The British, never fond of children, have lost all knowledge or intuition about how to raise them; as a consequence, they now fear them, perhaps the most terrible augury possible for a society. The signs of this fear are unmistakable on the faces of the elderly in public places. ..
The British may have always inclined toward harshness or neglect (or both) in dealing with children; but never before have they combined such attitudes with an undiscriminating material indulgence. My patients would sometimes ask me how it was that their children had turned out so bad when they had done everything for them. When I asked them what they meant by â??everything,â?? it invariably meant the latest televisions in their bedrooms or the latest fashionable footwearâ??to which modern British youth attaches far more importance than Imelda Marcos ever did.
Needless to say, the British stateâ??s response to the situation that it has in part created is simultaneously authoritarian and counterproductive. The government pretends, for example, that the problem of child welfare is one of raw poverty… But after many years of various redistributive measures and billions spent to reduce it, child poverty is, if anything, more widespread.
A system of perverse incentives in a culture of undiscriminating materialism, where the main freedom is freedom from legal, financial, ethical, or social consequences, makes childhood in Britain a torment both for many of those who live it and those who observe it.
Theodore Dalrymple Childhood’s End
