Is Britain the worst place to grow up? – news.scotsman.com – Britain doesn’t look good on this article, indicating it has a high level of teen pregnancies, binge drinking problems and lots of bullying in schools.
BRITAIN is the worst place to grow up in the developed world, according to the first study of its kind.
Wide-ranging research released by UNICEF today reveals the UK lags behind countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary in a league table assessing children’s wellbeing.
It highlighted that the UK is struggling in terms of relative poverty and deprivation, the quality of children’s relationships with their parents and peers, education and young people’s own sense of wellbeing, as well as their behaviour and risk-taking.
UNICEF officials said the report showed that the UK “scores particularly badly in bringing about the wellbeing of its children”. Prof Bradshaw, of the University of York, added: “We don’t have answers to all of the ‘why’ questions. We do comparatively badly, but if you look at the data as a whole, children are fairly happy – but our children aren’t as happy as other country’s children.
Of course, we’re not talking here about some African warlord or Latin American Drug Lord taking children and brainwashing them to become killers and cannon fodder
Totally bogus. the Brits gave us Doctor Who and Monty Python. That can’t be a worse place to bring up children than Armenia. What did the Armenians ever give the world??
What did the Armenians ever give the world??
Danny Thomas?
Remember, we are talking here about Developed countries, not under-developed countries like Armenia.
I went to boarding school at 7. Life in an english prep school was pretty brutal in the 60’s, particularly if you didn’t get with the program.
See Lord of the Flies for a reasonable approximation of how nasty unsupervised children can be.
Besides, we all know that the english only show affection to horses and dogs.
So, as a brit, I think this report might be pretty much on the money.
Read
This unhappiness data is way out of whack. I happen to know they only surveyed students studying dentistry and culinary arts.
being a brit… I’d say that right now I’m not surprised… conditions are pretty weird in the UK atm for anyone under 16.
The funny thing is that it’s all gone to hell in the last 5-7 years… it was great in the mid-late 90’s.
Disillusionment with the way the country is run can’t help, much like 1970/1980’s Britain – a lot of of similar social problems happened then – but they had an outlet and drive – something the current crop doesn’t have (there really isn’t any obvious alternative).
#2
Wrong, He was Lebanese.
#2: Danny Thomas was Lebanese.
Armenians in the US include Kirk Kerkorian (rich guy), Cher (singer), and Bob Kevorkian (syndicated DJ/comedian). They also invented lahvosh, which is great snack cracker.
No, I’m not Armenian(mostly Irish and German)–but I have a former coworker/friend that is of Armenian descent.
The worst place I’ve ever personally seen for drinking is Ireland.
(Don’t get me wrong — it’s a fun place to drink, too!)
But it was shocking for me to see so many people with the DTs and other obvious signs of advanced alcoholism.
I know the researchers only looked at “developed countries” but I still would like to see comparisons to undeveloped countries, that are serious economic powers. Like Saudi Arabia, China, India, Japan, USSR.
Are the implications that all on the Unicef lists are miles apart from the my list above?
How happy would you be if you had to go to school everyday? If you were made to do pointless tasks by people you don’t respect? Sure this happens in other countries but its worse in Britain. Family break up and alcohol abuse have less effect than forcing people to spend all their time in these unhappy institutions.
As for Armenians – can’t believe nobody mentioned William Saroyan.
About the study, it’d be interesting to see how well it tracks with studies focused on people’s expectations for their children (better, the same as, worse prospects than parents). If Brit attitudes really changed that much since the 90s (see #6), perceived legitimacy of government might be related too. Of course, in both respects I have a comparison with U.S. popular attitudes at the back of my mind.
#1: Yep – and to write that kind of TV, you really need to have had a great upbringing . . . . or lived in a society just like the one Philip Larkin experienced
Much as it pains me, I think this report is probably about right.
Notice that the US was the second worst, and received a score almost as low as the UK . It seems that in almost every imaginable way, it is no longer correct to call the USA “the greatest country.” So, why do I keep hearing that?
The URL for the full report is: http://www.unicef.org/media/files/ChildPovertyReport.pdf
But, I do take issue with the use of relative poverty instead of absolute poverty – this will bias the results against richer countries (e.g. being poorer than average in Hungary is worse than being poorer than average in Sweden or the U.S.).
#3…Armenia isn’t a country.
I think your blog article does not show the intent of the original article very well. The main point, as I see it, is that Britain and the US promote a dog-eat-dog model of behavior by over-promoting competition.
See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6359363.stm
Curious how happy the people from the third world are? A study was concluded with Filipino couples as the happiest in the world. There’s something with the culture here that don’t find some of the American comedy as funny (like Jackass). British culture is less influential here though.