Many years ago as a Bristol City Councillor for a deprived ward in the south of the City I used to come across households where a lone very young mother was trying to cope with one or more young children in the absence of any sign of a partner and it made me wonder why at a time when contraception was freely available as was termination of pregnancy these young women allowed their own lives to be developmentally stunted as well as those of their offspring. I assumed it was a clear failure of the educational and in particular the sex educational process which had not spelt out the huge responsibility that goes with having children and the need to see having children as to be avoided at all costs until the achievement of full adulthood and an accompanying understanding of the burden and the responsibility; and preferably until a stable relationship exists.

Having children in such circumstances could be construed as a form of unintentional - reckless perhaps - child abuse, as well of course as self abuse.

Against this background it is interesting to learn that more babies have been born out of wedlock for the first time since records began ( The office of National Statistics started recording data in 1845 ). In 2021 51.3 per cent of total live births in England and Wales were born to mothers who were unmarried or not in a civil partnership.

The number of births to women under 20 years declined by 16 per cent whereas to women aged 35 to 39 it increased by 5 per cent.

These latter figures are encouraging but overall the rise in the total number of births to mothers not in a stable relationship is almost certainly not good news for the developmental prospects of their offspring.

Commenting on these statistics, Emma Duncan, herself a single parent, in today's (3/9/22) Times writes as follows : "While some single parenthood is the result of misfortune , the best way of avoiding being a single parent is to make good choices. Don't have a baby if you don't have a partner or the means to support it; look for reliability rather than glamour in a partner, stick with them through difficult patches."
Interestingly she adds  - "This doesn't suit the narrative that people are the victims of social forces."