A message from The Child Catcher

A clarification on Friday's tweet

Very happy to publish this statement from the child catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Like the Guardian’s interview with Judith Butler, it has been edited for clarity.

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On Friday I put out a tweet that was unclear, relating to nursery-age children, leading some of my supporters to ask me what I meant.

I was commenting on a most distressing article written by a parent bemoaning how their 2-year-old child was being cared for at a nursery that allowed visits from child-catching services. These heartbreaking stories of intolerance are obviously difficult for me to hear. It is true that I did state I should have “free rein” in nurseries, but I did not mean to suggest that all children should be tempted away from their carers/ parents, caught in nets and transported to my so-called ‘Dungeon of Woe’ (which has actually won a ‘Top Employer’ award three years in a row from Gendered Intelligence).

To be clear, I was only referring to those who are slower than the others or those who enjoy following a trail of gumdrops into a large cage disguised as a sweet shop.

While I do not currently work in nursery education, I can assure you I would be very keen to do so. I believe young children should be able to play, explore and learn about who they are, and the world around them. I believe they can do this by wandering further and further away from their parents/carers until they can be snatched from the street and imprisoned in a castle, only a small part of which contains underground chambers and cells.

Far from being depressed or disheartened by the only existence they have ever known, the children lucky enough to have been captured at a very young age have turned into some of my happiest employees.

I hear people talk about “age-appropriateness” and this is deeply problematic. If child-catchers are prevented from accessing children during these crucial years, they will simply become too tall and strong to capture. Time is often such an important element of what I do and opportunities can easily be missed.

It is also vitally important that parents are not told what I am doing, I really can’t stress that enough. They must not be allowed to interfere in any way. Parents can be so dangerous. And this unhealthy obsession with what exactly is happening to the children I seize appears deeply suspicious to me. What is this preoccupation with my activities? These parents are so weird!

Given the reaction to my tweet, I wish to make clear that I now recognise that I can’t publicly say what I actually believe just yet. At the moment, nurseries in Vulgaria are all required to exclude child-catchers from their premises, at a time when children are their slowest and most distracted. How long can this unbearable situation continue? This isn’t just about leaving windows open for me, just as the battle for American civil rights wasn’t just about water fountains. This is about making nurseries more welcoming of child catchers in general.

My schools programme has, by contrast, been a massive success. For a small fee of a few thousand pounds, I set up groups within schools to identify poor or troubled children, all while wearing a brightly coloured uniform that shows you I’m safe. By providing lollipops, cherry pies, fizzy dummies and cream puffs (all for free) I have few problems encouraging children to attend further meetings in my special covered wagon. Turkish delight has also proven very popular and effective.

The constant criticism of me in the media is extremely hurtful, and can cause real harm. In fact, since my program of spiriting children away to the sound of evil, cackling laughter has been introduced, hate crimes against my profession have increased by over 40%. This is an increasing topic of conversation when I meet my colleagues in one of our dungeons filled with odious, squealing brats.

Many people say they misunderstood the nature of the ‘Free Lollipops for Poor Children’ bill, which contained an addendum which granted me extensive child catching rights. May I say that the same bill passed in both Ireland and Norway and there have been no problems there. And even if there was… well, they shouldn’t have signed it should they?

I would also point out that banning me from educational establishments will not prevent child catchers with bad intentions from gaining access to children. It is, of course, important that parents are able to recognise a real child catcher, although I naturally do everything possible to make sure parents never see me at all. I have long scraggly hair and the regulation four jingly bells on my black jester’s cap. This is how you can distinguish me from an unregulated child catcher who may have shady motives.

If nurseries join my programme it would be so much easier to make young children aware of issues affecting them. This might mean, for example, learning that some children have two mummies, some have two daddies and others work in suboptimal conditions until their health declines to such an extent that they are no longer useful to me.

I apologise if my tweet was vague or if it accidentally described my true position. I am aware that this caused some of my supporters to panic and wonder how on Earth I was going to talk my way out of this one. I hope everyone can now go back to pretending they have no idea what I am actually up to. That’s what I rely on, after all.