Parents Ask Government To Hold Their Hand

BBW has highlighted the case of a mother who has been suspended from her job for leaving her 14 year old and 3 year old sons home alone for 30 minutes while she popped down to the shops. There's no law against it, but the caution she received from police now appears on her CRB disclosure hence the suspension.

Infuriating, yes, but not as maddening as this in the Express article.

PARENTS last night said there needed to be clearer guidelines over leaving children.

Err, why? Are parents so piss poor nowadays that they aren't able to work out for themselves if a child is mature enough to be left alone in their own home? Such an understanding of one's kids' personae is one of the most important aspects of parenting, for crying out loud!

[Charity officer Janet Cropper, 49, from Windermere, Cumbria, said] "I believe people need firmer guidelines."

Janet, dear, if you require government to instruct you, perhaps you shouldn't have become a parent in the first place.

[Mother-of-three Vivienne Smith, 60, from Sale, near Manchester, said] “I think it boils down to the age of the children and the teenager’s intelligence and maturity.”

And who knows the teenager's intelligence and maturity better than anyone else? Yes. The parents. Certainly NOT the bloody government!

It's called self-determination. How difficult can that be to understand?

Obviously some just don't get it and cannot function without instruction, so here's a bit of Puddlecote logic on the subject. The NSPCC state that "no child under 14 should be left home alone and no child under 16 should care for someone younger than themselves", but considering they could find danger in a pile of marshmallows, one can safely knock at least 2 or 3 years off each of those ages.

This would seem to be confirmed by the fact that TfL Oyster Cards are issued for kids aged 11+, presumably because that is the general age when kids are able to use public transport on their own. And if they can handle crossing roads and not tripping over pavements at 11, they are sure as shit able to sit on the couch, watch TV, and not open the front door while Mum gets a few groceries.

Here we are constantly being told that kids are growing up too fast these days, yet they're paradoxically also not mature enough to do things that came naturally to our generation at the same age. It can't be both, can it?

Good grief.