Scotland's poor , again

The Daily Record carries a report from the children's charity NCH Scotland on Scotland's poor .

More than 100,000 lone parent families in Scotland are trying to live on less than £15,000 a year, and more than 50,000 have to scrape by on less than £10,000.
162,000 lone parents in Scotland, bringing up around 280,000 children. Two thirds of all teenage mums are lone parents.

Lone parents are more likely to fall ill, and a quarter of them - more than 40,000 - admit they are struggling to cope with emotional problems.

Crime is a growing problem among poor kids from all family backgrounds. A record-breaking 53,883 youngsters were reported to the Children's Panel in 2005-6. The number of pre-school children in Scotland requiring "care and protection" has increased four-fold in the past decade - up from 2995 in 1996 to 11,975 last year. Almost half of the children included in the 2006 figures lived in lone parent families.
Scottish girls are among the most violent on Earth. They came sixth in an international league table of violence, with almost a third of 11-15-year-olds involved in at least one fight in the past year.
And the lives of no fewer than 100,000 Scottish children are blighted by their parents' abuse of alcohol. Scotland has one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the developed world.

Director of children's services for NCH Scotland, said : "Having a poor start in life is condemning far too many of our young people to a life of difficulty and disadvantage."

What a waste and what a depressing life youth of to-day have . Imagine if all that energy and creativity of young people was not bent on self-destruction , if all those single parents were not exiled to a life of alienated isolation and lonliness on council schemes , and all had their attentions turned to solving the World's desperate problems.