Thought for the Day, 17 November 2008
Canon David Winter
His picture has been everywhere - Baby P, clean, tidy, smiling, fair-haired. That was just five months before he died, the victim of neglect and brutal assault. It's not surprising that his story has created a national wave of shock, anger and soul-searching. Inevitably, we look for people to blame, because deep down we like to think that children in their own homes are somehow immune from the perils, dangers and evils of everyday life. Sadly, they're not.
That's why we have a complicated structure of care for small children: midwives, health visitors, social workers, dedicated police teams. My late wife worked for the Haringey Social Services team twenty years ago as a child care officer. Even then the pressures and tensions of the job were enormous. Before condemning social workers and their colleagues - and recognising that failures and errors must be fully investigated and those responsible identified - let's at least try to stand where they stand and see just how demanding, draining and even at times dangerous their job is. Not many of us, I would guess, would happily take on the task.
None of that takes away, of course, from the peculiar horror of abuse of children, wherever and however it happens. The reason is quite fundamental: the small child is totally vulnerable, totally dependent. It lives in a cocoon of absolute trust and we recognise that to betray that trust is a truly awful thing.
'Unless you become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven', Jesus told the crowds. The child exemplified many of the qualities he valued most: transparent faith, unqualified love, humility and simplicity. The unquestioning trust of a child encompasses everything that we know of total innocence and dependence. Its life flourishes in an environment of love and security. To use power against the powerless, to take advantage of the weak, is to sin against that innocence. A mother doesn't have to do anything to earn a baby's love except be there. That love, we instinctively feel, is a child's birthright. But we have learnt that even that birthright has to be defended.
Today's launch of a campaign by Barnardo's called 'Children in Trouble' will keep children's needs in the spotlight of publicity. But in the end their protection doesn't really come down to procedures or national strategies, but to each of us - parents, grandparents, neighbours, friends, as well as child care professionals. It's easy to blame the system, or 'society', but in truth only we can watch, and care, and speak out when we should. The safety, happiness and well-being of our children depends, in the end, on each of us.