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Sunday 22 November 2009

If fat people can’t adopt, who’s to say that drinkers or blacks won’t be next?

17 January 2009

Rod Liddle says that the discrimination against overweight applicants wishing to adopt is only the latest vindictive witch hunt by bureaucrats and social workers against a minority. It is no more sensible than targeting an ethnic group or a social class

Should blacks be allowed to adopt healthy children? Or should they be kept as an emergency reservoir of care for the damaged or ill children nobody else wants? It is time we got a little more rigorous about who we allow to adopt the kiddies, don’t you think? Black people are slightly less likely, on average, to abuse their children sexually than are white people — however, that’s pretty much their only plus point. They are slightly less likely to stay together as parents and disproportionately more likely to have been involved in some form of crime. Black fathers will be less well-educated, on average, than their white counterparts and black families are more likely to be wallowing in the lowest income quartile. None of these indicators bodes well for the adopted child.

I’m not sure the white working classes should be allowed near the kiddies either. As you may have gathered recently, when children are hideously abused they are almost always in the ‘care’ of white working-class or African parents or relatives. The Africans do weird witchcraft stuff and then kill them, while the white chavs drug them and keep them hidden in a drawer under the bed in the misbegotten hope that they might extort money from the press, somehow, for their safe return. Which is another thing: the white working classes are also poorly educated in comparison with the norm and can be fantastically stupid.

They’re tightening up the adoption requirements in Leeds, at least. Not enough for me — I’m not convinced that anyone in Leeds should be allowed to adopt a child — but it’s a start. The gargantuan Damien Hall, for example, was rejected as an adoptive father because he is too fat. Damien weighs more than 24 stone; he is ‘morbidly obese’ with a body mass index of 42. Are you aware of your own body mass index? You should be. One morning you will wake up and the scary shovel-faced government minister Dawn Primarolo will be standing at the foot of your bed jabbing you with a stick, shrieking at you that your BMI is too high and there’ll be no breakfast today, you fat slattern.

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Jez

January 15th, 2009 7:54am Report this comment

Whahay!!

Leeds? Adoption?

I'm from Leeds and I'm adopted!

Get in there!

I can remember my Mum saying to me, on the way to Primary school one morning;

"You wouldn't mind a brown brother or sister would you?"

"No." was the response from an approximately six year old me.

My Mum was obviously going for another adopted kid.

Well i didn't mind but her husband/my Dad at the time obviously did;

He f***** off with this bird he was shagging- who's house he was re-wiring in Bradford incidently. Prick.

Anyway my Mum sorts it all out, gets re-married a couple of years later to this top lad (still is) and then they're told by social services that because *she* got divorced *they* couldn't adopt.

It's not fair people, it's just not fair.

Great article Rod- although you've probably narrowed down the Spectator readership that can actually relate to what the hell our on about, to probably 0.001%! :))

Stew

January 15th, 2009 9:17am Report this comment

My wife and I looked at adopting with Norfolk social services. We were not allowed to discuss adopting a child of 'mixed race' because we were of the wrong colour (both white). However it was acceptable for a mixed race or completely black couple to adopt the child because of their ethnicity. Presumably the fact that the child was half white was considered irrelevant. It's part white ethnicity was not to be considered.
Great logic and good work from the social services with their racist left-wing arrogance they condemn more children than they help.

Matt

January 15th, 2009 12:34pm Report this comment

Okay, so social workers aren't exactly a difficult target - but this article is nothing short of brilliant. It's one of the most relentless skewerings of the mind-numbing stupidity and double standards of the governing classes I can remember reading this side of that other polemical RL, Richard Littlejohn. Long live Ron Piddle and his crap furniture.

C Powell

January 15th, 2009 2:28pm Report this comment

"common sense — never a quality associated with social services departments"

It's not a quality associated with the public sector, full stop.

And with Harman's new law, class - imagine, as defined by social workers! - will be the next reason for denying a family to a child.

David Short

January 15th, 2009 5:14pm Report this comment

Is it happenstance that we can go and live elsewhere when we are fed up and disgusted by town hall England?

They have 'won' but they haven't because we can just go and live in a proper country like France.

Jane

January 15th, 2009 11:55pm Report this comment

My sister applied to adopt, she jumped through all the hoops only to be told,over the phone, that she was too fat to adopt. this was accompanied by roars of laughter by other office staff listening in. my sister was devastated.
This didn't happen recently, it was about 24 years ago!!
So it's hardly new.

David Short

January 16th, 2009 1:29am Report this comment

I begin to worry about fat, black drinkers.

Steve.W

January 16th, 2009 10:03am Report this comment

The same sort of article could have been written about any sector of the public services.
I blame the government!

winston

January 16th, 2009 11:58am Report this comment

what does a fat man do with an adopted child? Eat it?

Sue Ward

January 16th, 2009 12:09pm Report this comment

Well said Rod. The evidence about life expectancy and size is minimal. We are always reading that obesity is a major contributor to mortality but in reality if you check the research the difference in average life expectancy is actually a matter of a few months. The trouble with us fat people is that our 'sins' are ever before us which makes us an easy target for the puritans and health-fascists. Drinkers, smokers, motorcyclists, druggies and others with a kamikaze lifestyle are far less obvious unless caught in the act!

John Moore

January 16th, 2009 1:18pm Report this comment

Are soldiers, particularly marines and special forces, denied the opportunity to adopt on the grounds of their risky lifestyle? Shouldn't social workers and New Labour ministers be debarred as well. They lead short, risky lives, laying themselves open to homicidal attacks by both large people and savers, on morally justifiable grounds.

rod liddle

January 16th, 2009 1:26pm Report this comment

Stew - you couldn't drop me a line via The Spectator, could you? Or ask them to forward your email address to me?

Sue Ward

January 16th, 2009 2:34pm Report this comment

What I find really weird about the whole obesity debate is that strangely it isn't really about being fat. I am a fat woman (I would prefer 'curvaceous' but let's be honest!). However because I am a middle class professional people in my peer group don't seem to notice that I am fat. When they laugh about fat, tracky clad chavs they see on the street I point out that "Hello! I'm porky too don't ya know?!". The response is invariably, "But your not like them". Fat has been singled out as an identifier of indolent, slobbish, low achievers. Being fat seems to suggest something negative about your character that no other physical trait carries with it. We are supposed to be sorry for junkies and alkies in the grip of their 'illnesses' but us fatties are completely beyond the moral pale!

Sinbad's Olive Oil

January 16th, 2009 4:55pm Report this comment

No wonder the sea is rising. Too many fat people. Deny adoption. Next....

DK

January 16th, 2009 6:24pm Report this comment

Only one ex-pat threatening to punish us by never returning?
Other columnists can do better than this!!

HJ

January 16th, 2009 6:41pm Report this comment

This is rubbish.

There are far more would-be adopters of young children than there are young children to adopt. This means that someone has to choose who is most suitable in the interests of the child. If you don't get chosen, it doesn't mean that anyone is saying that you're unsuitable to adopt or that you wouldn't be a very good parent, just that there are, as far as can be judged, better candidates.

In this case, the local authority was quite open and honest about the reasons. Because this man is clinically obese, he is far more likely to enjoy poor health or to die prematurely (I might add that the child is also likely to be fed a poor diet and lack exercise as obese people generally have obese children - and it's nothing to do with genetics in most cases). They have, indeed, said that the couple would be good candidates if this is resolved. This is being fair to the couple and to any children they may adopt.

If Rod Liddle were run over by a bus tomorrow, would he be indifferent to whether would-be adopters of his children were clinically obese?

Clue: Not long ago Rod Liddle wrote an article here saying being fat is "antisocial behaviour" and that fat people "should be stigmatised".

John Tauber

January 17th, 2009 6:53am Report this comment

Another hilarious expose of difficult issues: Knife crime as fashion, Christian Zealots abetting and abetting Israel in Gaza, now Fatties barred from fostering.

What a brief.

What next? Lefties in the media? - an expose of vanity dressed up as politics?

That would be funny. You might even get it published in the Guardian or Independent.

Jez

January 17th, 2009 11:41am Report this comment

I've got to be quick as i've just popped into work to tie up some loose ends.

HJ.

Please go to any Council adoption service as a prospective adopter. Everyone wants a blond haired, blue eyed little baby- and that's where there's an inbalance regarding the child/prospective adopter ratio.

The one Council that i'm specifically thinking of has a book that has hundreds of kids from the age of four to sixteen in it. There all in childrens homes or various degrees of foster care. Because of their age and personal circumstance it is neigh on impossible to get them a stable family to adopt them.

A socialworker (that are easy targets i know but in many cases do good- sometimes) once said to me;

"No matter what, anything is better than a childrens home. Once you're in one then the chances of coming out the other end positivly are extremely slim"

Those kids in that book are still in care- still wanting a steady carry on. All this as we comment, read and play silly buggers with this.

As i said it's not fair i'm afraid.

Stew

January 18th, 2009 4:33pm Report this comment

HJ, I am afraid you are wrong. Go to an adoption centre and you will find that yes, there is a shortage of babies but there are a great many other children that are in desperate need of a good home.
The adoption system in Britain has gone way beyond what is best for the children and has developed into yet another form of leftie social engineering. Surely anyone with a heart can see that what chidren need is a loving family, it should not matter what race, religion or waist size you have. It seems a little counter-intuitive that the left wing public services, of which the adoption agency is the poster boy, would put prejudice (weight, colour etc) ahead of the happiness of the child.
Good friends of mine in Australia (both white) have adopted a wonderful little boy from Ethiopia (he is black) - he has won the lottery in many ways and I suspect he won't be traumatised by being brought up by white parents.

AngloWelsh Dragon

January 19th, 2009 12:41pm Report this comment

B******ks HJ! Some obese people perhaps do have a poor diet but the same is true for many thin people. Who knows what health problems they are storing up - and they don't even get the 'benefits' of being targeted by do-gooding officialdom either!

I am fat but my 3 children are all built like racing snakes. We all eat a home cooked diet including more than 5 portions of fruit and veg a day and 3 portions of oily fish a week. We have no ready meals or bought cakes/biscuits and I cook with unrefined sugar. Can you claim the same HJ?

The fact is there is no stereotypical fat person any more than there is a typical thin one but, hey, as a mere fat woman who am I to stop anyone from enjoying the last remaining socially acceptable prejudice?

rod liddle

January 20th, 2009 2:43pm Report this comment

What's a racing snake?

Jez

January 20th, 2009 4:40pm Report this comment

"What's a racing snake?"

I don't know but i think they live in the Welsh/English border region.

Rod.

Can you pull a few strings mate to have wall to wall Obama stuff in this weeks edition, this as i dont think i've experienced enough of this phenomenon in the rest of the mainstream media today.

That'd be really great! :)))

Helen F

January 21st, 2009 4:57pm Report this comment

A 'racing snake' is a term coined - I think - by Terry Wogan to denote a thin, wiry sort of person (he often humorously applies it to himself). Shame on you, Rod Liddle, for being so removed from the middle-aged popular zeitgeist!