Yes its quite strange isnt it.

Being a parent is the most demanding function that one can perform. It is a 24/7 demand---and at least for 18 years or so.

And yet we hardly ever get any real education in how to do it. TV soaps anyone!

There used to be a kind of tradition handed on my intact families, especially extended families where all kinds of help and advice, and different attitudes too, was available.

These days many young people become parents without ever having seen or witnessed on a consistent basis how it is done. Because they havent grown up in a functioning family---nuclear or extended. They have never learnt any parenting skills. Or even life skills re how to function productively every day by going to work for instance.

You read perhaps anecdotal stories of teenager girls having babies so that they (the girl) can have someone to love them---talk about nieve

Brian Holden's article is ill-considered, shallow and, ultimately, obnoxious.

"As the explanation of the abuser is invariably; “I just snapped”...Wrong. There are many other explanations including manipulation of vulnerable children; being under the influence of drugs; mental illness; leaving the child with inadequate supervision; etc. There are oodles of research reports around in this area which Holden has never read.

"... should a newborn ever be permitted to enter a domestic environment which is exceptionally vulnerable to being stressed? " Even conceding the (patently false) premiss, how can we predict which 'domestic environment' is 'exceptionally vulnerable to being stressed'? Would the Government enter every household (before or during pregnancy) to run assessments?

"If the bottom line is that no battering of small children is tolerable under any circumstances [a wonderful idea] then society can act in two ways:

we could directly move the newborn at a high risk, from the maternity unit to a safe home; or
we could interfere with the biological ability of a high-risk person to be a parent."

Both options - and Holden simplistically gives us just two - are fraught on the grounds of the enormity of the problems of assessment, and the assumption that high risk invariably concludes in abuse, not to mention the 100 year history of abuse in out-of-home-care.

"During the years of the Stolen Generation, probably an equal number of unmarried, young, white mothers were not permitted to take their babies home from the hospital." True, see the long-term consequences in the Senate Report of Forgotten Australians (2004).

"Some were placed with foster parents - and had good lives - while others were left to face the experience of being a ward of the state. As wards of the state, many were not safe." Another false dichotomy. Abuse in foster homes was rampant and there is no evidence to suggest that a fostered child was any safer than an institutionalised one.

Holden obviously has no qualms about compulsory sterilisation. Nor did Hitler, who developed fail-safe criteria for determining which potential parents were high risk.

What an obnoxious post.

Thank you for the last post. This person really has not looked into any of the issues and is giving a very base line argument, which is quite disturbing. And yes Hitler came to mind as well. yuck, does this person like people? The other strange thing I don't understand is the idea that the environment can't change. Why? It constantly changes. In the past child abuse was often unseen or talked about, but now it is all becoming more transparent and we are hearing about it more, which is a good thing. When we bring it out in the open, we slowly decrease the ability for people to hide what they do.

And I always find it difficult when people just say... take the new born away. I have worked in familiy support, am a social worker, have Masters in mental health and alcohol and other drug use. Taking children way is not only traumatic for the parents, but the child. And where are all of these people willing to take on children? And how do we know they will be better parents. There is a huge shortage of foster parents. Some children are put in juvenile detention becasue their is no where for them to go. Oh the pain we cause children becasue of this argument.

If only he knew how hurtful what he is saying is. How would he feel if one of his friends or relatives had their child taken away or were made sterile. Yuck. Have we not heard about the Stolen Generation. What pain we have caused so many people. It will take generations for the pain to heal.

And how would people take it if someone came up to them and said "you have to be sterilised". Are we just giving up on people? That's it you have somehow done something that may make you in someones eyes a risk, so goodbye to you and your offspring. Yuck...

Less drastically, we might scrap the "baby bonus" which is likely to be more of an incentive to have another child for dysfunctional parents than for those in more stable situations. Those who become habitual criminals, drug users and long-term unemployed come largely from dysfunctional families. Why actively encourage such families to have more children?

The gains from early-childhood intervention in the US come almost entirely from reducing the likelihood that children in dysfunctional families will go to gaol and increasing the chance of them being in employment. Such intevrentions aren't necessary for the vast majority of children in more functional settings.

Rather than banning some people from keeping their children, let's go the whole hog and make it mandatory to obtain a child-rearing licence before allowing them to take possession of an infant. In NSW we now have a licensing system for car drivers which requires them to drive under supervision for 100 hours before being allowed in a vehicle alone. Yet any new parent is allowed to take their baby home from hospital without a minute's training, and do severe mental and physical damage to it with virtually no risk of being caught or punished. Is the damage you can do to a baby that much less than the damage you can do in a car?

What a pessimistic attitude to human nature! Children are abused and the only way the author can think of to deal with the problem is to take away a person’s right to be a parent.

Most children have been abused to some degree or other and a great many of them have gone on to live very productive, fulfilling and happy lives. This has happened because of the advances we have made in understanding human behaviour and it’s genesis in childhood. The knowledge of human psychology has grown enormously in recent centuries and we can now repair a lot of the damage that has happened to people as a result of childhood experiences. The abuse of a child is not the end of the story for that person. We as a species are still learning and growing and as we do we solve more and more of our problems. We don’t quit trying because we don’t know all the answers yet.

Children are affected by many other experiences beside abuse. They may be traumatised by a road accident, their family may be swept away in a tsunami, they may have a physical disability, or their family may go from financially stable to dire poverty. You cannot protect children from life. People recover from all manner of diversity and tragedy and there are truly inspiring stories around to prove it. Sure, you do all you can to protect them but ultimately you have to trust in the human spirit to endure otherwise may as well all throw in the towel.

I think I can see where the author is coming from: it really is heartbreaking to have to deal in areas where one is exposed to the indescribable horror or unsavoury aspects of some people's lives. I'm also pretty sure that most of us at some time or other have heard it said of some person or other "They don't deserve to have children".

To implement the policies called for, however, would cause a near-revolt in society, huge public expenditure and would polarise families and certains groups of people.

Given that something completely radical and involving spending from the public purse needs to be done to turn current situations around though, wouldn't a mandatory course in parenting and baby-care in all schools - public and private - be a less drastic step?

I once attended a private school where such a course existed in Year Nine. It wasn't a very good school academically and I left after that year. I later heard that several girls got pregnant and left: - they were all kids who had hated school, mucked around and, it was rumoured, got pregnant on purpose.

But I remembered how they had behaved in those mandatory classes that I, personally, had thought were premature. Years later I heard that several of the children of these girls went on to University and did great things.

I'm almost sure that skills and responsibilities learnt in those "Baby Classes" bore fruit.

Many people don't mean to be bad parents, many others, as the author pointed out, have no idea how to be parents at all. Mandatory education not just into rights and responsibilies but practicalities of routine, hygiene, infant and child nutrition could, potentially, help thousands of people.

The issue is how to enforce this policy

Excellent article Brian,

You've identified one of the most dreadful,damaging and hidden areas of our society. White man is all too ready to scream about indigenous abuse but the same in the rest of the community? Silence.

The whole drive of society is the problem. This drive for full employment, forcing mothers to work or lose benefits whilst importing labour is aimed at one thing. Having children raised by strangers.

That first 5 years is critical to developing a healthy, independent member of society. Yes many parents impose behaviours on young children they'd prefer not to pass on but they got it from their parents and so on. Same as sexual abuse. The abused become the abusers often. But direct parental upbringing, Mum or Dad is proven to provide the most stable children, long term. On average of course.

Certainly can the baby bonus. Paid maternity leave is a far better and civilized approach as it is directed at weekly cost, not a huge party.

The amount of money we are spending on looking after other people's children is an embarrassment to us as a nation. We encourage it, foster it and panic when the companies like ABC go broke. As if it's the taxpayer's problem.

I'm not big on sterilisation of course but voluntarily it's fine. I suspect the author threw that in to stir you all up and it worked.

It's back to basics. Parents must pay for their child. If they can't afford it, they don't have the child or someone who will look after it does take full time care.

No cash incentives. Sex is a big enough incentive on it's own. Government funding must be correctly directed. This latest overdue bonus for pensioners etc throws up some ridiculous situations. Those who qualify for Family Tax, not sure which bit, get $1000 for each child. Except it's only the mother that gets that. There was one case where the father had 9 kids he was caring for and she was living elsewhere. She got the $9000.

Think of what will work, not the opposite.

Brian Holden talks about 'the silent majority'. This is the phrase used by the arrogant who want to believe they speak for others, when, in fact, they are only speaking for themselves and want to try and give their opinions some credibility. The use of this phrase is a fairly desperate and presumptive action.

Seems to me that there's a huge cart that's just been dropped in front of a horse.

Firstly, unless you're willing to calm down on the whole abortion issue and make them easier to obtain, then how can you possibly consider mass-sterilisation?

(And FTR, even if abortions laws are relaxed, I'm still opposed to mass sterilisation. Eugenics is never an acceptable practice. On the abortion issue, at least that would mean that parents who don't want children don't end up having them).

Brian, you have had your innings in life and from reading some of your essays, you do not appear to have learnt anything about the diversity of life.

This is not your world, it belongs to each and every person on it, and how people live their lives is their business only, not yours.

So why not just look after the roses, and let life move on as is natural.

Brian,

For any idea to be worthy of consideration for serious discussion it needs to have element of practicality about it. Sadly neither this nor you last one meet this basic prerequisite.
• Who is going to decide?
• On what basis?
• Who is going to enforce it?
• Clearly this is a variant form of Eugenics. Do you really believe that under the current democracy the people would mandate a government with such powers? Etc.
Even as a piece of philosophic ethics it has fatal flaws.
Can I suggest that in future you tackle topics more akin to your experience base.

The whole child-bearing thing has been totally skewed by the bizarre baby bonus, which is most appealing to people with very low incomes, no saving ability or prospects, and statistically the most likely to produce dysfunctional children in dysfunctional families who will be an ongoing cost to society. Add into this mix the dysfunctional serial single mothers who do not know how to get by without a man, no matter how useless or abusive, and you have children being born who are not really wanted and who are at high risk of abuse or worse by step fathers.

Removing babies and mass-sterilisation is of course a ridiculous draconian proposal and no answer. Perhaps the solution offered by some US states would work where welfare is much harder to get and childcare and employment support is offered to women on the condition that they have no more children until they can care for them independently.

Hmmm..... How about compulsory castration of the author on the ground that what he is attempting and conspiring to do is abusive?

The problem is identifying the 'dangerous' households.

Well, actually it is easy, but not politically correct. Child abuse occours almost entirely in households missing one of the natural parents.

Risk factors for substiantiated child abuse
(Neglect, Physical, Emotional/psychological, Sexual)
- Households missing a natural parent 94%
- Household with both natural parents 6%
- Total 100%

Summarising this in it’s most stark terms, a child’s risk of abuse is increased by 23 times in households that are missing one of the child’s natural parents.

Putting this into perspective, we all believe smoking ‘causes’ lung cancer. Statistically, the risk of lung cancer in smokers is 120% that of non-smokers. But the risk of child abuse in single-parent households is 2300% times that of children living with both natural parents ! (96%/4% = 23) Children need BOTH NATURAL parents.

Child protection policies and procedures, combined with their organisational culture work together to effectively force natural fathers out of children’s lives. This increases the risk profile for these children by 2,300%!

Or to quote another study, reported in the Australian recently:
Quote "...children with a step-parent were at least 17 times more likely to die from intentional violence or accident. ... the rate could be as high as 77 times."

Quote "Dr Tooley said the findings appeared to back up theories that parents were biologically driven to be extremely protective of their offspring, less so than step-parents. The theory has widespread parlance in folklore and fairytales, such as that of Cinderella, who is banished to cleaning duties by her jealous step-mother and sisters.

Citations available PartTimeParent@pobox.com

Very brave thing to write Brian. As expected the humanists are savage in their rejection and loud in their disgust. Of course, few of them will ever know the screams that is a newborn coming off heroin shortly after birth, to pick one of many possible examples.

In a world coming to grips with overpopulation, enviromental strain and a "gap between rich and poor" which in western nations is also hte "gap between intelligent and not quite so", the idea of licenced births is not something that should be dismissed with no more than a righteous scream of "human rights!".

Through our humanity and western welfare states we have created an underclass of borderline intelligence who would simply not have survived in earlier eras, and encouraged them to populate. The movie Idiocracy is supposed to be a comedy, but when you flick through the channels on TV - aimed at the average consumer of mindless entertainment - you have to wonder if it wont one day be called a documentary.

partTimeParent

Thanks for your positive contribution to the issue. I realise that I have implied that men with self-control problems are a danger to their children. They are indirectly, as the real danger comes from the de facto who has stepped in after the natural father has done a runner.

So my mandatory vasectomy proposal would be aimed at those men who have no concept of family i.e. the running type. The selection process would start with the police who keep a list of no-hopers - and from there to the psychologists. Of those to be psychologically assessed, determining who has not a clue about decent behaviour is not rocket science.

Jai

You refer to the humanists who have made comments. They are not humanists. They are bloggers. Humanists are people such as John Pilger and Philip Nitschke who are heroes of mine. The likes of Diocletian who has suggested that I be castrated are of interest to social scientists as the blogging phenomenon spreads throughout the world.

Now, Diocletian believes that the moral plane I occupy is so far below that of his own, that I disgust him. What interests the behavioural scientists is the satisfaction Diocletian gets out of using free space provided but such websites as OLO to announce to the world that he is superior type of person – when nobody knows who poor old Diocletian is.

Brian

So you finally found someone who sort of agrees with you. That must have been someone feeling sorry for you on the eve of Christmas.

Putting your mandatory vasectomy proposal in the hands of the police "who keep a list of no-hopers - and from there to the psychologists" is further evidence that you are hopelessly out of touch. Do some reading Brian, then come back to us with a considered position.

It's simply not good enough to claim that "Of those to be psychologically assessed, determining who has not a clue about decent behaviour is not rocket science." The world is much the worse off for those who have put life determining decisions in the hands of police, psychologists and dangerous simpletons who think they can solve complex problems with mumbo-jumbo.

On your own evidence, sadly, under your immodest proposal you would have been castrated decades ago.

I confess not reading the article that is the subject of this commentary, but if Brian Holden indeed promotes such extreme government intervention as responding posters imply, then let me add my own disgust to these proceedings.

It is precisely such middleman meddlemania of a nanny state that has created as many social problems as it sought to resolve. Individual voters, taxpayers and beneficiaries seem to have somehow invited it to stand between every such individual, not just in matters of commerce or social welfare, but to regulate their every personal relationship and their very existence. Some wealth redistribution may have been desirable and even necessary, simply because redistribution of intelligence, capacity or even motivation, was less practical. But we seem to be getting carried away with this idea to such extents, that we now attempt to redistribute wealth within functioning atomic families to a point that under certain circumstances, tips it into dysfunctional status. What hope then, for extended families and communities, under similar funding and meddling models?

Churn baby, churn. Idiocracy indeed!

Brian, I think you are having a bit of clever play with ideas.. I have a number of problems with your article and agree with person who said 'yuk'...but having seen a couple who were drug addicts (one pregnant)and spaced out on a maternity ward, the nurses besides themselves with concern for the unborn and the social worker saying: there is nothing we can do until the child is seen to be abused...I do understand your zero tolerance approach. It's just not simple though...the dregs of society are not the only abusers. Ask the likes of ex-Public Prosecuter Patrick Powers.. scum at all levels.

But must say spot-on in the vasectomy area for the father abusers..your reply to Part-time parent.

"I realise that I have implied that men with self-control problems are a danger to their children. They are indirectly, as the real danger comes from the de facto who has stepped in after the natural father has done a runner" and "... determining who has not a clue about decent behaviour is not rocket science."

Sorry, but a wonderful line for someone who has suffered at from a 'serial runner' (two children that I know of), 'abuser' (by the way he has post-Grad. quals, but nonetheless, he is indecent to the core and I can't write here how he should be held to account, but vasectomy a good start.

I agree with Romany's proposal. I think there should be a life skills courses for youngsters.

Also instead of paying people $5,000 to have a baby, offer a couple of thousand to have birth prevention (like a tubal ligation) that can be reversed at some time when there's a conscious decision to have a family.

Baby bonuses should be paid, if at all, when the child is in school. That's when the expenses really start to mount up.