It Wasn’t ‘Smartphones And Online Spaces', It Was Parenting…

Under a Pink Sky is the story of two troubled kids – only one of whom survived to tell their story.

Yes, Reader, this is the news that the mother of Brianna Ghey has a book coming out, in her quest to become the new Doreen Lawrence. 'Under A Pink Sky' is the title, presumably because 'Screwing Up Your Kids For Dummies' was too on the nose...  

Ghey says there are so many parallels between her early life and Brianna’s. As a teenager, Esther Ghey was caught in a web of self-loathing. She had body dysmorphia, was desperate to be thinner, and told herself that nobody would ever love her the way she was. At times she was bullied; sometimes she picked on other children. Then she found drugs. She left school at 16 with no qualifications. “I had no self-worth because of that. I had no respect for myself, no respect for my body, no respect for my life, and that is such a sad, tragic, horrific place to be.” Brianna would go on to struggle with many of the same things: self-belief, school attendance, bullying. And while she was never hooked on drugs, Brianna was addicted to her smartphone and social media.

Incompetent screwed up parents raise incompetent screwed up kids. Is this really 'news'?

By the age of 20, Ghey was a single parent to two young children. She managed to get a house, hoped to make it a “safe haven” for her and her children, and failed miserably.

Shocker! Cue people saying she never had a chance to turn her life around. But wait! 

In her late 20s, now clean and a devoted mother, she started with a job as a cleaner at a car dealership before going back to college, initially doing an English GCSE. She did an access to health professions course, because at the time she wanted to be a nurse, completed a degree in nutrition at Liverpool Hope University, and eventually became a senior product development technologist for a food company.

But it made no difference in the end. 

For 14 years of Brianna’s life, she was Brett.

 No, he always was Brett. Allowing your son to don womanface doesn't make him your daught. Nothing will do that.

Through the book, Ghey makes a clear distinction. She refers to Brett as he, Brianna as she. Does it seem like two different people?

“It does, though that’s not necessarily because she went from Brett to Brianna, it’s just the natural stages of life. It was important for me to talk about Brett as well, because to understand where Brianna was at, you need to understand the whole life.”

I think we do. Poor child was doomed in the womb. 

What was Brett like? Her face lights up and her voice crackles with happiness. “Hyperactive, giddy, funny, always getting up to mischief. A cheeky little thing. Absolutely fearless. He taught himself gymnastics – he did backflips. I think of him bouncing around Asda, completely uncontrollable but also completely full of joy. And so kind. When he was young, he had an asthma appointment and as he was leaving he went to give the doctor a hug. He was so full of love. That kind of love started seeping away once I’d given him the phone. The impact the phone had on his mental health is stark. I believe it took my child away from me.” There’s a tremor in her voice, and Ghey starts crying.

You're blaming the technology?  Really? 

Brett had so many issues, she says – body dysmorphia and dysphoria, asthma, ADHD, appalling eyesight, autism (then undiagnosed).

Brianna was a mass of contradictions: desperate for attention in the digital world, but terrified of the real world.

Because he spent so little time in it, thanks to a mother who allowed him never to face reality. 

“My relationship with Brianna was so bad because all I wanted to do was help her, but because I wasn’t backing down, we were having lots of arguments.” Brianna became abusive and violent. When Ghey confiscated her phone, she punched holes in her bedroom walls.

“I saw how addicted she was to her phone through her behaviour,” Ghey says, “because I’ve been through it myself. Smartphones have been built to be addictive. Social media is built to keep you on there as long as possible. It’s the attention economy.”

And that's why you're writing a book. Don't decry the 'addiction of attention' while you yourself are shooting up on it. 

This Is Just Insider Language…

For me, becoming a mother was an experience as disorienting and confusing as moving to a new country. I had to learn new behaviours and customs as well as which brands of nappy and baby food to buy. And little did I know that moving to the Netherlands after the birth of my first child would entail having to learn a whole new tongue besides Dutch.

Which one? 

I’m not talking about motherese, the high-pitched singsong ways parents speak to their children, but about the highly specific language mothers and fathers around the world now use to talk about being parents.

Eh? 

Unsure of myself, I started reading parenting books and spent a lot of time on online forums, where I tried to find answers to my questions – or, when there weren’t any, then at least some support or understanding.

Not the place I'd choose to go to for that, but you do you, eh? 

It was on BabyCenter that I first discovered this new parenting language. I often found myself resorting to Google to understand what people were saying. I had to familiarise myself with acronyms such as DS and DD (dear son and dear daughter), CS (caesarean section), EB (extended breastfeeding) and CIO (cry it out).

All groups evolve their own language, didn't you learn that on the internet?  

It didn’t take me long to notice that even the things I read in Polish were translations of books by English-speaking authors such as Tracy Hogg’s Secrets of the Baby Whisperer, which I suffered through just to try to understand why my daughter would not stop crying. Spoiler alert: it did not help.

Well, since you're supposedly multilingual, what does it matter? 

My copy of American parenting expert Heidi Murkoff’s What to Expect When You’re Expecting was in English – despite being translated into 50 languages, including Polish – and after a while so was everything else I was reading.

And why is that an issue? I cannot wrap my head around what this column is really about...

And, of course, books and articles about the way parents in Europe and other places raise their children are extremely popular in the US and the UK. However, from my experience, US and UK parenting ideas have a bigger sway in Europe than the other way around. What does it mean if the English language has such power to influence the way mothers and fathers raise their children around the world?

I don't know, and you don't advance a theory, so why is it concerning you?  

Stop Telling Them They Are Victims For A Start

Jane Graham has been a school nurse for nearly 20 years – and during this time the nature of her work has completely changed.

I'd be surprised if that wasn't the case, frankly.... 

"When I started, the majority of the support we provided was for physical health, like asthma, allergic reactions and injuries," she says. "Now it's mental health." She has seen a surge in schoolchildren struggling.

"It really impacts pupils at secondary school, but some are as young as seven," she explains. "We're seeing children with depression, anxiety and stress – and that's leading to panic attacks, self-harm and eating disorders. They're not making it to school or are so anxious they cannot attend classes."

Why is this being tolerated? Is it bad parenting? 

What's less clear is why this is happening now.

Well, actually, there are some people for whom it's not such a mystery. 

Plenty of explanations have been offered by experts: the pandemic, the cost of living and the advent of social media have all placed additional pressures on the generation now starting out. But some experts in the field of mental health have raised another question: that is, is there really a mental health crisis or are young people simply not resilient enough?

This question is a polarising one. The word resilience could be interpreted by some as disparaging, or even toxic, in a similar vein as the term "snowflake generation". But one of the country's leading experts in child and adolescent psychiatry, Prof Andrea Danese, from King’s College London, believes that resilience needs to be taken seriously. While greater awareness of mental health "has generally been a positive thing", according to Prof Danese, who is general secretary for the European Society of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, he says that he is concerned that it may also have "inadvertently contributed to over-pathologising distress in young people".

I suspect this is spot on, as it's always been a truism that what you tolerate, you will get more of.  

Ms Graham, the school nurse, is also of the opinion that many children who she has seen struggling - particularly those with more low level mental health problems - would benefit from becoming more resilient. She believes that if they were equipped with better coping skills, young people would likely be better placed to deal with the challenges they may be facing before they develop into a full-blown crisis – and this in turn would help ease the pressure on services to focus on those who are at high risk of harm. "We need to do much better at teaching resilience in schools and how to stay mentally healthy," she says. "But the way we treat children, such as primary school sports days where everyone is declared a winner, doesn't help."

Who has been saying this for decades? Oh, right. Us!  

And I'm Just Fine With That...

...because as a taxpayer, I expect parents to feed their own damn kids!

More than half a million children will go hungry during school holiday periods from the October half-term if the government fails to renew a £1bn local welfare crisis fund due to end in six weeks’ time, charities have warned.

English councils last year spent £370m from their household support fund (HSF) allocations on holiday food vouchers for pupils on free school meals (FSM) – but more than a quarter of authorities say this support could disappear if the fund is ditched.

Well, they've still got the child benefit. They could always spend it on feeding the child for a change.  

“If HSF ends, with no long-term strategy to replace it, it will instantly plunge millions into more financial turmoil. The effects of poverty, deprivation and even malnutrition will be exacerbated and the additional costs to public services will be huge,” a report by the charity End Furniture Poverty report concludes.

'Furniture Poverty'...? What on earth..? 

Yes, Reader, it's a real thing, apparently. 

Council-run local crisis support would disappear from nearly a third of English local authority areas covering 18 million people, including Birmingham, Bradford, Nottingham, Westminster, Croydon, Hampshire, Slough, and Stoke-on-Trent. Its removal would also push scores of local food banks to the brink of insolvency, with many having become reliant on HSF cash grants to meet the explosion in demand for charity food as a result of Covid and the cost of living crisis.

Give something away for free and there's a rise in demand for it? Well, imagine my shocked face!  

The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, last month identified the £500m HSF budget for the first six months of this year as one of a number of “unfunded” commitments made by the previous government – part of a £22bn spending shortfall – which would come under Treasury scrutiny. Campaigners say they believe ministers will be wary of provoking a public backlash if school holiday food vouchers disappear in many areas of England. A popular campaign led by the footballer Marcus Rashford in 2020 twice forced the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, to reverse plans to scrap holiday free school meals support.

I think campaigners should be well aware by now that Starmer's government couldn't care less about a 'public backlash'... 

Campaigners are urging the HSF to be maintained for at least six months. Claire Donovan, the head of policy at End Furniture Poverty, said: “We know the HSF is a sticking plaster, but we desperately need one last extension of funding while an urgent review of local authority crisis support is carried out.”

Let's hope you don't get it. Because you should never have got the initial money in the first place.  

Oh, C'mon, There Can't Be Much Doubt About The One On The Left...

...he's clearly not missed many meals! 

It’s been one of Cat Onyac’s better days. Her two children are concentrating on their crochet project, sitting in the sunshine at HvH Arts in north London. And they’ve eaten. “All the children get a hot meal,” she says. The family is at a summer scheme for children in Camden on the edge of Keir Starmer’s constituency, and food is just as important as learning photography, painting or music.

Salads might be a better option in summer, Cat...

“That means not worrying whether they’re going to eat or not,” says Cat, a single parent. “It helps reduce the shopping bill. I’m not worrying what am I going to make for them and are they going to be the only child who hasn’t had anything to eat?”

What are you doing with the child benefit you get then?  

It’s people like Onyac and her family who were on the minds of the seven Labour MPs who rebelled against the party last week and voted for an SNP amendment to lift the two-child benefit limit. That, along with the benefit cap, the effects of inflation and the roll out of universal credit, pushed 700,000 more children into poverty over the past 14 years.

No, it didn't. They are talking about relative poverty, not absolute poverty.  

’As a result, a member of staff at the children’s home has been suspended.’

Frankly, I'm struggling to see why it hasn't been shut down:

In a letter submitted to the court, one police officer who has visited the child multiple times noted that “he is always vaping or smoking tobacco” when he met him in the community. Having challenged the children’s home staff as to how the child was able to buy these products, as he is always accompanied, the officer observed: “[They] have no reasonable answer.” The same officer wrote how the boy is “very open about the use of [cannabis] and … smokes it in the house and bedroom in an open manner … The on-site care staff are aware and never challenge him”.

 Are they being paid to? I’m guessing they are. If so, why are they not being told to do their job or GTFO..?

The boy is subject to a deprivation of liberty order, in which a local authority can ask the high court for permission to deprive a child of their liberty for their own protection. This occurs when they do not meet the criteria to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act. A deprivation of liberty order allows a child in an unregistered placement – because no secure registered placement is available – to be subject to restrictions on their liberty. Upon hearing the boy is subject to the order, Lieven said such a situation continuing could be seen as “a legal sticking plaster” for a “wholly unacceptable” standard of care.

That’s because it’s what it is. I very much doubt he’s the only young thug in these circumstances, and we are likely to need more and more of these places, thanks to the standards of parenting in this country, so why aren’t we building them and staffing them appropriately?

Then They Can't Really Be Called 'Families', Can They?

It is hard to put an exact number on it, but more than 60 families rely on us.

And what did your organisation do, then?

Eighty percent of the families and young people attending Homegrown in Tottenham are Black. Most of them come from working-class, migrant and refugee backgrounds, and face challenges around access to affordable housing and being pushed out of areas they live in due to rising costs. Our community space was a home for all of us. Before the closure, we would cook and share meals together, while young people would learn English, maths, science, and African and Caribbean history, and use films to discuss topics not always brought up in school. People would often stay all afternoon, cooking and talking.

Well, maybe that's the problem. Maybe instead, they should have been working to support their families..? 

In Haringey today, many Black-led community groups are losing space and struggling to access funding. At the same time, some parts of Tottenham have changed so quickly that they feel unfamiliar and inaccessible to young people who were born here, who end up feeling like strangers.

Yeah, funny that, I often feel like a stranger. In certain parts of London. 

But I'm called a racist for noticing. Never mind what I'm called for actively complaining about it. How is it you get a free pass? 

At the moment we have no funding, because we don’t have time to fundraise. I try to buy families their groceries when they need it out of my own pocket, but my own family’s budget is tight as well. Every two weeks, I have to report to the job centre to claim my universal credit.

Well, clearly they should put a stop to it. If you're giving it away to others, you're claiming it under false pretences, aren't you?  

What happened to Elianne Andam in Croydon is a reminder of just how vulnerable our young people are: the victims whose lives are so brutally taken, but the perpetrators too – how did they get here? And their families. No one should have their child taken from them. And no one raises a child to be a killer.

It appears in the 'community' you're writing about, no-one raises a child full-stop! 

We are not talking about an incurable disease. It is a social problem that could be improved if the government stopped removing essential funding for youth centres, youth organisations, schools and existing community spaces.

Why shouldn't it? It's clearly not essential at all.  

You've Only Yourselves To Blame...

...because your actions helped the scales fall from their eyes:

Pre-pandemic, ensuring daily attendance was considered a tenet of good parenting, but now it's socially acceptable to take children on holiday in term time. From there, it's not such a big step to abandoning school altogether.

And for very good reasons... 

All pointed to an education system in crisis. Some parents felt schools were failing their children academically or emotionally, painting a picture of a generation of children anxious in the aftermath of lockdown. Others felt they were hotbeds of violence and bullying. Some cited a new educational 'woke' agenda which they felt had become uncomfortably prevalent, and was being presented to children at far too young an age.

Something we can genuinely thank the hysteria over covid for is that it enabled parents to get a good look at what went on in schools.  

'Home education is changing out of all recognition at the moment,' explained Jacky, the lead for home education at a local authority in the north of England, who spoke to me off the record. 'Covid revealed a lot,' added Ziggy Moore, founder of Moore Education, an online tuition programme for maths and English, who has seen a boom in business because of parents home-schooling and also using private tutors. Thanks to online lessons during lockdown, parents observed how schools were educating their kids up close — and what they saw did not please them.

One wonders why more parents don't seem concerned... 

The curriculum is another cause for concern. Emily, from an upper-middle-class family, worked for a charitable foundation until an incident at her daughter's state school forced her to opt for home-schooling. Her seven-year-old daughter had become increasingly anxious and depressed. 'She finally admitted she was scared men with terrifying weapons were going to come and take her away and told me: 'And I won't see you again!' ' Baffled, Emily looked through her daughter's school workbooks — and found they contained the story of Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani education activist who was shot in the head by the Taliban aged 15 on her way to school. 'My daughter is seven. She does not know where Pakistan is. This is an issue in Islamic countries, but no teacher will point that out because it's considered racist. So my daughter thinks this is happening in Clapham.'

If the Education Secretary had his way, it probably would!  

Why The Sudden Change?

Canewdon Preschool and Daycare, in High Street, Canewdon, has been rated “requires improvement” in all areas by Ofsted following an inspection in November.

Oh, and why? 

It stated: “Staff do not help children to manage their feelings and emotions effectively or to understand how their actions affect others.

“When children's behaviour escalates, staff try different ways to explain why their response was inappropriate.

“However, this is not done in a way that helps children to understand, and they do not learn how to self-regulate their behaviour.”

Why is this an issue? More specifically, why is this the responsibility of the nursery staff, and not their parents? 

How old are these children? 

At the time of the inspection, there were 20 children on roll, all aged between two and four.

Huh!  

The preschool was previously rated “good” by Ofsted in an inspection in 2017.

So, what's changed? The staff? The children? Or the criteria for awarding the rating, perhaps..?

Was She An Orphan, Graeme..?

E-scooter deaths have doubled since police stopped seizing them on the roads, a coroner has warned after a 14-year-old rider died in a collision with a minibus.

Fatima Abukar was riding a battery powered e-scooter in East Ham, London, when she lost control while alongside a minibus and fell under its wheels.

And...her parents? Shouldn't they have come in for some stick too? 

In a report calling for action to prevent future deaths, Graeme Irvine, senior coroner in east London, said there was a direct correlation between the rise in deaths and Scotland Yard’s decision last November to no longer routinely seize e-scooters being ridden illegally on public roads.

Are we really losing any potential brain surgeons? 

Britain’s biggest force announced officers will only confiscate them from repeat offenders or when ‘necessary to keep the public safe’.

I'm not sure how you can have 'repeat offenders' if you don't enforce the law in the first place... 

Others Should Face This Charge Too, Shouldn't They?

Boden, of Romford Way in Barrow Hill, Chesterfield, and Marsden, of no fixed address, deny murder, two counts of child cruelty, and two charges of causing or allowing the death of a child.

Every single social worker and health visitor who had any dealings with these creatures, in fact... 

Jurors were shown photographs of the couple's cluttered home in Old Whittington, near Chesterfield, Derbyshire, and blood-stained items found by police inside, including a vomit and faeces-stained cot mattress cover, duvet cover, Mickey Mouse baby grow and a 'Captain Cute' T-shirt.

Paramedics were called to the address at 2.33am on Christmas Day, finding Marsden 'upset and screaming' and the child without a pulse. Medics discovered Boden trying to resuscitate Finley on the kitchen floor but also 'noticed that his (Finley's) clothing was dirty, had dirty hands and fingernails, and he had new and raw scrapes and abrasions on his nose and linings of his nostrils,' said Ms Prior.

Ms Prior said: '(Medics) thought Finley had been dead longer than the parents were suggesting.' The address was later described by a doctor as 'extremely dirty, smelly and very cluttered', while a paramedic said it 'smelt of cannabis'.

And yet that's no bar to being allowed to look after a child, it seems. 

'His parents, we say, worked together to hide the injuries from the social worker, from the health visitor and the police for their own self-centred reasons.

'They didn't want social services to remove Finley if the appalling way they were treating Finley was discovered.'

Why on earth did they worry about such an unlikely occurrence? 

The Decline Of Personal Responsibility Accelerates...

In a landmark case that has deep implications for other higher education institutions, the parents of Natasha Abrahart successfully sued the University of Bristol under the Equality Act.

Abrahart, 20, a physics undergraduate who suffered from severe social anxiety, died a day before she was due to give a “terrifying” oral exam in front of teachers and fellow students.

Shouldn't oral exams be expected to be a part of university life? 

Her parents sued the university under the Equality Act for not taking reasonable care of their daughter’s wellbeing, health and safety, arguing it did not do enough to help her despite staff knowing she had a disability and was struggling deeply.

In a judgment issued on Friday at Bristol county court, judge Alex Ralton said: “There can be no doubt that there was direct discrimination, especially once the university knew or should have known that a mental health disability of some sort was preventing Natasha from performing.”

So, the wicked university did nothing to help her? Hmmm, not quite. 

But not enough, according to her parents, who seem to have expected the university to accommodate their daughter, and not their daughter to accommodate the requirements of her chosen subject: 

Abrahart said his daughter struggled to speak to people she did not know, particularly people in positions of authority.

“Expecting Natasha to take part in oral assessments was like expecting a student in a wheelchair to take an exam in a room at the top of a long flight of stairs.”

Except it isn't. The student can be provided with an exam in a ground floor, but still has to take the exam. 

And the university did offer alternatives:

“Our staff’s efforts also included offering alternative options for Natasha’s assessments to alleviate the anxiety she faced about presenting her laboratory findings to her peers.

“Given the significant impact this decision could have on how all higher education providers support their students, we are reviewing the decision carefully, including whether to appeal.”

Maybe on appeal, we'll find out why those offered alternatives weren't deemed suitable, because it's not explicit in this article: 

The university has argued that it had tried to offer Abrahart alternatives to the oral presentation.

But the judge observed that, “whilst a few ideas” regarding possible adjustments were “floated” by the university, “none were implemented”.

Why not? Is it because she turned them down? It would be good to know, wouldn't it? 

Doomed From The Start...

The baby never had a chance with parents like these:

An inquest into his death today, not attended by either parent, heard neither of the family's two pet dogs were being supervised at the time of the attack, shortly before 2am.

The two dogs being, of course, the obligatory Staffies... 

When paramedics arrived, Daniel and Amy refused to hold Reuben, the inquest heard.

If that didn't ring alarm bells, nothing should. 

The parents were both arrested by police on suspicion of child neglect following the death, but prosecutors decided not to charge them in December 2020.

Detective sergeant Emma Compson said police will take no further action against Mr McNulty or Ms Litchfield and the pair had 'separated as a result of the trauma'.

No doubt they will say 'it's in the public interest', but is it? Really? 

Ruth, Amy’s mother, said: 'We’re just glad it’s finished and we can properly move on.'

Yeah, just get another one. FFS, it was a baby, not a bloody goldfish! 

Maybe The Fact Their 'Significant Relationships' Aren't With Parents Is The Issue..?

Former footballer Ian Wright has lamented cuts to youth centres and linked them to “lives being wasted” as he discussed an Arsenal-backed anti-knife crime campaign he is fronting alongside Idris Elba.

*sighs* Here we go again. Why are 'youth clubs' regarded as a key to stopping (mostly) black youths from acting like animals? 

Wright and Elba said one of its aims was to increase spaces for young people which may offer an alternative to gang violence.

Speaking to ITV, the former Arsenal striker said he had been “lucky” when he was growing up to have access to youth workers and “people who were looking out for me”.

You mean, your parents and relatives weren't..? 

“When you look at the last 10 years, 750 youth centres closed down, 4,500 people out of work, youth workers, people you build relationships with, people who know you, and then when you look at the lives that are being wasted… this campaign is about… inspiration and action.”

No, this campaign is about avoiding the elephant in the room. And it's clearly a Loxodonta africana. I don't see a rise in knife crime among young Chinese or Thai youth. 

The campaign was praised by Home Secretary Priti Patel, who described it as “hugely powerful” while Mayor of London Sadiq Khan also backed the drive.

That's all you need to know how effective it'll be, isn't it? 

If Only We Could Ban Stupid Parents...

A mum is calling for tiny toy magnets to be banned after her six-year-old daughter had to have emergency surgery to remove part of her bowel. Jane Bailey's daughter Melody swallowed four small magnetic balls - which then began to 'burn' through her internal organs as they attracted to each other.

The woman appeared on the ITV lunchtime news, and my immediate suspicion that she'd turn out to be someone with more chins than IQ points wasn't wrong...

The 30-year-old mum, who works as a support worker for people with learning difficulties, is trying to raise awareness of the dangers toy magnets can pose.

Don't we already know? Haven't there already been numerous cases?

The mum of two was gobsmacked by the whole ordeal, having heard about cases involving other children before and warning both Melody and her older sister Lucia Bailey, 11, about the dangers.

Wait, but then... 

But she says the pair were influenced by a social media trend to put the magnetic balls in their mouths as faux tongue and lip piercings, leading Melody to swallow some.

*sighs* Is the danger the magnets, social media or people with no idea of parenting? Or maybe it's all three...