It Is No Wonder Our Children Are Drawn to Cannabis and Petty Crime When We So Demonise Them

There may be one aspect of what it means to be English about which we can all agree. We love our pets, but don't much like our children. We say we love them, but prefer to have as little to do with them as possible. If we are wealthy we send them off to boarding school as soon as they are capable of answering back, and if we are not wealthy we separate ourselves from them by working the longest hours in Western Europe or by endlessly watching television. We don't talk to, eat with or spend time with them to the degree that our European neighbours do.

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