Daughters, rights, responsibilities and society

One of my great regrets is I never had a daughter. I had a son, but thats all. Now, i lov my son (even though he drives me up the wall sometimes, he's so disorganised and laid back), i will never stop wishing I had a daughter.

I had a substitute daughter (we'll call her S), that went all wrong (she was from a highly dysfunctional family and ended up running away at 13, ending up pregnant by an immigrant at 14 and having a second one by another at 15). It was a shame. Even though she wasn't my daughter, I loved her so much, because I WANTED her to be my daughter. However, her truly appalling parents managed to screw her up so much she ran away, many times, and ended up locked up in a Secure Unit (which basically are childrens prisons). She wanted her parents to love her, which they couldnt, because they were selfish white council trash, and I wanted her to love me, which she couldn't, because she wanted option a). Having said that, i did my best to give her a nice childhood - taking her places with us, including holidays, and buying her whatever she wanted. We did some good - she would stay weekends and holidays with us, we provided a welcome safe haven from all the verbal, mental and physical abuse she got at home the useless Social Workers ignored. and between the ages of 6 and 12 I really looked after her - her useless mother and selfish drug dealer boyfriend was well pleased to dump her on me, they didn't want her round at all really. I was even down as the second parental contact at her school for her.

Anyway, once she hit 12 and the hormones kicked in, this little simmering cauldron finally blew its lid, and she ran away. For FOURTEEN WEEKS!!! I learnt alot about a world I knew nothing about beforehand, because of it.

She had a cousin, 5 years older, G, whos mother was the sister of S's appalling mother. She had already run away, shacked up with a chap 30 years older, got pregnant, been thrown out, shacked up with a bunch of illegal immigrants, lost custody of the baby to the father, and we dont have room to go into all the minor little dramas, such as the times she was arrested , the number of flats and houses she rented then cleared off owing thousands in rent, and the various court cases for shoplifting, fighting....a real little charmer. S decided she wanted to be like G, and live a life of wild abandon, all very exciting. G provided S with places to hide (amongst her illegal immigrant friends), food, clothing drinks , drugs and unlimited sex with dozens of randy Iraquis and Kurds, most of whom preferred girls between10 and 14 years old. A disgusting national culture.

The law basically protects girls of that age in that they can do what the hell they like and its almost impossible to stop them. The police have no powers to enter a premises to look for a runaway minor. They can apply for a magistrates warrant and return with it to enter and search, if they believe they know what residence she's in, buy which time she's long gone. Every time they DID catch her, they woudl take her back to her appalling parents (at the insistence of the brainless cretins in Social Services), and within 24 hours she's be gone again. They put her in a foster home, gone in 6 hours, she lasted two weeks at friends house till she decided she didn't like being told that at 13 she wasn't allowed to drink, smoke and have sex with strangers,. The even let her stay with G for a while, till they saw the appalling squalor SHE lived in, and so they both vanished again when they tied to take S back into care. After the 12th time in 14 weeks of being caught by the police, she was finally locked up for her own good, for nearly 18 months. I, not being related in any way, was cut right out the loop, and never saw her again. The anguish of losing her like this gave me a mental breakdown, just as losing a daughter would anyone.

Out standing in this was the sheer brainless political correctness and lack of common sense of Social Services, the utter incompetence of the Police, and the way we have made this country powerless to deal with children. S was quickly educated as to her legal rights, and within a few weeks, knew the system inside out She knew EXACTLY what she was entitled to to, and society was powerless to stop her.

And this is the nub of the problem. Rights without responsibilities. It is madness to give rights to children without teaching them they lose those rights if they don't live up to there responsibilities to society. It the first step in making good citizens, and we've thrown it out the window.