BBC news using the phrase "broken home"

You can call it failed marriage, I can call it personal growth and liberation.

Just out of interest, do you refer to all big life changes as failures? Is your previous job a failed employment? Is your old house a failed home because you moved out?

Sad really to live your life so negatively.

I think they must have edited the article, I can't see any reference to a broken home, but it does sound like his childhood was "broken", even if your son's isn't.

The phrase broken home is exclusively used to describe separation/divorce; it's never used to describe abuse, or poverty, or drug addiction, or anything else. People are being really disingenuous on here. I 100% agree with you OP, it's lazy, offensive and outdated language.

See also "jilted boyfriend" for men who murder women.

I agree that it's not necessary to use that term. I never have even though it very accurately describes where I come from. I would just say divorced parents and I think most people do.

Of course I'm projecting! It's appalling language to describe my family and I wholeheartedly reject it.

It doesn't prevent anything of the sort, the stats prove that.
And it is a failed marriage.

Broken home is traditionally used to describe when the family unit of mother father and kids has broken apart - usually for reasons other than death.
Its not a particularly nice phrase to use IMO and doesn’t really reflect most people’s views on households that don’t have mum, dad children in 2025
Yes this man’s home may well have been ‘broken’ as in an abusive house or dysfunctional house but that’s not what this term traditionally means

This. It was less usual to come from a single parent household years ago . My parents were appalled( in the mid nineties) that I was divorcing my husband and was a single parent . It was completely socially inappropriate amongst their circle of friends. I was told ( by a man whilst stuck with a double buggy in a Tesco queue) that I was disgusting because I'd had children out of wedlock. I was no longer wearing my wedding ring and he decided I was therefore clearly a tart.It was far , far less socially acceptable when this man was a child. Perfectly reasonable term.

Its a very old fashioned phrase but it's an instant descriptor. Way back when it was first used that's mostly why women left.

I'd really not get too upset about it.

It’s not shaming. It’s just a description. A way of describing a family with divorced parents. I think it’s fine.

I don’t feel ashamed that I’m from a broken home or that I’m being shamed. I wasn’t ashamed my mum was a single parent and neither was she as she was too busy working her arse off to keep a roof over our heads.

Growing up I always missed one parent while I was with the other. I have always wanted to know what happens at Xmas and at family get togethers when parents have been married for years instead of sharing my dad, my old family home with a stepmum and half siblings. I had a stepdad from the age of 10-19. Sadly a 2nd time I came from a broken home. I missed him the most.

I’ve been married for 25yrs and ask DH and my DC what it’s like having parents together. They don’t know any different but it fascinates me.

Parental separation is an ACE
https://images.app.goo.gl/CyWZ98HXhP3ovZYs9

Separated, divorced homes have always been referred to as 'a broken home' it's up to people how you really want to interpret it . My parents divorced when I was a baby I might have been 'broken' but never known or felt it it as my grandparents helped to raise me and I had a wonderful childhood. Am separated too and happy and my kids are happier in a home without parents' fighting so I wouldn't think they're 'broken' nor will I ever get offended by the use of that phrase as it doesn't apply in my case.

But maybe Bradley’s mum didn’t or couldn’t.

If, say, politicians used “broken homes” in Parliament to describe single parents, that’s offensive, that’s an assumption applied to all single parents, or in an article about “single parenthood”.

This article is an about one specific household at a particular time, in this case, it might be accurate.

It’s two arguments.

Using broken homes as a generic description
Using broken home when it accurately describes

I think it’s concerning to say you can never use a term accurately in specific circumstances because it doesn’t apply to that entire demographic

I think it’s an awful term and I haven’t heard it for years. I have been a single parent for ten years and nobody I know has ever used it and I hope no one refers to my children as being from a ‘broken home.’

Because his father WAS the bad one.

And Wiggins father was a violent alcoholic so he was most def a shit father, and no doubt was responsible for Wiggin’s description of a ‘broken’ home life.

There are a great many families that appear to be ‘intact’ from the outside that could very accurately be described as broken. No divorce needed.

Indeed for some of them divorce would be an improvement,

Because it IS statistically far more likely to be a father, that’s why. Facts are facts.

I agree. There is nothing about my home that’s broken - except the washing machine which is being fixed today!

Op I think it’s the negativity that surrounds the term, it’s supremely unhelpful. Most schools now teach families look all different and are unique. It seems we are still living with the hangover of the insistence that only whole families exist with two parents, as if it’s a form of utopia. It’s very odd. Children should be taught that all families are ‘whole’ regardless of set up.

If your experience is one of a ‘broken home’ which can be with parents together or not, that indicates poor parenting or an ACE of some kind, rather than the organisation and structure of the family itself.

I agree so much OP. It is a hideous, outdated phrase. There is nothing broken whatsoever in the happy home I share with my children and the happy relationship they share with their dad.

How about dysfunctional family, that is what I call mine and my two parents are still very much together. They would be equally appalled as you OP are at the negative connotation but I very much did come from a dysfunctional family as did my DH where his parents were still together until 2-3 years ago.

Completely agree, op, I loathe the judgemental one size fits all phrase.

why not a shit mother? why is it always assumed the father is the bad one?

Agree op. And I don’t have any direct experience myself of “broken” homes, so I am not being defensive.
But it is unnecessary phrase to use. They should say his parents had separated. Or that he was brought up in a single parent household. There is no need to say “broken”