I am sick of the way people use children to win arguments.

Any time the Bully State wants to impose more regulations and crappy laws on us it’s always a case of “think of The Children”.  We mustn’t drink in front of the little darlings and God forbid that anyone should smoke in front of the little dears.  We must watch their little waistlines from birth for the first signs of obesity.

Even worse, when the group about to be bullied hears the Children card being played they always fold and concede.  The mere mention has us standing there, cap in hand as we give a moment’s revered silence for the little brats.  You would swear it was some form of deity we are talking about.  They are just kids, for fucks sake – mere adults who haven’t grown up yet.

For some unknown reason the mention of Children conjures up an image of a little five year old girl called Heidi with golden curls, blue eyes and dimples.  What a steaming load of crap.  Your average kid these days is just as likely to be a five year old snot gobbler called Gazzer, with a shaven head, track marks on his arm and HATE tattooed on his knuckles.  He will probably already have an impressive criminal record and also smokes and drinks twice as much as his mother [no one knows who his father is, least of all his mother].

I am a firm believer in experience and in finding things out for myself.  I was brought up in an age where a boy wasn’t a boy if he still had intact skin on both knees.  I discovered that a whole barrel load of actions resulted in pain.  I discovered that it is not really advisable to pedal hard on a bike with no brakes.  I discovered which dogs in the area were prone to biting.  I discovered the taste of some quite unmentionable things through sheer experimentation.  I discovered that it is not advisable to clamber over a wall if there is broken glass embedded in the top of it.  I inhaled the equivalent of a pack of fags every time my father drove us somewhere.

And not one squidgen did me any harm at all.

Nowadays the little darlings are wrapped in cotton wool from the day they are born.  Signs go up in the car saying “Baby on Board”.  No one is allowed smoke within a three mile radius of the house.   The house is regularly disinfected from top to bottom, killing 99% of all known germs, just in case Little Precious catches something.  The Little Darling is ferried everywhere by car just in case someone might throw a lecherous glance.

And what is the result of all this?  The little brat has never been exposed to a good dose of germs from chewing dog shit or eating a sweet that was found on the pavement, so his or her immune system is non-existent.  His or her hands have never been allowed remain dirty so the immune system hasn’t a clue what a decent bug looks like.  He or she thinks that bicycles are perfectly safe because he or she has always been protected with a hard hat, elbow and knee guards, so falling off has no memorable consequences.  Of course he or she has no idea how to interact with strangers because we all know that every stranger is a child rapist or an abductor.

Paradoxically, the children nowadays are living in a much more hostile environment that I ever experienced.  They are surrounded by chemicals and poisons every day.  And where to these chemicals and poisons come from?  From the parents, of course.  Every day the child has to breathe in air fresheners or fabric conditioner.  They are surrounded with fire retarding chemicals on their clothing.  The carpets and curtains the house are probably saturated with chemicals from floor cleaners and shampoos.  The very air they breathe is a heady mix of of carcinogens and poisons, and that is before they even leave the house and head into the wondrous cocktail of traffic fumes.

Personally I would like to see all parents who mollycoddle their kids like this locked up for child abuse.  They are rearing brats who are totally unprepared for life both socially and physically.  It’s nothing short of cruel.

The next time someone tells me not to do something “for the sake of the Children”, they are going to get a resounding “fuck off”, and I’ll report them to the authorities for child abuse.