The ‘aggressive children’ of teenage mums
Blogging isn’t something that comes easily to me. Nothing has really taken my interest this past week, hence no chat. I’d rather do that than churn it out without thinking.
But today, I’ve been doing a bit of investigative blogging. Maybe you saw the Observer yesterday? (I’m assuming this blog is full of Guardian readers).
Page 3 of the Observer had this charming headline: “Violence blamed on teenage mums“. The article goes on to quote a
controversial report by a leading criminologist
which says that
parents under 16 were contributing to ‘a cycle’ of aggression that meant people were 25 times more likely to be a victim of violence than 50 years ago.
Quite an assertion to make, eh? It’s worth reading the entire article. As a test, forget which Sunday paper it appears in, and then try to guess its natural home just from the content and headline. The inclusion of a prejudiced aside from “Family and Youth Concern” should give you one hell of a clue: few newspapers treat their press releases as anything more than chip wrappers. Yes, you’re reading an article which would be quite at home in the Telegraph, with even the cursory Home Office quote tucked at the end.
But anyway, I digress. Then this morning, the Daily Mail, never one to pass up an opportunity to aim a hefty kick at young women who aren’t its readers’ daughters, had it too. (Not online, so here are the highlights)
The ‘aggressive children’ of teenage mums
CHILDREN of teenage mothers are more likely to be aggressive later in life, it was claimed yesterday.
Young parents lack the emotional maturity to teach their children why they should not act violently, say experts.
They suggest these aggressive children are more likely to them bring up dysfunctional children themselves - creating a “cycle of violence” that spirals down the generations.
The warning comes from educational charity the Wave Trust.
This week it will release the results of a nine-year project to analyse psychological, sociological and criminological research from across the English-speaking world.
[...]
[CEO of the Wave Trust] Mr Hosking claims that the ability to empathise is learnt from parents and that problems emerge when parents are unable to to pass on that skill.
He said: “Children learn best in the first 18 months of their lives.
If during this time, the parent is cruel or home life is chaotic or if the parent is very young then the child can grow up without this sense. This can have a devastating effect.
Too often young parents have not developed the emotional maturity themsaelves to be able to pass on to ther children.
Either that or they are simply too busy growing up themselves to pay sufficient attention to their young child.”
I thought I’d best do some investigating. After all, the Wave Trust sounded to me like another two-bit front outfit - much like “Family and Youth Concern”, which exist only to give the Daily Mail ammunition.
Turns out I was wrong - they seem respectable enough, if a little amateurish, and they are actually a UK registered charity. A Google search yields a homepage, and (oddly) a spoof WMD page. But they seem okay.
So I gave them a ring, to ask for a copy of the report that the articles refer to. I spoke to George Hosking, the chief exec and the guy quoted in the papers.
He sent me over a copy of the report (embargoed til midnight tonight, so I can’t post it up). We were chatting, I explained my concerns about his comments demonising teenage mums, and he said something rather surprising, viz: “Oh, please apologise to any teenage mums you know - I didn’t mean to do them down. The stuff about teenage mums bringing up more violent children and by implication causing our violent society isn’t in the report- it’s just my opinion”. And, do you know what, it’s not in the research report - I’ve looked.
So, what I want to know is this. I’ve got lots of opinions about lots of issues, not all of which I can back up with hard evidence. CAN I PLEASE HAVE PAGE 3 OF THE OBSERVER TO TELL THE WORLD ABOUT THEM?
That is actually really bad! I would expect a tabloid to make the connection between someones opinion and the report they have written, but not the Observer!
The should be absolutely ashamed of themselves - reporting someone’s personal opinion as research just to flog papers with a daily mailesque story. Sheesh.
To be fair to the Observer, it says this;
“Speaking before the launch of one of the largest ever studies into violence, its author George Hosking said that parents under 16 were contributing to ‘a cycle’ of aggression that meant people were 25 times more likely to be a victim of violence than 50 years ago. His comments were denounced by many as demonising young parents.”
Which is not the same as what you have put;
“The article goes on to quote a controversial report by a leading criminologist which says that parents under 16 were contributing to ‘a cycle’ of aggression that meant people were 25 times more likely to be a victim of violence than 50 years ago.”
So who is being a tad tabloid and inaccurate? It seems you are, Antonia. Come on own up.
Neil, come on. If a paper says that the author of a report says xyz, readers will go away thinking that xyz’s in the report and that there’s evidence for it. If I say “The author of a report into the incidence of syphilis in Brighton believes that Brighton Labour activist Neil Harding has an STI”, that strongly implies that there is some backing for that in the report, not that it is the personal and unsubstantiated view of the author in question and totally without foundation. The Observer should be ashamed of itself, and I hope Antonia will be writing to the Reader’s Editor as well as blogging about it. Antonia should be proud of herself.
Neil,
I’m not a journalist writing for a well-respected national broadsheet.
Tim, Antonia, that wasn’t my point. I agree that the Observers article is misleading, but Antonia’s article is incorrect. If you are going to throw stones, don’t throw them from a glass house, thats all I’m saying. Antonia’s article specifically says that the Observer says it is in the report, the Observer specifically mentions that it is the author’s comments. It also states that this is said at the ‘launch’ of the report. Maybe the reporter should have read every single line of what is probably a lengthy report to make sure it is in there, but what the reporter has written is still factually accurate, what Antonia has written isn’t.
Violent crime was much lower in the Fifties.More social cohesion in those days.
“Social cohesion”, in the context of the 1950s, means presumably:
more people trapped in unhappy loveless marriages before the repeal of the more dreadful bits of marriage law
more gay and lesbian people persecuted
more little kids born who weren’t wanted by their parents and weren’t loved
amongst other things…
Less anti-social behavior.People didn’t need to lock the backdoor when they went out.Can you imagine that!
Life wasn’t perfect but it wasn’t as bad as people are now trying to make out.
Ian,
I don’t think locking my backdoor is a high price to pay for homeless shelters and action to make sure everyone has someone decent to live (hint - it wasn’t because there weren’t any homeless people), women’s refuges and action to tackle violence against women (hint - it wasn’t because there was no domestic violence) and the right for gay men to love one another legally.
My Mum grew up in the 1950s. She concedes that there was less violent crime - well, on the streets anyway. In her view this is largely because hard drugs were not generally available and there was no serious binge drinking culture. But she says that in almost every other respect it was an oppressive hell and she wouldn’t want to go back to that time - crime or not. The price was just too high.
Your Mum’s right about about the drinking,Winter.It was very rare to see someone drunk.It wasn’t that oppressive,however.I do remember my mother dropping a sixpence while she was giving the laundryman his money at the door.He tried to pick it up and couldn’t.His fingernails had been ripped out by the Japanese when he was a POW.Some people have been to a real hell.
Ian,
Without wishing to belittle the sacrifices of those who fought facism, it’s not hell bearing a baby you didn’t want or going for a botched backstreet abortion? (Abortion Act 1967) It’s not hell having no escape from or legal recourse after domestic violence? (Domestic Violence Act 1976)?
The domestic violence I can remember was in the Andy Capp cartoons in the Daily Mirror.Dare I say that newspaper carried a front page headline ‘How to spot a homo’ in the early fifties.Many in the Labour movement held the conventional views of the time. They marched for CND not for abortion reform.
I am old enough to remember the fifties and it was not unusual to see drunks
Post WWII firearms were commonplace including amongst the young. Indeed Chris Craig of the notorious Craig/Derek Bentley murder trial was an underage kid who had taken a working revolver into school.
Crime was however much lower. Few people had anything that was both portable and worth nicking.
Among the Methodists Constable?
Anyone in the pub who consumed a lot was expected to be able to hold it and not show signs of intoxication.
There were the Teddy Boys with their bicycle chains.Some of them had flick knives.The government quickly outlawed the knives.
Talking of Teds I’d better sponge out that stain on my drape jacket.
Large numbers of servicemen had brought home souvenirs of the war. Firearms were especially popular and in the immediate post-war period the impoverished and occupied Germans were selling as many of them as they could as fast as they could. I know that many like to look back at the fifties through nostalgia tinted glasses, but one of the ugly facts about it is we have probably never been so awash with illegal guns. Ammo was a bit of a problem I grant you.
The tedddy boys were dandies. Last thing they wanted on their clothes was bike chain grease.
And if you drink enough, it doesn’t matter what you were expecting to happen or trying to achieve. That’s one of the liberating things about the stuff.
The servicemen bought the souvenirs with cigarettes.
As the war was drawing to a close the inmates of the German internment camps,my aunt was among them, had only potato peelings to eat.So I don’t have too much sympathy for the Germans.
It was a binge drinker that spilt a drink on my jacket, honest guv!
I think it’s outrageous that they can write that based on some ones personal opinion. i’m a teenage mum. i have a daughter, Charli, who is five in october and a son Kieran who is 3 in January, and both my children are happy, healthy and friendly. neither of them has any problems with socialising with other kids, and niether of them are in any way violent. i absolutely hate the way people stereo-type teenage mums.