Most people looking at the pictures of young Alfie Patten with a newborn baby would naturally assume that it was a family photograph of a brother hugging his little sister as she arrived home from hospital. Well, it was a family photograph, but not that sort. Alfie, who is 13 but looks about eight, is said to be the father of Maisie, conceived “after a night of unprotected sex” with his girlfriend, Chantelle Steadman.

Britain is doing low-life better than almost all other developed countries. A growing segment, which Charles Murray in a pioneering investigation for this newspaper called the underclass, is devoid of the values and morality of a civilised society which foolishly provides the financial incentives to behave badly. We saw it in the case of Karen Matthews, who drugged and imprisoned her daughter to extract money from the public and the media, and we see it again now.

There will be those who say that any new life should be welcomed, whatever the circumstances of the birth. Assuming Alfie is the father, he could grow up to be a loving parent. The couple could stay together. It is possible but it is unlikely. And it does not take away the fact that this is a desperately sad situation that will still be sad when the circus moves on.

Where were the parents when these two children were having unprotected sex? Allowing a boy as young as 13 to become a father is a form of child abuse. Where was the moral guidance from schools? Ed Balls, the schools secretary, blathered on about doing everything we can to keep teenage pregnancies down.

The fact is that Britain has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe. Sex education in schools, for which Mr Balls is responsible, comes without any moral compass. It is good at teaching children how to put condoms on bananas but not much else. There is evidence that our sex lessons encourage children to try it out for themselves. We should learn from the Netherlands, which has one of the lowest teenage pregnancy rates in the world, whose teaching on sex comes with messages of abstinence and responsibility.

When the couple were asked how they would cope financially, Alfie confessed that he did not know what the word meant. He will soon find out. Apart from tabloid cash for a part in a media freak show, a world of benefits is about to open up. We provide incentives where there should be disincentives. Instead of encouraging settled families, the welfare state rewards the dysfunctional. No wonder marriages have slumped to a record low.

The Centre for Social Justice, the think tank set up by Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, has catalogued the decline of family stability and the rise of the dysfunctional family. “Broken” homes used to be relatively rare; now in some areas they are the norm. One in six babies is born into a home where there is no resident father.

Showering benefits on these families is a policy of despair. Instead, the aim should be to wean people off this destructive lifestyle. The best means is early intervention to help mothers escape such an environment. Mr Duncan Smith’s commission has found that the first three years of a child’s life are crucial. Which raises the question: what hope is there for little Maisie, a child born to such immature parents? As each generation moves further away from family stability, we lumber ourselves with the enormous cost of propping up failed families and living with the social consequences. It is a grim prospect, especially as the country moves deeper into recession.