They are both constantly hassled by the police, even though their outraged innocence seems unfeigned, for behaviour such as sitting in a park in the evening “The police searched us and sent us home,” Simon tells me. Both Simon and Russell are 16; both are brought up by single mothers living on benefit. But when I decided to keep my baby, I thought, `I can take some control’.”She hates the way that young, single mothers are demonised. “I look around and all I see is women working really hard to bring up their children with no money. And everyone hates them.”Rather than being outraged at children’s behaviour, maybe politicians and the press should start to feel outraged at the way our society treats disadvantaged families One in three children in Britain lives in poverty.

When we think what that means – that they have to struggle with bad housing, no resources for education or recreation, living in environments where there is nothing to do and nowhere to go – we should ask ourselves whether we are in a position to preach at them.Two boys whom I spoke to yesterday were passionate about the problems of living in a disadvantaged community. Every day I’d ring the council asking for a place to live and nobody wanted to talk to me. Nobody wanted to listen.”Then she started living alone on benefits. “It’s so tough – I mean, you can’t buy fresh fruit or vegetables. You can’t buy anything for yourself, and that’s hard.”She feels that, far from being an irresponsible act, the moment she decided to keep her baby was the moment that she started to act responsibly.

“I’d had a lot of problems as a child – I’d been in an adolescent unit. At first she lived in a hostel with her baby, “but that was such a bad place, he got pneumonia. Listening to them often makes us ask ourselves whether these outbreaks of moral outrage do anything but further alienate the children in question.One teenage mother to whom I spoke yesterday, a young woman called Rachel who lives in London with her two-year-old son, said: “One of the hardest things to live with is other people’s negative attitudes All the time you’re hearing that you’ve destroyed your life. I think I’m a good mother, and when my child is old enough I want to go out to work and support him But right now I’m better employed at home, caring for him. It’s tough when everyone, everyone in the media, all the politicians, are saying that what you’re doing is worthless, that you’re worthless.”Rachel knows that nobody else values the work she does looking after her child She knows it because of the way she has to live. He demanded that police and local authorities should clamp down on children’s antisocial behaviour by imposing curfews to keep them off the streets at night.
The voices that are missing from this debate are those of the children themselves. And now Tony Blair has put the finishing touch to the furore; in an interview yesterday he said he was “appalled” by teenage pregnancy and called for “a new moral purpose” in Britain.

The Daily Mail is having a field day, running features every day about the girls who are 12 going on 20, and the boys from families on benefit who have had five lovers by the time they have reached 14. It will educate the ignorant and maybe make those who have hidden their roots look back with pride rather than shame.The reviewer’s book `Britart’ will be published by Serpent’s Tail in 2000. THE REVELATION last week that two 12-year-old girls are to become mothers has fuelled a sense of moral panic. Even the “liberal press” has run articles arguing that the current behaviour of young people is proof that liberal values have almost destroyed our society. Her loyalty and enthusiasm for the lately improved suburbs is understandable in a media person tired of London’s empty posturing.Park and Ride is a great respray on the suburbs, with many new insights. Sawyer meets a man from Whitbread breweries, explaining All Bar Ones, Harvesters and other outlets that have been scrupulously designed to cater for ferociously defined target groups.