Some green shoots of common sense from Chris Grayling
Britain is in danger of producing a society that fears its children, the Shadow Home Secretary will warn today.
I think he had his tenses mixed up there, he should have left out the 'in danger of' bit and said 'has produced' instead.
'It's time that children realised that they can be told to stop it by a teacher or a policeman and that, sometimes, they just have to do what they are told. Young people have to learn that when an adult makes a decision they have to listen - the adult doesn't have to "earn the respect" of the young person.'
Unfortunately, his idea of a solution to the problem involves, as is predictable these days, more state regulation of the children themselves, rather than targeting the attitudes inherent in modern parenting.
It's only once parents can wean themselves off of the "won't somebody think of the chiiiiildren" kneejerk mantra, that kids will begin to realise that there are limits on their rights until they reach 18.
That is not to say that we should hark back to the Victorian "children should be seen and not heard" attitude, but that parents must learn to realise that the world should not be run at the behest of children, that kids should be made aware that life is tough and they won't be wrapped in cotton wool all their lives, and that until a person reaches majority, they are to do as they are told ... as we had to.
Good parenting involves all of the above, but seems to have been abandoned by many families in favour of a belief that whatever a kid wants, a kid gets, and to hell with anyone else.
George Benson sang about children being our future, not our present.
