Breeding time at the zoo

Now all they want for Christmas is their very own, real-life 'ickle baby.

In the deeply depressing Britain's Youngest Mums & Dads (Monday ITV1) we met a variety of teenage parents, representative of the worrying trend for extremely early breeding now sweeping the UK.

I blame the lack of unemployment.

Now that being unable to find a job doesn't really wash anymore, it would appear the country's thousands of natural-born shirkers have been forced to find new ways of avoiding the world of work.

And this latest method, i.e. producing a child, is the best, for it's profitable, too.

Consider the options open to today's lazy/unambitious schoolgirl:

A) Get up at the crack of dawn and go to work where you earn not very much money with which you have to pay your taxes, travel expenses, rent/mortgage, gas/phone/electric bills, etc, etc. You get home knackered but hey, you might just have enough left over for a small bar of chocolate and a day trip to Weymouth once a year.

Or

B) Get up the duff, leave school and forget about work because you can now claim benefits (which will even include stuff like free milk vouchers for the little 'un when it comes along, bless). Then after the birth just prove it's too cramped at your mam's and you get a nice council house, rent-free - oh, and a grant to furnish it with those nice squishy leather sofas that Linda Barker keeps sitting on - and all the bills get paid for you.

So, no need for answers on a postcard as to why Britain has the greatest number of unmarried teen mums in the WORLD and the proud record of 100,000 teenagers getting "caught" every year.

But in Britain's Youngest Mum's and Dads it was clear that today's "gymslip" mums are the result of a culture for claiming that's taken hold over the last 20 years.

Their own parents are already seasoned benefit surfers, graduating from handouts for every sprog produced to the old favourite where one partner feigns disability (a nice touch, don't you think?), thus eliminating the work thing and bringing cash benefits. Even better, the other half can't work either as they have to be the 'carer'. Cue more benefits.

Most of the 'role models' had also had babies during their teens.

Julie, the slovenly mother of a brood which included two pregnant sisters, Lizzie, 15 and Charlene, 16, first got pregnant herself as a teenager and went on to have four children by four fathers.

She felt entirely blameless about the fact that Lizzie and Charlie had gotten into a race to see who could get pregnant first! A classic case of the unloved producing more of the same.

The tale continued with the introduction of the sisters' gormless impregnators, Dave and Don, both sporting baseball caps and very few teeth. And who curiously have avoided being charged with having sex with under-age girls.

The more you watched, the more you wanted to weep for the unfortunate babies these stupid, selfish girls had brought into the world.

Which is exactly what Suzie, a specialist maternity nanny did when she came to stay with Lizzie in a bid to try get her to understand that she was now a mum and had a helpless little human being to care for.

This highly experienced woman, who teaches parenting skills to professionals and royalty, collapsed in tears as she looked down at little uncared for bundle that was Bayleeee, asleep and blissfully unaware of his future.

Other charmers included a boy who gloried in the title of Britain's Youngest Father of Twins (age 12); Courtney (of course) Cassidy who had three babies to three different one-night-stands by the age of 17; and Anita from Plymouth who gave birth to a surprise baby down the toilet at the ripe old age of 12.

Still, look on the bright side, at least they won't have too much trouble tracing their family trees. I mean, when these babies are 15, their great-grannies will live round the corner, be called Britney-Cristal and only be about 32-years-old.

A cunning device, I'm sure you'll agree, of taking us to Who Do You Think You Are? (Tuesday BBC2), the show dedicated to a far less disturbing trend gripping the nation, genealogy.

Each week a famous face researches their family to find out where they came from and who they really are.

It's a bit bookish, but immensely watchable. So far I've caught the ones with Bill Oddie and Sue Johnstone, both of which were fascinating and at times very sad.

This week's, starring Jeremy Clarkson was more upbeat but every bit as enjoyable a detective story.

At first the curiously-curled guru of the gearstick complained that it would be a waste of time, but soon became galvanised upon discovering that during the industrial revolution his great-great-grandfather, Caleb invented the world-famous Kilner jar (no, me neither).

Jezza hoped a huge inheritance awaited him.

Cut a long story short, Caleb made more dosh than a Premier League team in a lifetime, but 11 years after inheriting the lot, his feckless son George blew it. Doh!

"Good God, did he have a cocaine habit?" cried Clarkson in dismay.

But he wasn't too put out (well he's loaded anyway) and seemed happy that at least he came from stock that had achieved summat. Not a waste of time after all.

On the subject of which . . .

Time To Get Your House In Order (Tuesday C4) gets my award for Worst Show Seen in a Long Time (and that's bearing in mind that My Family is back on).

A foolish fop called something like Tim Haddock-n-Chips with a stopwatch tries to get a lazy wife and her hen-pecked husband become slimmer, happier, whatever by becoming more time-efficient.

Biggest irony of all is that it was the most pointless half hour I've wasted in a long time.