse. So, all it will take, is one p*s!ed off teenager, who “knows his rights”, to complain and the parents lives are ruined, and it has happened…in Manchester.

Tomorrow I’m travelling up to London to take part in an NHS Constitution consultation panel.