Well, well, well. The electoral genius has struck gold this time, hasn’t he? Not satisfied with demonstrating his toughness on immigrants, he’s turning his attention to those other menaces to society: Teen Mums.
Oh yes.
It’s been decreed that should you find yourself with child you’ve got four choices. Make sure you, your boyfriend or your parents are financially able to deal with a baby, have an abortion, give the baby up for adoption or if none of those three options suit you can now go into supervised communal housing for other menaces to society. They’re not Poorhouses, though. They’re New Poorhouses, which will be clean and basically like a giant live-in Sure start centre providing valuable employment opportunities for social workers and lots of other people with ‘outreach’ in their job title.
See, if you’re a teen mum who insists on having a baby AND raising it yourself? Well, you’re basically evil, and the state needs to take a more active role in making sure your children don’t turn out like you. Sorry. You’re on the Government’s shit list and there’s sod all you can do about it.
Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m hardly a fan of the legal right to a house if you’re pregnant, and I’m well aware that the children of teen mums are extremely lucky if they escape what is a dismal fate for any human being. Yet what I do know is that there’s no evidence that teenagers get pregnant to claim benefits. It’s often said, and it sounds true, but.. sorry, no actual evidence.
These are serious, important issues (despite my flippant tone), but even a mad libertarian like me doesn’t think the solution is to return to the bad old days of making charity as unpleasant as possible to put people off it – there’s no degree of degradation and humiliation people aren’t prepared to suffer if they’re hungry and desperate enough.
Now I’m sure these modern Poorhouses will be bastions of quality childcare, parental advice, wonderful diet and model behaviour of everyone involved, but then that’s exactly how the last ones started. They were too damn popular, and that’s when things turned nasty. The Daily Mail will, eventually, run a story where an entire class ends up leaving school together and moving into the same unit, and then…. well you can imagine the rest.
Labour claims to help the poor and the weak, yet they exclude the poor and weak that ‘the people’ hate, or who they think might actually cost them votes to support. I think, really, if you’re a Labour voter and your head isn’t screaming at you that something is very very very very wrong here then the ‘something wrong’ is you.
Harry Haddock said...
29 Sep 09 at 5:17 pm
no evidence that teenagers get pregnant to claim benefits,
Erm, are you sure? None? There is plenty of evidence that if you subsidise something you get more of it, and tax it you get less. So….
Obnoxio The Clown said...
29 Sep 09 at 5:20 pm
I can certainly claim personal anecdotal evidence from discussions with some of the feral classes that people do get pregnant for the benefits, whether it be housing or more money.
Harry Haddock said...
29 Sep 09 at 5:25 pm
Oh, don’t get me wrong. It’s our fault, we virtually bloomin’ well tell them to ~ lay back and think of England, get free house. Go to work? Get taxed.
Tim Carpenter (LPUK) said...
29 Sep 09 at 5:27 pm
What Harry said.
I would not say that kids get pregnant to get benefits, but what about the motivation to get a place of their own?
The only “blame” here is towards a dysfunctional system and warped incentives.
The real shocker to me appears to be the implied suggestion that being so housed is pretty much compulsory.
MarcDB said...
29 Sep 09 at 5:37 pm
Labour has really sunk to new lows; I used to think that they would always be a better option than the Tories; now I am not so sure.
However, it is good to see that the tradition of unpopular governments bashing the socially disadvantaged, the young and the vulnerable has made a return. In this respect there really is no difference between Comrade Brown and John Major/Maggie et al. The fact that this matches BNP policy really makes me sick inside (thanks to Charlotte for the link http://sim-o.me.uk/2009/08/good-old-fashioned-values/)
Devil's Kitchen said...
29 Sep 09 at 5:47 pm
No evidence? At all? Hmmm…
I’ll admit, it is very difficult to gain hard evidence on people’s motives (which are, of course, subjective and also reliant on memory and honesty of reviewed participants): as such, all evidence tends to be anecdotal (which I have heard plenty of).
However, there are some studies that show some correlation (not, of course, mistaking correlation for causation). You might find this article interesting (and the conclusions therein are based on this research), but I’ll quote the salient bit:
Just saying. Oh, and…
Hmmmm. You see, I do want to return to the days when people realised that they were living off the charity of others—that their “rights”, their “benefits”, are not made of magic money that falls from the sky but are provided by other people’s hard work.
I have said it so many times: I do not see why my lifestyle should be constrained—through the removal of the vast majority of what I earn—so that other people may be insulated from the negative consequences of their lifestyle choices.
So, no, I do not agree with locking these people into gulags. But nor do I agree with paying out benefits—especially housing—to those who have paid nothing into the system. I don’t want people starving on the streets—but I don’t see why I should starve at the end of every month so that others can make stupid choices with impunity.
Other than that, you’re spot on.
DK
Charlotte Gore said...
29 Sep 09 at 5:51 pm
Ah nice one, thanks for the links. I did go looking into this a while back – I obviously failed to find what I was looking for (to see if there was a corrolation between the number of single teen mums and the generosity of the benefits system) but all I found was ‘no evidence’ everywhere I looked.
Clearly I need ot work on my research skills.
Dave Weeden said...
29 Sep 09 at 5:53 pm
Harry,
Well yes. If making X becomes cheaper (because some of the cost comes from subsidies), you’ll probably get more of it; and likewise if it making it becomes more expensive, you’ll probably get less. But not always. It seems we drink more than we used to, but drink is pretty heavily taxed. And there’s a ceiling somewhere for most things.
Now the thing about having babies is that, although falling pregnant is fairly simple, it’s not automatic. Some women simply don’t conceive with their man of choice, no matter how long they try. And being pregnant is a long drag for not much money which then goes on the baby. Is the mother materially much better off for having a child with the subsidy? Not greatly. She could leave it to starve – and be hated by most people she’s likely to know, lose her benefit, and go to prison. I don’t see how the putative economic calculation you’re suggesting is supposed to work.
And the government, the opposition, the BNP, and some newspapers would love some positive research showing that you’re right, and I’m wrong. But this research doesn’t seem to exist. There’s probably a reason for that.
Dave Weeden said...
29 Sep 09 at 6:06 pm
Thanks for the links, DK. Sorry but you posted while I was writing. I’m still not convinced. I’ll have to read those PDFs, because I’m still not convinced.
Charlotte Gore said...
29 Sep 09 at 6:07 pm
Well good, nor should you be in fairness
plumbus said...
29 Sep 09 at 6:12 pm
Actually this isnt so much the poorhouse as a HOME FOR FALLEN WOMEN. Its easy to imagine the staff that will be attracted, paedophiles & bullies. We really need to hammer Labour supporters about this, its sick.
subrosa said...
29 Sep 09 at 6:34 pm
I’m completely with DK on this. His research is spot on and has saved me doing lengthy links. Thankfully we’ve got rid of the stigma of teenage pregnancies but along with that went the shame. Shame is a great preventative and it’s no longer taught in our schools.
Shame was great contraception in my day too. Females will always be the ones who have to take responsibility for the outcomes of sex, with many participating without protection, because the majority know they will be looked after better than, for example ex-soldiers, pensioners who have lost everything in the financial mishandling of the present government – the list is endless.
Education hasn’t worked in the last two generations, so restricting financial assistance may well do.
I believe there are already ‘homes’ for these girls and 8,000 are presently residing in them. Doesn’t that say something? They’re going to just build more, not address the problem from a sensible viewpoint.
Obsidian said...
29 Sep 09 at 7:06 pm
The only problem this will solve is that of empty Buy To Let’s, which will doubtless compulsory purchase ordered into this little baby farm network of Browns.
The real solution to this is to provide education, aspiration, hope and opportunity as an alternative to getting impregnated by the local chavs, but as ever that would mean Labour admitting it’s failures over the last decade or so, and well, that’s not going to happen is it?
Typical Labour policy, an authoritarian fix to a problem largely of its own making, and one that will simply create new problems without actually fixing the one is was designed to do.
Plato said...
29 Sep 09 at 7:59 pm
I was open mouthed when Our Glorious Leader started on this one, I really was.
It’s so State Knows Best authoritarianism. From my experience, teenage mums do it because of low self-esteem and being surrounded by others who’ve done it too.
Subrosa is spot on. Social unacceptability is the key, not statist problem management.
Labour have handed out so many sweeties paid for by tax payers that we’ve now grown a huge group of people who have little or no concept of paying ones way.
Until that entitlement culture is broken, nothing will change. And the change will hurt as every benefit-generation family feels their pips squeaking.
Devil\'s Kitchen said...
29 Sep 09 at 8:11 pm
Dave,
Long time, no communicate! Good to see you again…
Anyway, onto your points…
She is greatly better off than someone who doesn’t have a baby. If you have a baby, you get the following:
1) You go to the top of the housing queue
2) You can claim benefits two years earlier than someone without a child
3) Benefits include (off the top of my head):
a) Child Benefit: roughly £18 per week
b) Child Tax Credits (yes, bizarrely, you receive these even when not actually, y’know, paying any tax): about £50 per week
c) Jobseeker’s Allowance: £50 per week for 16–18, or £65 over the age of 18 (please note that if you do not have a child, the Jobseeker’s Allowance does not go to the higher rate until you are 24)
d) Child Trust Fund: your child gets £250 at birth and £250 when they are seven. If you are receiving Tax Credits, i.e. low income, those payments are £500, not £250 (yes, I know that, in theory, the parents cannot touch the cash but the child substantially benefits from a low parental income).
Thus you are better off (by at least £68 per week) than someone who does not have a child. Of course, you have the child to pay for, but there are some other benefits available too.
People can quantify the benefits very well, without necessarily appreciating the expense of a child. The point is that it makes a difference at the margins.
DK
P.S. Benefits information can be found here.
Philip Walker said...
29 Sep 09 at 8:23 pm
…no evidence that teenagers get pregnant to claim benefits.
Others have commented on this, I see. My take would be slightly different: it may well be that young girls don’t get pregnant in order to claim benefits. However, they may well be engaged in risky sexual activity because they perceive that there is no downside — “If I end up pregnant, well, the State’ll look after me.” It is very much a case of moral hazard.
That, I think, handles Dave Weeden’s point as well: it’s about a risk-reward (or better, risk-disincentive) relationship that is skewed by State intervention. Someone might argue that Gordon’s gulags are his peculiar, warped way of restoring some of that disincentive. I think it plain stinks.
Oranjepan said...
29 Sep 09 at 8:23 pm
On a strictly rational basis I’d argue that people get pregnant because they are having unprotected sex.
It strikes me as the statement of a decrepit cynic who can only understand the physical emotion of teenagers in terms of money. Methinks there a tiny bit more to it than that.
Constantly Furious said...
29 Sep 09 at 9:55 pm
Nobody seems prepared to take this discussion down a notch or two. So allow me.
GULAGS FOR SLAAAAAAGS!!!!!
HUTS FOR SLUTS!!!!
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
(oh and by the way, I too have plenty of first-hand, people-I-know, told-to-my-face evidence of girls getting pregnant ‘rather than have to work’.)
Tim Almond said...
29 Sep 09 at 11:09 pm
“Yet what I do know is that there’s no evidence that teenagers get pregnant to claim benefits. It’s often said, and it sounds true, but.. sorry, no actual evidence.”
We changed housing priorities away from married people to mothers with children and the rate started rising soon after.
We have 6 times the teenage pregnancy rate of the Netherlands. I know that various government funded groups like to talk about how that’s all down to their sexual liberation, but then you have to ask why, despite Britain being far less uptight about sex in the past 30 years, that our teenage pregancy rate is so high. Or why rates are so huge amongst poorer families than richer ones in a country with a national curriculum on sex education.
The fact is that the Netherlands, Switzerland and Japan have very low rates of teenage pregnancy, and in each case, they don’t give much help (and I’d hardly describe Japanese or Swiss culture as particularly sexually open).
One thing I would add is that I do not condemn these girls who either deliberately get pregnant, or just take more risks (as Philip says). They are acting fairly rationally given their circumstances of being discriminated against on council housing, limited private housing options due to restrictive planning laws and a tax system which hits low earners hard.
Rod C said...
29 Sep 09 at 11:22 pm
As DK noted:
She is greatly better off than someone who doesn’t have a baby. If you have a baby, you get the following:
1) You go to the top of the housing queue
This is a key one because, assuming the person gets a house as a result of having a baby and being top of the housing queue, then Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit kick in too. Then the total state subsidies for teen pregnancy really start to add up.
DeusExMacintosh said...
30 Sep 09 at 12:07 am
I favour the term “baby borstals” myself, as Labour is clearly advocating institutionalisation for teen mums. Whether that’s called a “home” or “foyer” (which incidentally are meant for homeless youths and are already short on places) they’ll be forced into Care … a system which has performed so well when it comes to managing the welfare of children.
Stu said...
30 Sep 09 at 9:25 am
I hate to find myself in disagreement with so many venerable commenters on this thread, but girls getting pregnant to claim benefits are the exception, and are exceptionally rare.
The correlation between benefits support and teen pregnancy does not show that young girls make the deliberate decision to get pregnant in order to claim benefits. That’s an assumption, and a fallacy.
Such a correlation could just as easily be explained in terms of accidental pregnancies. The fact that we have a safety net in this country may make young girls less likely to worry about becoming pregnant (and so less likely to use contraception, morning after pill etc). This would lead to a rise in teenage pregnancies without any deliberate conceit on the part of the young girls.
The distinction is important, because if you believe that the plotting, mischievous young girls are out getting pregnant for personal gain, you’ll lock them in poorhouses. If you consider them as irresponsible teenagers who have got themselves into a lose-lose situation, though, you can begin looking at the actual root of the problem, not just the symptoms.
What I don’t get, though, is how liberals can be so damning about Iain Duncan Smith, who’s looking at the same problem and suggesting fairly mild changes in the tax system as the beginnings of solution. To me, that sounds a damn sight better than putting teenage mothers in care for, well, for being mothers.
As for the anecdotal ‘she told me to my face’ argument, remember that a pregnant 16-year-old girl will happily rationalise her way out of an argument. Teenagers don’t always tell the God’s honest truth, you know.
Rod C said...
30 Sep 09 at 10:19 am
Seems to me that this discussion, like every other similar one on the web, is lapsing too easily into morally judging these girls when that isn’t really the point. As Tim Almond mentions above, these girls are really acting quite rationally given the cards that life has dealt them.
Pulling this back to a more libertarian perspective, it is these girls’ business if they happen to get pregnant (and also that of the father and both their families). It is not the state’s role to punish them or, indeed, to coerce anyone into ‘feckless mother correction units’. At the same time, it is certainly not the state’s role to subsidize (and thus encourage) teen single-motherhood either and that appears to be the case at present.
Whether the government should instead make it its business to incentivize marriage (and having children within marriage) seems a bit of a murky area to me but maybe it’s required just to try and turn the tide. The main priority, however, has got to be reform of the welfare state, the abolition of the poverty trap and the economic incentivization of work over welfare.
Rob said...
30 Sep 09 at 10:26 am
Stu @ 22:
Or the causation could run the other way. There could be a further hidden variable causing high rates of teenage pregnancy, which has prompted a generous safety net as a response. Or maybe there’s an element of both.
I was all set to rebut the notion of IDS getting short shrift by linking to Don Paskini’s post about how his proposals are basically social democrat in nature, but he’s gone and deleted the post (Google’s cache is still around for now). (Assuming that you’re using ‘liberal’ in the American sense).
I think that the liberal position has to include a few key points:
1) The child has rights and, beyond those rights there is also a benefit to the rest of us in ensuring that the child gets a reasonable upbringing
2) We shouldn’t tell people not to do something, then offer them money if they do it
3) People, especially young people, don’t always know their own limits or have a particularly good idea of how certain actions will turn out. To the greatest extent possible, we should avoid adding to the harm that may be caused by their own actions.
The problem is that these are sometimes antagonistic. Helping the child may necessitate ensuring that the child has somewhere to live, a reasonable standard of care and of basic nourishment (dietary and educationally). But this runs into the problem of telling 16-year-olds not to have kids, then having to give them money (ostensibly to look after their kids) as a result of doing just that. It’s incongruent – we’re pushing people in one direction and pulling them in another, and it’s little surprise that this is a cause of great anguish and trauma. And this seems to violate the third principle; we’re heaping greater misery on top of people who are already in a difficult position.
In my opinion, having to take young mothers into care is basically an admission of failure, an admission that our society has managed to raise a generation incapable of looking after itself on the most basic level. It’s also an accommodation with that failure, an acceptance that it’s always going to happen and that these new institutions are going to become part of ‘normal’ life. For the first couple of years they might even be popular, until the first abuse case happens, or someone begins to question the wisdom of housing lots of vulnerable people together where they can magnify each others’ problems, or until accident or malice leads to some poor child dying and we end up having to put CCTV inside the homes or something.
What IDS gets right is the notion that we should encourage independence (and its counterpart, voluntary association) on the part of single mothers (and wider society). For that to happen, the tax and benefit system has to change. Personally, I’d prefer to see a more generous cash benefit system that solves the problem of withdrawal rates and perverse incentives by withdrawing less (in other words, you can get a job and still keep your benefits) if it means that we can do away with the apparatus of interference in people’s lives. This is the exact opposite of the direction the government seems to be going in. (The third, more libertarian, option would be to solve the incentive problem by reducing or removing benefits entirely).
Voter said...
30 Sep 09 at 11:19 am
Often research seems to commit the fallacy of confusing correlation and causation. It can be cheaper to just measure two things and see if they line up.
This, as Rob has noted, can miss any third factor.
Before we claim that it is down to a rational calculation that the state will bail them out, I would like to know if there is research which takes into account the general attitude towards getting pregnant in an irresponsible fasion.
If there is less pressure on individuals to behave responsibly (from teachers and parents), then maybe that is the cause of any rise.
A society that views such pregnancies less unfavourably may be more inclined to provide benefits.
Cutting benefits will in that situation do little (I presume) to change behaviour.
Quoting from the linked page “More of them are working and the upward trend in lone parenting has, for the first time in decades, been arrested and is now beginning to turn down”.
The word beginning there worries more. It suggests that it is far from clear
Devil's Kitchen said...
30 Sep 09 at 1:56 pm
Stu,
Hence my comment about the difference being at the margins. However, Stu, the level and availability of benefits does, in some way, correlate with the levels of teenage pregnancy. I also pointed out that correlation is not causation.
However, I did find and link to research showing such a correlation, the conclusions of which might be read in a number of different ways: you, on the other hand, have linked to absolutely nothing that backs up your assertion (for assertion it is) that “girls getting pregnant to claim benefits are the exception, and are exceptionally rare.”
If the benefits have no affect on the rate of pregnancy, then surely we can use a simple experiment to prove the point one way or another: abolish all benefits for having a child, and monitor the abortion rates, sales of the morning-after pill, etc.
In any case, we should immediately abolish all benefits based on having children. I think that you will see the pregnancy rates fall.
DK
DK
DeusExMacintosh said...
30 Sep 09 at 2:26 pm
Before we claim that it is down to a rational calculation that the state will bail them out, I would like to know if there is research which takes into account the general attitude towards getting pregnant in an irresponsible fasion.
If there is less pressure on individuals to behave responsibly (from teachers and parents), then maybe that is the cause of any rise.
Research seems to show the opposite. For example, teen pregnancy rates in the USA are shown to be highest in conservative christian states where there is abstinence-only sex education and teen sexuality is strongly frowned upon.
http://www.feministing.com/archives/017841.html
Approbation alone is simply not enough.
Stu said...
30 Sep 09 at 2:33 pm
Rob thanks for that. I wasn’t saying that accidental pregnancies are the explanation for the correlation – as you say, it’s likely to be multiple factors. I was merely pointing out that the above commenters seemed to think it constituted evidence, which it doesn’t.
I pretty much agree with your analysis of the situation, though. Particularly that taking mothers into care is an admission of failure. Ideally, the young women of this country would be mentally capable of raising children.
Of course, many of them are (seeing as I was a Father at 19 and my daughter’s doing fine so far, I have at least some anecdotal evidence of that…) but they’re not really the ones at issue here.
Sorry, DK, I didn’t mean to go without references: ONS data on annual conceptions is here.
In 2007, amongst Under-16s, 8.3 women per thousand fell pregnant; for Under-18s it’s 41.9 women per thousand. So, less than 0.5% at best. Of the Under-16 group, 61% go on to have legal abortions. They only list the abortion rate for under-20s, which is a somewhat different stat – but that’s 43%
Anyway, we are talking about a pretty small number of babies born to mothers under 16, and not a vast amount more born to mothers under 18. It’s not like we’re being overrun by them, even if we have got the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe (though still miles short of America, as I recall).
I don’t doubt we would! I’m not convinced it’s an ideal solution to the current problem, but at least that’s just a matter of opinion…
Rosie said...
30 Sep 09 at 5:11 pm
I think the reality is that this is a fairly good idea as far as it has been conceived and if it was well done. However the Government has no right to do it. If someone can live alone at 16 – rather than be taken into care – and has not committed a crime there is no legal justification for putting them in supervised accommodation. The Government will probably go down the other, sneakier route of making welfare contingent on acceptance of this arrangement.
Oranjepan said...
30 Sep 09 at 10:30 pm
DK,
“we should immediately abolish all benefits based on having children. I think that you will see the pregnancy rates fall.”
I don’t think you’ve thought this one through.
Yes, pregnancy rates may fall, but that’s not necessarily desirable in itself. I’m wondering where you’re going to get your retirement income from if there are fewer market entrants at the bottom of the age scale in the future. A reduction in overall population would have serious consequences for our ability to sustain economic longevity.
Voter said...
1 Oct 09 at 10:25 am
Okay, so maybe condemnation from religious people will have little effect.
It may depend on how elastic something is and how much religious people are respected. Often people are “religious” on Sundays but generally lacking in empathy. It is no wonder such people have difficulty in relating to others.
Having sex may be inelastic (due to pressure from hormones) but whether protection is used is something that can be influenced.
I think we need research that takes into account all the details before we can draw any firm conclusions and decide the benefits policy.
Pat Sommer said...
9 Oct 09 at 7:37 am
May I remind everyone we are talking about children, babies and baby-mamas? If (a big IF)we can provide a safe temporary home for these children with babies to finish growing up in, then shouldn’t that be among their choices along with abortion, adoption or staying with family?
I have a divergent opinion regarding teen pregnancy prevention, but once conception takes place, I argue that adulthood does not automatically follow.
One of them with 'Outreach' in her title! said...
4 Nov 09 at 6:44 am
As a project worker who supports teenage mums in supported housing and who has had extensive training in the area, I can say that one of the main reason’s that Britain has one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancies in Europe is because we have one of the worse sexual health programmes in Europe. Teenagers are given information far to late (as parents so often refuse to admit that THEIR child would have any kind of sex let alone unprotected!) and the main information they receive is through word of mouth from bragging friends….
As to only wanting to get a house and live on benefits – have you any idea how hard it is to get housing in many of our cities…. and they definately DO NOT jump straight to the top of the list. In the illustrious city in which I work, it can take up to 6 months to get priority (without which the chances of a council house are pretty much nil unless you have had your name down for 20 odd years) and then you don’t get to have much of a choice of where you live either – it is what the council believe is suitable for your needs, which could include a top floor maisonette with no lift (you try getting a buggy and a load of shopping up those stairs) or highrise flats. If you turn down a property offered then you lose your priority and don’t stand a chance of getting rehoused. During the 6 months you are waiting to get offered a property you can end up in ‘emergency’ housing – hostels, bed and breakfasts and the foulest collection of flats you can ever imagine – where teenage mums live next to, below, across from and above other individuals who are difficult to rehouse… many of whom are substance and alcohol abusers who end up knocking on the door of the very vulnerable teenage mum begging for money and cigerettes and anything else they can think of.
So if that is the kind of life all these teenage mums are so desperate for then I agree they must be deliberately getting pregnant to live in some of the worst areas of the city (as housing in decent areas do not come up very often) where they can feel intimidated every time they step out of their front door…
To try and reduce our rate of teenage parents in Britain then its about time we start at the basic level….. PARENTS – do not rely on the schools or the peers of your child to get a good standard of sex education – teach it them yourselves!! Yes I know some people may find it embarassing, but what’s a little red face compared to a smaller red face of your screaming grandchild!!
Tim Almond said...
4 Nov 09 at 10:18 am
“As a project worker who supports teenage mums in supported housing and who has had extensive training in the area, I can say that one of the main reason’s that Britain has one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancies in Europe is because we have one of the worse sexual health programmes in Europe. Teenagers are given information far to late (as parents so often refuse to admit that THEIR child would have any kind of sex let alone unprotected!) and the main information they receive is through word of mouth from bragging friends”
The problem with your argument is that if this is such a bad sexual health programme, why does it work very well for better-off girls than poor girls?
Rod C said...
4 Nov 09 at 11:14 am
I can say that one of the main reason’s that Britain has one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancies in Europe is because we have one of the worse sexual health programmes in Europe. Teenagers are given information far to late (as parents so often refuse to admit that THEIR child would have any kind of sex let alone unprotected!) and the main information they receive is through word of mouth from bragging friends….
As a parent of two children who have recently had sex and relationship education classes as early as years 5 and 6 of Primary School (ages 9-11) I just can’t quite accept that poor sexual health education is the root of this problem. All the information that anyone could need is available but obviously some of the people who most need to take notice choose not to listen.