Childminders provide an essential service, but it needs to be regulated

I GOT one of those emails during the week. You know the kind — the round-robin, forwarded by a friend to everyone on her email list, that’s supposed to make you smile. And it did, until I read the sting in the tail.

“Congratulations,” it said, “to all the kids who were born in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s. We had survived. Our mothers smoked while they were pregnant with us. After we were born, our cots were covered with lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets.

“As children we would ride in cars with no seat belts or airbags. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died. We ate cakes, white bread and real butter and drank pop with sugar in it, but we weren’t overweight because we were always outside playing.