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Grow up if only for your children's sake, Archbishop urges
By Ruth Gledhill
Rowan Williams accuses Britain of abusing youth by default
AN OBSESSION with testing in schools, and parents who leave children in front of videos so they can get on with their own concerns, were condemned by the Archbishop of Canterbury yesterday.
Dr Rowan Williams criticised the ?malign? obsession with school tests and called for the British people to grow up. Otherwise Britain was in danger of becoming a society of infantilised adults who abuse their children by default, he said. ?When adults stop being infants, children can be children,? he added.
Toddlers and babies were being shunted off to nurseries and day care or being plonked in front of videos so that their parents could get on with their own concerns, causing abuse by neglect, he said.
A culture of work was contributing to the neglect of the family, by ignoring the requisites for creating stable and secure environments.
Meanwhile, society was consumed by a ?culture of gossip and rhetoric and apathy?.
?We live in a debased environment of gossip-inflicted rhetoric, non-participation, celebrity obsession and vacuous aspiration,? Dr Williams said.
In this environment, the ?haste to consumerise and sexualise childhood? had become more and more hectic. Some ?very, very tough? questions needed to be asked about children and advertising.
The need for a regulatory regime for advertisements aimed at children had to be addressed with urgency, he said.
Attacking the programme of testing in schools, Dr Williams said: ?We ought to be educating in emotional and communicative literacy as well as other kinds of literacy.
?The clamour for results that sometimes comes up in our discussions of education can be a kind of displacement.
?We know we cannot cope with educating persons so at least let?s have a full balance sheet of skills acquired and tests satisfied.?
His speech, delivered at the People?s Palace at Queen Mary, part of London University, in East London, was at a meeting organised by the Citizen Organising Foundation, a group of Christian and Muslim clergy and congregations, community leaders, parents, shop stewards and teachers.
His address represented his concern that adults should take responsibility for themselves and assess the society around them with greater awareness of the needs of young children and adolescents.
Dr Williams said: ?Childhood is most positively valued and fostered when we resist infantilism. When adults stop being infants, children can be children.
?We want to see a society that is composed of adults, people who can choose and act and change, who can hope, who can make a difference, who can be sorry when they fail, who can empathise, who can continue learning.
?It does not happen by accident. If we go on producing grown-up infants we can hardly wonder why different sorts of violence and dysfunction persist in our society.?
Dr Williams has two school-age children with his wife, Jane, a theologian who no longer works but used to lecture in Bristol for two days a week.
The couple juggled their commitments to ensure that there was always one of them at home. They also had some additional help.
Dr Williams said: ?If we want to give children time to experience childhood as they should, experiencing it as a time to learn, play, grow in an environment of stability and security, we have to face the demands of being adults ourselves. We have to accept that growing up is about taking on the task of forming other human lives.?
Dr Williams was speaking after a hectic few days of his own. He had attended the funeral of the Pope in Rome and then conducted the service of prayer and dedication for the newly married Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall.