Wednesday, December 05, 2007

What defines distress?

I am horrified at OFCOM's decision not to uphold more than 750 complaints against the Channel 4 programme "Bringing up Baby".

This programme compared different schools of thought regarding child rearing, including the ideas of self-styled expert Claire Verity, based on the ideas of Truby King. These practices involve not having eye contact with the baby, and as little physical contact as possible and not being responsive to the baby's cries.

Many viewers were horrified to see a tiny baby left in a room to cry, without its needs being attended to. This makes the OFCOM view that there was no evidence that children were being mistreated or in any distress pathetic and laughable.

No wonder we have so many mental health problems in this country if it is accepted that isolating and ignoring vulnerable babies is reasonable.

2 comments:

Tristan said...

But where do you decide what is good and bad... and who does it?
We have to let parents have the main say on how to bring up their children.
Children are a difficult area for liberal thought, but for the most part we should defer to parents.

And why should there be a complaint to OFCOM? Surely this would be happening whether the TV show was broadcast or not. It is not the producer's fault, it is the fault of the parents doing this.
Do you blame the reported in Darfur for the atrocities there? Do you complain that they are distressing to you?

If there is a case for state intervention it should be with the parents for abuse or neglect. That should go to a court of law to be decided.

Tristan said...

(the OFCOM response however is highly unsatisfactory...)

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