Underage sex

England leads the way - in the wrong direction

It hardly comes as a surprise to learn that in England four out of ten girls have underage sex, which is more than in any other European country, there is even a shedload of anecdotal evidence of this in South Shields, just look at the number of teenage prampushers who have lost their own youth. The annoying generalisation (to me, anyway), is that it is accepted, that these things will happen, it was just an accident. An accident that the rest of us will continue to pay for unless someone is prepared to attempt to reverse the trends.

Neil Lyndon in The Times seems to think that he has found the answer, it’s simple he says, no more benefits for teenage mums, nothing will change until we stop subsidising them. Whjich is fine, so long as he isn’t making any claim to originality for the concept.

By much of the educational interdiction of the past thirty years, teenagers have taken it upon themselves to broaden their horizons, stretch their knowledge, reacting to physical attractions with a new found authority that they know what they are doing. Perhaps some of this teaching starts at too early an age, the jury is still undecided on that question, but what is not at question is the lack of responsibility so long as the rest of society is prepared to pay the cost of bringing up babies by teenagers who are little more than children themselves.

If it were firmly embedded in the educational curriculum, and both parents and children understood that they, rather than the rest of us, must be responsible for their own actions or inactions then perhaps we might start to make some inroads into the growing problem of teenage pregnancies. Our educationalists and politicians need to shout this message loudly and clearly, if you get pregnant, we will not be offering you a house or accomodation, we will not be offering you money (other than child benefit) neither will we pay for abortions or morning after pills. If you want these things, YOU will have to pay for them.

As one generation becomes used to living on state handouts, then the next will surely follow suit. It really is time to put an end to this nonsense and try to move in another direction.