Letter: We should care about children's interests, not money

THE ISSUES raised in your debate (Real Life, 16 August) re-ignite the argument about the rights of disabled parents to support in rearing their children, and to the appropriate solution to the "problem" of young carers.

If Meg Henderson's concerns are less about the cost and more about the outcomes for children of disabled parents, then she needs to demonstrate how having a disabled parent (with support) is more damaging to a child than learning later in life that they had been removed from their disabled mother at birth against her will. Of course it would be detrimental for Penny Roberts' child to become a "young carer", but if that were to occur would it not say more about the inability of our society to support would- be parents like her than about her supposedly selfish act of getting pregnant?

If Bradford Social Services do proceed with a care order on the basis that it is detrimental for children to be cared for by a string of people without "personal investment in their welfare", we can presumably expect a rush of similar cases involving those citizens who employ nannies to parent their children for much of the time.

RICHARD OLSEN

HARRIET CLARKE

University of Leicester