There is, apparently, a reason why buses come in threes. It’s something to do with probability and traffic flow patterns: mathematical, complex and immensely subtle.
Presumably something similarly subtle goes on in the world of social surveys. You wait months for one and then several come along all at once.
February was childhood’s turn. First, there was the UNICEF report, ‘Child poverty in perspective’, which presented an overview of child well-being in rich countries. Then there was the American Psychological Association’s (APA) report into the sexualisation of girls. And then there was a Guardian survey detailing how much parents know – or don’t know – about their teenage children.
None made particularly happy reading. The UNICEF report placed UK children at the bottom of its well-being league for 21 industrialised countries. The APA reported that toys, clothes, cosmetics and media were sexualising girls at ever younger ages, harming them psychologically and socially. And the Guardian reported that, whilst few would expect parents of teenagers to know precisely what their little darlings had and hadn’t done, few would have expected them to be quite as ignorant as they apparently are.
Children are, in theory, the one public ‘cause’ around which there is consensus. Paedophilia is reviled, child cruelty condemned, and children, if not exactly idealised, at least idolised.
And yet, in spite of such good intentions, childhood is not flourishing. Why? Why this disconnect between theory and reality?
If the question defies easy answers, it is because it is not just about children but, in fact, about all of us. As the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has written, ‘if children are allowed to be children, we have to ask about what prevents adults being adults?’
It is, at least, however, now established as fundamental to policy making. No debate – from marriage and family to housing and welfare reform – can be conducted without reference to the potential impact on our children. The spectre of our difficult childhood haunts us all – which is as it should be.
The UNICEF report, Child poverty in perspective
