The innocence of parents is being stolen

On a bus journey into the city centre of Dublin the other day, I noticed that Benetton's windows currently feature huge posters of a blonde toddler, naked except for a pair of angel wings, writes Breda O'Brien.

I was disturbed both by the picture and by my reaction to it. I wondered was it another Benetton stunt, like the pictures of operations and car-bombs which they used for shock value a few years ago? In a climate where child abuse is continually in the news,are they being deliberately provocative? Then I wondered what had become of us, that a picture of a beautiful child should arouse such suspicions?

Something precious has been stolen from us all. Friends of mine own a house in an idyllic setting near a river. After a christening party in the house, some of the adults and children wandered down to the water. Shoes and socks were soon removed, and the children, mostly little girls, began to paddle. Soon paddling was not enough. There was no danger involved, and a few years ago I would have let them wade into the water in the nip. I found myself unwilling to do so and couldn't figure out why.

Had I become a prude? Later I realised that at some level I was afraid of letting them strip off in this situation in case that, at another time when I was not present, they might unwittingly put themselves in danger by believing it was all right to undress in front of adults. It is not so much the innocence of children which is being stolen, but the innocence of parents.

It does not take Ian Huntley to make us worry. We are bombarded by stories of child pornography and abuse, including by those who were once the most revered in society. As if the teenage years were not hard enough to handle, the British Medical Association recently warned that there is an epidemic of undiagnosed sexually transmitted infections among teenagers, and that many girls will be infertile by their 20s, due to the prevalence of the symptom-less chlamydia.

So much for the joys of youth liberated from the alleged sexual repression suffered by their parents. Young women, themselves scarcely more than children, being rendered childless for the future is a grim reality to contemplate.

Nor is the glum news about children confined to sexuality. Recently we were told that that, for the first time, children's life expectancy may be lower than their parents', because of junk food diets and lack of exercise. At the same time, children have never been so obsessed with weight, and you hear children as young as six moan about being too fat. Mind you, I see little evidence of the alleged outbreak of obesity among teenage girls, but more frequently see fragile, bony wrists and little, pointed, starving faces.

What do parents do in response to all these threats to our children? We worryand often over-react. Children have become couch potatoes, not just because of television and computer games, but because parents are afraid to let them out to play.

Some of the dangers to children are real, yet what happened to Jessica and Holly, while horrible beyond contemplation, is something which happens very rarely and could only be prevented by depriving children of normal freedoms. Certainly, tighter controls on those who work with children should be implemented immediately, but there will always be those offending for the first time and therefore unknown to police.

The world is a risky place, and our reaction has been to smother our children with our concern. Never have parents worried so much about the job of parenting. It extends far beyond real or possible danger into all sort of other areas.

Years ago, if children were fed, washed, clothed, had reasonable manners, and no major problems at school, parents considered they were doing a good job. Now, with the growth of knowledge of the importance of the early years, parents, particularly middle-class ones, seem to think they are some sort of psychologist-coach to their children and must seize every opportunity to maximise their potential and enrich their existences.

As a result we wear them out. Lots of children I know have after-school activities every day of the week. All of them are very worthy, but the result is that our children are exhausted and rarely have any time just to be, as opposed to constantly doing.

Certainly it is wonderful for children to be involved in sport, to dance, to play musical instruments, to act, but do they have to do them all, all the time?

Most of us who were lucky enough to have happy childhoods relished the moments of benign neglect by adults, the chance to disappear, to dream dreams and be bone-idle from time to time. Our children have very little of that precious childhood space, and often their every waking moment is scheduled. We wonder why they succumb so easily to the buzz of drink and drugs and forget we have addicted them to the drug of constantly being busy from childhood.

So much of what happens in the world is beyond our control. It is more than possible, though, to preserve our children's right to childhood by easing up on constant activities, allowing them to be bored, and to discover their own resources.

Christmas can also fall victim to our desire to be perfect parents. As we shower them with too many gifts and outings, it often strikes me that some of children's best memories centre on very ordinary things, like putting up decorations in the company of relaxed parents.

As for the children who wanted to skinny dip in the river, I think I should have let them. It must be possible to warn children of danger, and teach them the concepts of privacy and assertiveness, without seeing every innocent occasion as a threat.

In a sense, by over-protectiveness, we allow evil to prevail. The world is dangerous enough already. Maybe we need to be careful not to shadow it further with our anxiety.