Whatever happened to childhood and innocence?

By Nicola Barry

Published:

THERE is something grotesque about the photograph which keeps appearing of the 13-year-old boy who fathered a child at 12. Seeing him sitting, cradling his baby on his lap, as if trying to persuade the world he is old enough to be a dad, made me feel, literally, sick to the stomach.

Alfie Patten, who is just 4ft and looks even younger than his age, was photographed at his girlfriend Chantelle’s, bedside, after she gave birth to Maisie Roxanne in Eastbourne.

To many people, the sight of 13-year-old Alfie, his 15-year-old girlfriend and their new baby is the modern-day equivalent of a Frankenstein experiment gone badly wrong.

And it is wrong, let’s be clear about that.

However, our wholehearted disapproval does absolutely nothing to help the couple who have had a child while still children themselves. Pregnancy – and fatherhood at 13 – is bad enough, but even worse is the identification of the two children involved.

Why?

In stories with a legal element, the rule of thumb is that no child under 16 can be named or pictured.

So, how come it happened with Alfie, in circumstances which were bound to create a national, if not international, uproar?

I will tell you why – because the families have been flaunting the story for money, with the boy’s father employing PR guru Max Clifford.

Fair enough, some might say.

Not in this case, it isn’t.

Like it or not, the parents have responsibilities for the children involved – specifically a duty to protect which they have, spectacularly, ignored, by allowing two under-age children to produce a baby.

If they have failed to protect their children – and they have – those youngsters need to be taken into care as soon as possible, with the unfortunate baby they have managed to bring into the world.

Chantelle’s parents allowed Alfie to stay overnight with their daughter. How could a 13-year-old be allowed to stay overnight with his girlfriend, even keeping his school uniform at her house?

The mind boggles.

In selling the story, the adults have exploited the children. You cannot help but wonder what sort of people they are.

We are told that Alfie’s mother lives in a £400,000 detached house, in a private road, in Hailsham, East Sussex. She obviously has a lot more money than she does sense.

Usually, pregnant teenagers come from a cycle of despair: of unemployment, lack of education and opportunity, no money, no real home to call their own.

Their mothers, their mothers’ mothers, had nothing in their lives but children, either.

In such circumstances, having a baby can seem like a very attractive option, indeed, since being someone’s mother gives teenagers a status of sorts, however unenviable.

But when a parent has other options, the situation becomes all the more worthy of condemnation. Teenage mums have always been demonised. Some 30 years ago, parents sent their pregnant daughters away – ostensibly to see a mysterious aunt in Bournemouth. In fact, invariably they went to have a hushed-up termination or deliver the baby as far away from their own neighbourhood as possible.

More than 9,000 teenagers become pregnant every year in Scotland.

The UK still has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in western Europe and nobody seems to know what to do about it.

Most schools now include some sort of basic sex education in their curriculum, but it is, at best, an explanation of the mechanical process – which is part of the problem.

Some schools appear to have abandoned the role of equipping their pupils with the social, moral and emotional skills they need to build solid adult relationships.

In fact, the prevailing message of sex education these days is that the act itself is illicit.

As with everything else, you tell a child not to do something and he or she will do the exact opposite.

Sadly, it was Aids, not sex education, which made “condom” a household word. Just 25 years ago, falling icebergs loomed on our TV screens and politicians were seriously concerned.

It was a time when graphically-written leaflets poured through every letterbox in the land; a time when sex education was aimed at everyone, not just children.

It was a time when we were all told not to “do it” – not in case of pregnancy but for fear of dying.

The tragic case of Alfie Patten tells us we need to explain to youngsters the seriousness of bringing into the world a child who may not be wanted.

Of course, kids need to be taught the wonders of sex in its correct context, within a loving relationship. But the creeping sexualisation of children has become endemic in our society.

It is everywhere.

The Spice Girls started it. For them, sexuality was all. The group’s embodiment of so-called Girl Power was hypocrisy at its worst, a con- trick which made a lot of girls believe that making themselves sexually available equalled being liberated.

In fact, Girl Power was a total misnomer, a catchy phrase invented by someone in public relations who should have known better.

Good sex education must equip young people with the power to negotiate their relationships. It must enable girls to say what they want – or don’t want.

It must help boys escape a predominantly laddish culture so that they really understand the repercussions of pregnancy, especially at the age of 12 or 13.

Most important of all, children, all of us really, need to learn to value childhood and innocence.

Most young people just want to have a good time. They do not want to become responsible parents at the age of 13. Who in their right mind would want that?

Alfie cannot support a family. He is far too young to work.

In the meantime, parents and schools have to take a more proactive stance in protecting those sacred childhood years.

Children are a finite resource.

They need to have a childhood before they become adults.

Without the preparation we know as childhood, their chances of making it in “the big, bad world” are considerably reduced.

There is plenty of time later for sex and children of their own.

Equally, there is nothing wrong with waiting, certainly a lot longer than 12.