The Nursery Rhyme Police

Personal Liberty. Privacy Rights. Responsible Adults Knowing What is Best For Themselves... Not the Government.

You've read these phrases a lot on "The Musings of Milkey". I realize that many people throughout our country would say I am a bit hard-headed and stubborn in defending these principles. Some would say I'm paranoid. Some think that if the government is freely given some of our personal liberties that the practice will stop when appropriate.

You know how I feel about that. I fear that it won't.

Read what the English government wants to do. Keep in mind that this isn't some nut-job wingbat. This chick holds an official position of power. Prime Minister Tony Blair thinks this is a great idea!

Do we want our government to go down this road? It's certainly not out of the realm of possibility.

This story, accounts of cities banning fatty foods, and many others prove that I'm not paranoid.

The Nursery Rhyme Police - parents to take lessons in singing and reading

Parents could be forced to go to special classes to learn to sing their children nursery rhymes, a minister said.

Those who fail to read stories or sing to their youngsters threaten their children's future and the state must put them right, Children's Minister Beverley Hughes said.

Their children's well-being is at risk 'unless we act', she declared.

And Mrs Hughes said the state would train a new 'parenting workforce' to ensure parents who fail to do their duty with nursery rhymes are found and 'supported'.

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Her efforts have gone alongside a push by other ministers to determine exactly how parents treat their children down to how they should brush their teeth.

Tony Blair has backed the idea of 'fasbos' - efforts to identify and correct the lives of children who are likely to fail even before they are born - and new laws to compel parents to attend parenting classes are on the way.

This autumn is likely to see an extension of parenting orders that can force parents to attend parenting classes so that they can be used on the say so of local councils against parents.

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The threat of action against parents who fail to sing nursery rhymes was unveiled by Mrs Hughes as she gave the first details of Mr Blair's 'national parenting academy', a body that will train teachers, psychologists and social workers to intervene in the lives of families and become the 'parenting workforce'.

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The National Academy for Parenting Practitioner, Mrs Hughes said, would operate from next autumn to train a parenting workforce and 'support the Government's parenting agenda as it develops'.

She did not mention any figures for the cost of the scheme.

Mrs Hughes condemned the way governments before 1997 thought they had no role in the upbringing of children, which it 'regarded as the entirely private arrangements families make.'

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