Lone parents would have to look for work when their youngest child reaches seven years old, under new government proposals.

Read: Welfare reforms would see parents in work once child reaches seven.

Any parent who actively cares for the physical needs of their child, needs to be at home as a parent so that child is 'reared'. (That means, cooking, sewing, caring, being there, watching over the child's needs and emotional security, tucking up in bed, actively caring.) The lack of government understanding of this strange concept is the main reason why so many youngters run amuk. If sensible arrangements are made to encourage mothers of younger children back into education as soon as their children go to school - and that education is provided - as computers/internet would readily allow it to be, at the same school (or close by - our libraries are very underused), they would be in a position to also be an adequate parent, by taking the child to school and fetching the child home again. If, at 7 years old, the parent then needs to go to work, they would also be better educated to hold down a job. The necessarily part-time nature of that job, if the parent is to continue with child rearing, would also necessitate the removal of the bureaucratic nightmare and positive help from the 'national pot', to upgrade those part-time wages into full-time wages, so that the child is reared and the parent is recognised as working. 'School leaving age' is quite soon enough to insist that the parent returns to full-time workig. The end result of all this extra education and satisfying work would be a generation of growing adults who are emotionally literate enough to be responsible adults. And the generation after that, would be so much better placed to be adequate parents, to our most valuable children.

I would qualify my previous comment by saying that any career-motivated parent, who will not give the time to rear a child, should not be having children at all. With the pill and our overwhelming and destructive fashion for multiple abortions, there is obviously a choice, where down through history there ws no choice. Perhaps if our teachers can get past their current PC stand-off, they might find the time to ensure that young women learn to respect their child-bearing capacity and its long-haul working conclusion and responsibility, should a child be produced. There is nothing more satisfying than rearing a family, but it is exhausting and hardly likely to make you rich. Nor it is well thought of by those in positions of responsibility - who should know better.