Should we blame the parents?

There’s a memorable line in a schmaltzy movie called Parenthood in which Keanu Reeves shouts in teenage frustration : “You know, you need a licence to buy a dog, to drive a car, hell you even need a licence to catch a fish. But they’ll let any xxx!!!! be a father.” I thought that last night watching Dispatches.

I’ve often observed how the emotional switch in my mind was flicked when I had children. Like many men I used to watch programmes about children in desperate straits and think, objectively, how sad it was, but rarely felt it inside. It was the same when I filmed children myself in grim situations from war zones to disasters, or just poor countries. I thought I knew what empathy was, but in truth I didn’t really. These days it’s a different story. I’m not quite a gibbering emotional wreck, but I struggle to watch children suffering without projecting the faces of my own five and three year olds onto the scene. So it was watching Dispatches moving account of the way Britain’s homeless children end up living in hostels, bed and breakfast or the street.

The documentary team had followed four children for six months. Seventeen-year-old Hayden had just been thrown out of his home after rows with his mum. Sixteen-year-old Chelsey had been living hostels for 18 months, Robyn was the same age but had been on the streets and addicted to heroin since the age of twelve. And 17-year-old Sophie had drifted between boyfriends, drugs, squats and assorted other grimness for some time too. None of them were especially sympathetic characters. They were all flawed and weak. They had all failed to greater or lesser degrees to make use of the services the state can provide for children in such crises. And I am sure they were all pretty tricky teenagers for the most capable parent to handle.

Although they were tough kids, they looked to me like babies : scared, vulnerable, in need of love and looking after. At 16 or 17 some people are very accomplished and capable. While most are still living at home and in full time education some join the armed forces, others go to work and earn good money. But most are still children, most don’t know how to look after themselves and need guidance, help and affection.

So I had two overwhelming responses to the film. First that it is plain wrong that in twenty first century Britain children live in grim hostels or bed and breakfast accommodation fending for themselves without role models, adult guidance or guardians. Obviously it is wrong that anybody sleeps rough, but the numbers of children who end up doing that are relatively small. Secondly I found myself asking should parents be held more responsible for the outcomes of their children? We already have a system whereby parents can be prosecuted when their children are truant from school, and parents can be held accountable to some degree when children break the law. But what about when children run away? If a 14-year-old turns up at a hostel or is found on the street should his or her parents be tracked down and asked to account for what has happened? If parents whose children end up being cared for by the state were billed extra would they try a bit harder to keep them at home? Did Keanu’s character in Parenthood have a point?