Even middle-class children are suffering from neglect

P Harvey

I suspect the writer is hard on the teenage Slavic au pairs and quite wrong to think a 'childcare qualification' would help matters much. The best childcare qualification is obviously to have been well cared for as a child oneself and it is clear from the writer's argument that many of today's British parents (and probably also 'qualified' childminders)were not. Things may have been better, even under Communism, in some places.

London Calling

Both my parents worked when I was a child and both my parents were too exhausted to even ask what kind of day my other siblings and I had at school, let alone read stories at bedtime, go to the park etc.
In reflection I can honestly say both my parents were complete strangers, instead of parents and
this devastated any bonding or guidance emotionally or otherwise, that gives a child the stability and nurturing they so need in which to grow.

We didn’t have nannies, but if we had, I may have enjoyed someone to talk to and play with, but then I have read that most nannies are exploited and made to be Mum, Dad, Housekeeper 24/7 and for a low wage as they live in
and for some nannies they would probably end up resenting the children they are slaved to look after, and even if children do bond with the nannies, when they leave it may seem like a bereavement to the child who has adopted the nanny as a substitute mother.

I applaud your article for its approach to the subject of Parental neglect, children can’t hug Money
or have it read stories to them
at bedtime, and for my friends who were sent to boarding school the neglect was far worse, but of course with a good education they were set up for life in most cases, but the child within them having never been shown regular affection, love and time, there will always be an empty space.

Edward

Don't include me in this litany of nonsense. We don't have "staff" which is likely to be confined to the monied classes in London

David Short

Oh, come on, Spectator, get a grip. We don't want this sort of article in the magazine. I can understand Brillo not reading Private Eye because they constantly make fun of him, but surely the rest of you have read Polly Filler. Why do you let real-life Polly Fillers have space in the mag? Surely it's not right to do so simply because you like her brother?

Piers

It's ironic that Rachel Johnson is writing about child neglect and parents not spending time with their children, when just last week she wrote in the Sunday Times about how 'trophy wives' should all go out to work..

D Nugent

Well done with regards to the 'kids' business. Goats have kids, we have children.

A Gustova

Had to laugh reading this article. It's about the affluent middle and upper-middle class. Aren't they just the people who always used to send their kids to boarding schools, including prep boarding schools?
And servants, nannies etc looking after the children? Surely this was once the norm in affluent homes? I'd guess that despite everything, little Arabella and little Horace are seeing rather more of their parents than their equivalents did fifty or a hundred years ago.

Christopher Chantrill

Nothing new here. The rich have always paid for people to raise their children. But there's a cost. Winston Churchill kept a picture not of his mother but his nanny, Mrs. Everest, by his bedside all his life.

David Short

I sometimes think female hacks have children simply to have something to write about.

If that's how they 'self-actualise' then why do they bother?

Their daughters can become female hacks, I suppose, and write about why they hate their mothers.

The sons can become psychopaths and work in the City.

ijak

This is on the right track but is still fumbling about. The malaise of a society whcih values only money, its generation and consumption, rather than human relationships, is one where the human child will always wither, both in general and in particular. English society has been rooted in this preoccupation for too long, for centuries. The whole raison d'etre of the Middle Class was the making of wealth and everything was ordered to this end. The traditional, religious foundations of English society balanced from the onset of the modern British state but were gradually eroded until the modern post war era saw the eclipse of the Christian religion and the triumph of consumerism under Blair. The emergence of the permissive state is simply one without any sense of direction beyond the acquisition of wealth and the spending of it.

robert Heming

If it is true that Britain is the poorest country in taking care of its children how does the USA manage to be ahead? All of the trends that you bemoan began in the US a long time ago and are still there. Both parents working; using the television as a surrogate child-minder; overcompensation by overloading the child in extra-curricula activities etc.. I don't understand

Catherine Howanstine

We have the same problem in the US. I teach 4 and 5 year olds who scram for adult attention all day long, or cling to me for a human touch, or will do any bad behavior just for some attention. Their mothers are on the cell phone wherever I see them in public, evn with the children in tow. It gets worse every year I teach, (and I have taught for 20 yrs.). Parents, wake up!

Neva Brown

As if seeing your parents as we did in the 1950s is the big plus!! Ha! That's rich.

Jolyon Pilkington-Ffoulkes

Why not just send them to boarding school. From Age 3.

cb

I didn't get beyond the title as I find it offensive to write 'Even' middle class children are suffering from neglect. Which implies the working classes have a monopoly on neglecting their children??? What kind of ridiculous and offensive posturing is that.

David Short

The kind of ridiculous and offensive posturing articles that the managing director likes to commission.

He can't see that this isn't the 1980s and that he shouldn't repeat with the Spectator the mistake he made when he vulgarised the Sunday Times.

Joseph Katz

Dear Ms Johnson,
I read your article with great sympathy and was a bit surprised by the comments of what seems to be mostly men. Their over-sensitivity to your mentioning the "middle class" is sad and says something surprising to me about people in England who can afford to read you on the Web. All this is depressing. I have been working almost every summer in Cambridge University for the last 30 years and lived for many years in little houses in villages away from the city and though for the last 20 years I have been leaving in a College apartment closer to my working place, I kept in touch with many "middle class" people. If fact only with those people, not with College people who are also nice in their particular way. My friends had small children in 1977. They are grown up by now but my wife and I still see the parents almost every year. So I had plenty of opportunities to meet middle class people like me with no great salaries but surviving well. By now they are older and better off in general. Those people were lovely. I was always a bit surprised about their relations with their children. Slightly distant, very different from the Jews among whom I live in Israel and to which of course I belong. But then I thought this is the ``english way" and England is a great country with a lot to be proud about. So I suppose there is more than one way to bring up children and the english way may not be so bad. However, I do not see a way to get out of the vicious circle you describe so well about middle class people of England and which is so sad. The trouble seems to be that all the niceties of our societies (fridges, cars,etc..., etc... not to speak about vacations!) are almost affordable by at a price that is too high. And there seems to be no escape. It is the "Catch 22 Situation" of our civilization in which not everybody is lucky enough to become a free lance journalist writing for The Spectator from her home desktop ... or an Academic so that we can remain in touch with our children almost as much as they wish. Of course mine are already your age, I presume, and working hard. But I know they do anything to stay close their children, which need it so much, as I was close to them.

John de Finchley

Once upon a time, women were convinced that men were having great time at work, and they couldn't stand to see that. So they demanded careers too, and when they got them, house prices, astonishingly, rose to reflect higher household incomes. Two earners means you can afford more for a house, see?

As a result, what women thought was choice is actually servitude, just as men have always known. They now work full time because they're forced to, like men have always been.

What they thought was optional has turned out to be compulsory. It's not a choice after all.

The best trick women can now pull is to get a divorce. That way they get a house, an income, a perfect excuse to quit the jobs they're bored of and it's all funded by someone else.

Be careful what you wish for.

D Short

Well said, de Finchley.

Lots of women in their forties like the free ticket divorce buys them because they realise that working in even the most 'glamorous' industries is no great shakes.

Staying at home a lot is what a lot of people would like to do. It's a perfectly natural thing to do, but we've forgotten that.

Sadly only women get the choice to stay at home now. The guy has to keep going to work to pay for the mortgage on a house he no longer lives in or owns, and to feed and clothe the kids he hardly ever sees.

Roy

Skimming through this I find it absurd that the author is reporting anywhere near the real coalface of Britain's workforce. Strange that the 'well-to-do' never seem to know what real life is all about. The whole article smells of more money than sense. A relater to bourgeois lifestyles, as it's always been, a member responsible for the disintegration of the British people, to the boring mediocrity of urbanisation and post industrial, squeamish, liberal attitudes, surrendering to an unimaginative new order.

THX1138

What a load of rubbish, why not lecture your brother about putting his political ego & playing away before you start on us. How much time does he spend with the kids? Now the last of his free time is now taken up with his Telegraph Column.

o'banion

Our present political class consists of the kind of people we used to warn our children against.
No wonder the muslims don't allow their children to mix with ours.

Verity

Boris Johnson did his sister no favours by encouraging her to think she might be a writer by trade and assigning her "articles" when he was the editor of The Speccie.

N. Jenkins

Could you post the link to this UN table.

Kiffa

If you are one of these harried parents, got the dosh but not the time, think hard about putting your 7-8 year olds into boarding prep school. Your children will be safer, happier, less lonely - and will settle as they enter this larger 'family'. Check the inspectorate report for 'outstanding pastoral care' (happy children achieve). Top boarding schools really, really look after children. Don't knock it, and save your guilt for your astonishment at how much better everything is and how much your relationship with your children IMPROVES. Even the virulently anti-boarding day parents change their tune as their children see that boarding is much more fun and badger their parents to go.

Kiffa

I wish I hadn't posted now. What a moaning class-ridden lot you are. What is being addressed by Johnson is the attack on the family unit which first started in the industrial revolution: families have been shrunk by capitalism to the nuclear family unit - and even that is being attacked now. The old people get put in a home, uncles and aunts are usually in another town.
This is a huge strain on the two adults left and people are struggling not to get overwhelmed by work.
And, whether you like it or not boarding prep schools DO address this problem, and they DO provide the wider family unit that still happens in less industrialised countries. The friends are almost brothers, and the staff are wider parental figures. Lucky, lucky kids. That is the privilege you are picking up on, not your stupid class envy. Anyone who has the money to send their children to a good boarding school but who is still choosing to use unregulated au pairs to bring up their children, is IMHO making the wrong choice.

bevanstraut

Day Teen Boarding schoolsstudents who study in these schools, can spend their night with their parents. And in day they can go to their schools. In these schools students can achieve more in their life. These schools also provide individual attention to each and every girl and boy.
http://www.teensprivateschools.com/

Verity

Now that her brother is no longer the editor of The Spectator, is there any chance Rachel Johnson could bugger off somewhere? She is God-awful. She's like a toothache. Dull, vague throbbing, pointless but there ... Maybe she could write for the in-house magazine for City Hall, if they have one. Her lack of talent would meld seamlessly with that august institution itself and Boris would never sack her.

anna

How about taking the simple option of not breeding more children than you are able to look after as you think best?

Kiffa

Who will pay for your pension then, Anna?
Children are wonderful gifts. Fantastic little creatures. I was as miserable as you once, and have come full circle.

James Helvick

Professor Stephen Baskerville has got the most convincing explanation for the divorce/parentless crisis. A giant bureaucracy of snivelling social workers, sham psychotherapists and rapacious lawyers/judges are hellbent on removing fathers from their children, for ideological and professional reasons. Fathers aren't deserting their children but rather are being forcibly kept away by these god-awful people. All done in secret courts where for the most part individuals not accused of any crimes, are dragged and simply ordered to write cheques to court officials on pain of incarceration (without trial) and of losing their children. Due legal process? Forget it.