Ok, so the Tories have always stood for women to suck it up in the name of 'family values', but AIBU to think it's about time they actually considered what they mean with the phrase 'family values'?
40% of relationships (marriages and cohabitation both included) with children fail. That's nearly half. Of the remaining 60%, we all know that many of them will be unhappy. 1 in 4 women experience domestic violence. Research suggests as many as 1 in 6 men do too. Infidelity is common place.
I don't think we're experiencing a terrible thing when people refer to 'family breakdown'. I think what's happened is that more and more people (namely women) are less prepared to put up with a crap life. And IMO this is A Good Thing.
So isn't it about time that we accepted this as a normal social development? Just as the nuclear family usurped the traditional extended family, which in turn usurped the tribal based structures of the past. Society changes over time and this is just another example of that. It's not a bad thing unless it leads to social problems. And all the research shows that it's not being brought up in single parent families that does the damage, it's the socio-economic factors associated with it - things such as poverty and education (when these things are equalled to coupled families, there are NO differences in outcome for children). Things such as witnessing violence and hostility in the home between parents - in which case how is forcing couples to stay together going to help?
Why not accept that since 40% of children will grow up without one of their parents living with them, we need to tackle issues about maintenance and contact . Why not go further to equalise maternity and paternity rights and encourage fathers to take on greater domestic responsibility? All the evidence shows that in families where the father is equally involved during the child's first year and plays an active role in housework are (a) less likely to split in the first place, (b) far more likely to maintain a positive relationship with their children in the event of a split, and (c) more likely to pay maintenance consistently.
Why not accept that since many families are blended families, taxation and benefits need to take this into account?
Why not accept that in an age where living costs are so high, most families need both adults to work and therefore affordable childcare is not an issue that is going to go away.
OF course, we could try to tackle these problems at source. We could tackle paternity rights (already happening, which is a good thing, but much more needs doing).
We could make a serious attempt to tackle domestic violence by making it completely socially unacceptable rather than cutting rape crisis centres, refuges and social fund grants that allow the abused to leave.
We could make non payment of maintenance a criminal offence and enforce it instead of trying to increase the already-a-majority of parents who receive nothing from their co-parents by deciding to tax those who have no choice but to use the CSA.
We could leave child benefit alone instead of sending the message that women are mere appendages of men by removing their entitlement to it depending on what their menfolk earn (despite the fact that a significant proportion of the affected families will involve children who are not the male earner's).
Ironically, if we encouraged greater respect to, and financial responsibility for, the vulnerable, if we encouraged greater co-operation between people and less tolerance of bad behaviour, I think family breakdown would actually decrease. Instead, I'm seeing a concerted effort to demonise women who dare to say "No more of this shit" single parents. An effort to force women out of the workplace and back into the home to avoid tackling childcare issues and skew employment statistics, to cut support for women and children in order to tackle the deficit. An effort to make the abused of both genders suck it up instead of leave. 