13-Year-Old Dad Cashes In

While America fixates on Nadya Suleman and her brood, Britain has developed a tabloid obsession of its own with Alfie, the 13-year-old, four-foot tall father. According to The Telegraph, “Alfie's crash course in adulthood has introduced him to a world where everything has a price, but little has value.” His life now includes a PR guru “drafted in by the parents apparently to maximise the earning potential of their children. Or exploit them, as it is also known. … In such circumstances, it's hard not to be judgmental – not so much of Alfie and Chantelle, but of the adults who surround them, and those who have seized on their misfortune to market rather than protect them. The real outrage is not that two children had sex and made a baby, lamentable though that may be, but that in some quarters, parental rights and responsibilities have been warped beyond recognition, and children are being reduced to commodities, to be used, abused or discarded at will.”