Within my lifetime it was possible for a catholic husband to be asked to consider seriously, in advance, whether he would choose the life of his wife or the baby, if it came to that; although low, maternal & infant deaths during childbirth were still not thought of as effectively zero probabilities. When I discussed this with a Jewish friend, she said that a Jew would, without doubt, always choose the mother’s life because Jewishness is passed through the mother
The problem is that children have parental (or at least adult) encumbrances, or if they do not we believe that they should be provided with them, not left to fend for themselves
You cannot lift a child out of poverty without giving money or resources to adult(s) who will deploy them on the child’s behalf (we hope)
And where that relationship is unsatisfactory we deploy comparatively expensive professionals to make good the deficiency, through advice, supervision or training
Except that we do not want to pay professional or even semi-professional salaries to those who step in to provide hands on day care. Because we want affordable child care
And if the worst comes to the worst the State takes the child into what we call care, but may be anything but
A tv programme on this subject once showed a troubled teenager being given a personal interview by the Director of Social Services. After listening to the girls complaints, she said, in what may have been an overly harsh lesson in the facts of life: You are really asking for love, and we just cannot give you that
In truth we would all like to believe that all children have the fundamental right to be loved. No law can deliver that
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