Four kids, four different dads.

When a mother of three children announces that she is expecting her fourth child with a man she isn't married to and who isn't the father of any of her other children, but he already has one of his own from a previous relationship, it's the sort of situation that has the editors of certain newspapers sharpening their talons as they prepare to swoop in for the kill. Mention the fact that, in this case, she isn't even twenty-four yet, lives on a council estate and has been giving birth garden-sprinkler style since she was in her school uniform and all that is missing for an edition of "Jeremy Kyle" is the lie detector test, some DNA results and a TV studio full of warring track-suited harridans, all competing for the affections of some slack-jawed, acne-ridden, inarticulate youth with missing teeth. This particular situation is so cliché as they are also very, but not totally, dependant on state benefits.

Unfortunately I’m not talking about an article splashed across one of the Sunday red-tops or the discussion topic on some radio phone-in somewhere, but this is just one example of real events happening to real people that I am seeing in growing numbers, with depressing regularity, with my own eyes. There is also the fact that very little thought or planning seems to have gone into whether or not they should be having anymore children. It’s just seen almost as something that was bound to happen sooner or later and that it’s now down to the local housing authority to find them the bigger house they need.

Although I see their reckless approach to such matters very hard to understand, what I find even harder to deal with is the fact that, as parents, they don’t seem to take their responsibilities as seriously as they should, with children seen as a inconvenience and a means to an end. However I wouldn’t say that they have deliberate intentions to ruin lives, it seems to be more the case that hope and ambition was never something that featured much in their own childhoods. Also we get so used these days to such families and nothing seems to shock us. It’s just a repeating pattern of what has gone before and, quite likely, will continue. Meanwhile, the rest of us seem unable to do anything other than watch.

What does that say about us ?