SIR - It's interesting that researchers at London University have shown that the children of teenage or single parents don't do as well in Sure Start areas as they do in other deprived areas.
Like many New Labour initiatives, it is based on headline-grabbing potential rather than real merit. Parents in "deprived" areas are more likely to be exhausted after working in unrewarding and tiring jobs while their kids are looked after at Sure Start. Therefore, the quality of the time the kids will spend with their parents will not be so good and this may affect the behaviour and development of the children. Where parents do not live in Sure Start areas, it is likely that (statistically), fewer single/teenage parents will be working and the exhausted adult will not have to "fit in" the child after their working day along with numerous household chores.
It might be argued that Sure Start enables a parent to work, and that the family benefits accordingly! Sure Start is, in some ways, another milestone to the breakdown of family life. It liberates a parent so that they can work, but at the same time it may lead to some biting off more than they can chew, and losing sight of some of the simple pleasures of togetherness.
What use is the extra money for a foreign holiday if the rest of the year the family is stretched to breaking point? The community-based initiative is not a substitute for the family. It enables parents and children to spend less time together, in much the same way as Sunday retailing undermines the family life of numerous retail employees. The emerging generation may well wonder what happened to their childhood.
ANDREW BROWN,
Worcester.
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