Sunday, March 11, 2007
Poor British youth face drink, drugs and alienation - International Herald Tribune
Wandering the streets after dusk in this endless housing project, the five teenagers said they were not troubled by the turns their lives had taken so far. Not by the absent fathers, the mothers on welfare, the drugs, the arrests, the incarcerations, the wearying inevitability of it all.
"When you live in Wythenshawe, you don't expect any better," said David Williams, a 17-year-old who says he dropped out of school at 14, is high much of the time, steals when he can and has been arrested too many times to count
...
They said they did not see their families much. Dinner is usually bought from a local chippie, a fish-and-chips shop. "Half the time you don't really know where your mother is," said Jeremy Taylor, 17. He said his mother preferred him to be out of the house, saying she needed the peace and quiet.
Another 17-year-old, who identified himself as Moe, said that when he was 10, his father left and now lives in another part of Manchester. Moe added that he recently spent four months in prison for burglary and that it was not so bad: he saw it as almost a home away from home.
...
Britain scored second from the bottom in a Unicef report that used 40 indicators, like relative poverty, health and family relationships, to measure children's well-being in 21 industrialized countries. (Only the United States scored lower.) ...
Wandering the streets after dusk in this endless housing project, the five teenagers said they were not troubled by the turns their lives had taken so far. Not by the absent fathers, the mothers on welfare, the drugs, the arrests, the incarcerations, the wearying inevitability of it all.
"When you live in Wythenshawe, you don't expect any better," said David Williams, a 17-year-old who says he dropped out of school at 14, is high much of the time, steals when he can and has been arrested too many times to count
...
They said they did not see their families much. Dinner is usually bought from a local chippie, a fish-and-chips shop. "Half the time you don't really know where your mother is," said Jeremy Taylor, 17. He said his mother preferred him to be out of the house, saying she needed the peace and quiet.
Another 17-year-old, who identified himself as Moe, said that when he was 10, his father left and now lives in another part of Manchester. Moe added that he recently spent four months in prison for burglary and that it was not so bad: he saw it as almost a home away from home.
...
Britain scored second from the bottom in a Unicef report that used 40 indicators, like relative poverty, health and family relationships, to measure children's well-being in 21 industrialized countries. (Only the United States scored lower.) ...
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