Parents Who Drink Alcohol in Front of Their Kids Could be Targeted for ‘Child Abuse’ Under New Law

Whatever the intention of the promoters of the new “Cinderella Law”, its main accomplishment will be to turn the emotional landscape of family life into a dangerous battlefield.

The aim of this law is to change existing legislation on child neglect by expanding the meaning of criminal abuse to encompass the complicated domain of the emotion. The Conservative MP Robert Buckland, who is the principal Parliamentary campaigner for a law that would criminalise the emotional abuse of children, claims that without such legislation “the wicked stepmother of Cinderella” gets “away scot-free”. However, once the emotional behaviour of parents becomes a target for policing, every mother and father is at risk of being labelled an abuser.

The call for the Cinderella Law represents the latest phase of a campaign to continually expand the range of parental behaviour that can be condemned as abusive. These days, parents who smoke or drink alcohol in front of children risk being characterised as child-abusers. Opponents of the tradition of male circumcision condemn Jewish and Muslim parents as abusers of children. Health activists denounce parents of overweight children for the same offence. Mothers and fathers who educate their children to embrace the family’s religion have been characterised as child abusers by anti-faith campaigners. Precisely because the abuse of children is regarded as such a terrible crime, advocates of a variety of different causes frame their campaign in the language of child protection.