We previously discussed whether England was becoming a “Nanny State.” Now, it turns out that even the nanny is not welcomed. The city fathers (and mothers) of Watford has solved the danger of strangers bothering children by banning parents from playground areas. Mayor Dorothy Thornhill observes simply, “Sadly, in today’s climate, you can’t have adults walking around unchecked in a children’s playground.”
The truly sad thing, Ms. Thornhill, is the climate of governmental control and the gradual reduction of rights in England, here, here, here, here, here, here.
Parents have been replaced by “play rangers,” public employees who will no doubt bring to childcare what postal employees bring to communication. The logic of this policy beats Bristol’s request that owners not lock their sheds and garages to stop break ins, here.
Of course, this will end the plague of “free-range children” who believe that they can roam and associate with such people as their parents without state approval or supervision.
What concerns me most is that the city council has failed to see the real problem: children. No children, no child abuse or abduction. Alternatively, we may want to consider only having play rangers procreate . . . oh wait, they then could not be play rangers if they are parents (to be known as “breeders” in play ranger parlance). We may have to go to the use of play ranger eunuchs who confine each child to a walled space of constant observation. Oh wait, that has been tried . . .
For the full story, click here.
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Next up, British children will be taken at birth and raised in government run crèches tended by computers and sexually androgynous trained chimps.
It’s the only way to keep adults and children separated.
Think of the children! It’s for their own good.
Morons.
Actually this has nothing to do with stopping children from roaming round in the street.
The council runs a couple of facilities where staff run supervised play sessions for children who are dropped off by their parents and collected at the end. The question is whether there should be a general right of parents and adults also to attend these sessions.
Just as parents are generally not allowed to sit in their children’s classrooms at school or stay with them at scouts or guides etc., there is not a general right for parents and adults generally to attend supervised play sessions for children.
It doesn’t alter the fact that parents who don’t want supervised sessions and would rather just take their children to the local park, or who can let them go there alone are quite free to do so.
The folks over at South Park Studios must be wondering if they are prophets or if the world’s actual insanity has passed their fictional version.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Abduction_Is_Not_Funny
They did this episode in 2002. It’s about parents panicking over child abduction and doing progressively more idiotic things to protect their kids. Ultimately, after finding out that statistics show that kids are most likely to be taken by a family member, the city’s adults force their children to leave town.
It looks like the Nanny State is metamorphosing into the Ninny State.
From the article “Paranoia in the playground”:
“This is a fundamental breach of rights, but almost as serious is the offence to common sense.”
I’m beginning to think that a lack of common sense is quickly becoming a worldwide mental health pandemic. Unfortunately, there’s no vaccine available for that disease.
I may be lost here but did not Hitler already try this approach?
But then again not to sound German the English family of German Heritage changed the name to a more proper English sounding one.
The royal family’s official name, or lack thereof, became a problem during World War I, when people began to mutter that Saxe-Coburg-Gotha sounded far too German. King George V and his family needed a new, English-sounding name. After considering everything from Plantagenet to Tudor-Stuart to simply England, the king and his advisors chose the name Windsor.
Link: http://www.royalty.nu/Europe/England/Windsor/