The Times Online (UK) recently published an article entitled, ‘Paranoia has taken over child protection,’ marking yet another alarming reflection on the fear that grips so many parents in the 21st century.

Times writer India Knight writes,

We don’t even trust ourselves to raise our own children: we need books written by childcare “professionals” and television programmes featuring advice from child-less “experts”. In actual fact we know a great deal more than these charlatans, but since we don’t any longer trust instinct we genuinely believe that our vast repository of knowledge (and that of our mothers, sisters, aunts, grannies, friends) is worthless and that a newborn baby is better off with a strict routine dreamt up by someone with a financial motive.

In a report co-authored with Jennie Bristow a few weeks ago, the sociologist Frank Furedi, lamenting the demise of trust, mentioned as an example a mother whose child was invited over to play at a new friend’s house. The parents reassured the mother that they were “cool” – they’d passed a CRB check. I find this chilling.

Visit Furedi’s website and learn more about this sociologist’s new book.