according to the Unicef group. Not that we should believe every single poll anyway, since those polled may not represent in truth those affected, but nonetheless, this was an interesting article.
The U.S. and Britain are battling it out. This time, the transatlantic alliance has nothing to be proud of, according to a UNICEF report on the wellbeing of Children in 21 industrialized countries. Britain just narrowly edges out the U.S. for last place, but it's pretty close.
Now, before anyone disregards the findings because they come from a UN agency, UNICEF looked at 40 indicators from information provided by the World Health Organization and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. This report is something of an international snapshot. It's the same criteria for all.
Countries were ranked across categories including poverty and inequality, health and safety, education, family and friendships and the abuse of sex, booze and drugs. The best ranking Britain could manage was 12th place for Health and Safety. The best for the U.S. was 12th for education.
One of the study's researchers, British professor Jonathan Bradshaw, suggests children are worse off in these two countries due to greater economic inequality and poor levels of public support for families. Even though there are high overall levels of national wealth, Bradshaw says the U.S. and Britain don't invest as much in children as do continental European countries.
British children were found to have the worst relationships in the developed world. They were least likely to enjoy school and the most likely to feel left out, awkward and lonely.Britain has the highest rate of teenage pregnancies and the second highest number of single parent families, most of which could not survive without welfare.Listen To The Letter
Significantly, less than two thirds of British families eat together. If you don't eat together you don't talk together. So if British kids aren't talking, what are they doing? Well, they were more drunk, drugged and promiscuous than kids in any other country. Again, Americans were right there with them, an unholy transatlantic alliance.
But, I suppose if you are busy with those things, it's hard to talk. Especially if you're beating up on someone. You see, British teenagers were more likely than those elsewhere to have been in a fight in the previous 12 months.
At the top of the list, the country where children have the highest level of wellbeing is Holland. Dutch kids were found to be the happiest among the countries, and despite what is essentially legalized marijuana, readily available hard-core pornography and regulated red light districts, Dutch children aren't interested.
When the UNICEF report was released, the BBC filled a studio with pontificating experts, most of whom hadn't been teenagers for at least two generations. When they were done, there was a filmed report from a state high school in Amsterdam.
The students there spoke English far better, and were able to express themselves more succinctly, than those sounded out at a London school. But there was, for me, one Dutch girl who made more sense than any of the so-called experts. She said that in Holland, "We look out for each other. If one of our friends was doing something bad, we'd tell them and they'd stop." She went on to say that in Britain, it seems "everyone is out for themselves."
If a country's children are its future, the Britain of tomorrow may be in real trouble. There is, according to Britain's Children's Commissioner, "A crisis at the heart of our society."
