YOU only have to take a stroll around Winsford town centre any day of the week to see a large number of young girls with babies.

I still have something of a rose-tinted view of life and would like to imagine that these girls are taking their younger brothers and sisters out for a breath of fresh air.

My suspicion, however, is that these girls - who are still children themselves - are wheeling around their own children.

I have read enough correspondence in the pages of the Winsford and Middlewich Guardian to know that sweeping generalisation is a trap for the unwary.

I also know that there is a tremendous pool of talent and academic achievement among many of the town's youngsters.

But I feel we are in grave danger of creating an underclass - especially among the town's young girls.

It seems that there is a small but significant proportion of the town's schoolgirls for whom teenage pregnancy is viewed as a career option.

I don't blame the girls themselves. I am sure that some of them get pregnant by accident.

What I want to know is where are we - the responsible adults - going wrong?

Surely in this day and age, sex education is at a sufficiently advanced stage that there should be no such thing as an unwanted pregnancy.

I feel that we have let down a small but significant number of our youngsters in that we have given them no kind of future other than teenage pregnancy and a council house.

I also would like to see a survey done into how many girls who are themselves the result of a teen pregnancy then go on to get pregnant in their teens.

Concerned parent and onlooker

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