‘Politically correct madness’
Sometimes you wonder where we are heading when you see the effects of political correctness carried too far. A couple of articles I read recently on the BBC news site can help to illustrate this.
The first article entitled Baby’s bottom censored by store described a woman taking a photo of her own baby along to a supermarket and asking to have it printed on a cake for his 21st birthday. The shop refused to do this because the baby’s bottom was visible, and they would only print it on the cake if a star was placed over its bottom.
The second article was entitled Adults ’scared to go near kids’. It stated that ‘many adults are afraid to interact with children for fear of being labelled as paedophiles’ and ‘Think-tank Civitas said the “escalation of child protection measures” had made everyone from sports coaches to Santas seem like “potential child abusers”.’
One wonders if things are perhaps not heading in the right direction.
Whilst all of us would wish to protect children from harm, one can’t help but think that things have gotten a little out of control with political correctness, and it would be good for us to stop and reflect on these matters to help ensure we don’t end up permanently with the undesirable fallout from these developments.
After all, what will be the consequences of a large number of adults avoiding any (eye) contact with children? It doesn’t seem right. As one man stated in the second article, ‘If I’m not with my wife, I don’t even look at a child, let alone smile at one’. This is completely understandable given this climate of distrust felt by people, but I feel this should not become the normal state of affairs.
The article goes on to say that ‘Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, ChildLine founder Esther Rantzen said there were some examples of child protection legislation descending into “politically correct madness”. But she said the correct response was to take a more “sensible” approach rather than change the law.’
What do you think?
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