BBC news using the phrase "broken home"

[IsitaHatOrACat]

Really? Really? Whilst I'm not overly interested to know about this man's drug fuelled years, the description of him coming from a "broken home" has infuriated me.
As a single parent to a 15 year old, I can confirm that there us nothing whatsoever "broken" about our home or small family.
I really thought we had moved on from this type of shaming of single parent families
Seriously BBC, do better.

BBC News - Heavy hangs the crown - sadness at Wiggins' troubles
www.bbc.com/sport/cycling/articles/c23mv42m2lmo

Erm wasn’t he sexually abused by a coach? You downplayed his struggles a little there.

I am so sorry for the traumatic childhood you had. I hope you have a happier and calmer life now. Sending you big hugs x

It's 'broken' in the sense that there was a split between the couple.

I think you're over reacting.

But you can't use 'broken home' in one context without acknowledging that it's also used in the other. I also don't understand why you'd prefer the term broken home than abusive home or neglectful home or dysfunctional home. Why not the more accurate and appropriate description?

YANBU. This is the kind of shaming language that keeps women in bad relationships. We ne longer routinely refer to children of unmarried parents as bastards, and "broken home" needs to stop being used to stigmatize single mothers in the same way.

Well I find it shaming. I resent it being used to describe my home and family and the home I made for my child all my myself. It's awful.

When my parents divorced it felt my home was broken - do not underestimate how shit divorce is for children. It is disingenuous to think because it was a good outcome for the parents and the children 'turned out fine' it did not also break up their home at the time. Because it did. And the effects are life long. I'm not saying people are wrong to split up and divorce. I am stating the effect on their children is vast, life long and, like an ice berg, much is hidden.

I am a happy successful adult with a good job, home and family and good relationship with my surviving parent. I was also damaged by my parent's divorce and I consider I come from a broken home.

I agree that the phrase ‘broken home’ is very outdated and the description here should be ‘dysfunctional’ and ‘dad left’ or ‘parents divorced’ or whatever. But I would say that the backlash around negativity around parents splitting up is misguided. In most cases of divorce without being a ‘dysfunctional family’ it has a massive effect on the children (this is proven). I don’t know how as a society we balance the taboo around ‘single parent families’ or ‘divorced parents’ and try to make families aware how much of a negative effect divorce has on the children. I had an idyllic home life before my parents divorce and both of them recognise how much it shattered me. Both also recognise that it was a step too easily taken for them. We are all still very close and there were no larger factors at play.

Friends are often surprised when I say what a profound effect it has had and prior to knowing would almost use our family as an example of where people can ‘make it work’.

It often comes out as I’m seen as very attached to my kids but we do prioritise date nights and when people comment I do say that it’s because I think it’s the best thing for them for us to work on our marriage as my parents marriage breakdown had such an effect. Friends have been shocked as they haven’t realised the effect it has.

When LTB is thrown around lightly on here with little mention of the psychological effect on the kids (obviously mostly used for good reason so I don’t mean then) I shudder as it was devastating for the children in my family but you wouldn’t have known this at the time.

I completely agree, op. Completely unwarranted. If this was a phrase that Wiggins used himself it would or should be in quotes. It's lazy journalism and stigmatises single parents. Wurthy of a complaint to the BbC if I could be bothered and they'd likely change it.

It might be reasonable in a historical context, like continuing to print editions of 19th century novels that contain the N word. That doesn't mean that such offensive terms should be freely bandied around today.

Not a majority, no. 42% in the UK according to Google and the rate has been falling in recent years.

Curious to know why you used the word "whom" in your response? What was your reasoning for choosing the objective rather than subjective form in a sentence where it stands in for the subject of the sentence?

I completely agree OP. I was brought up by a single parent, who had no choice as my dad was actually married at the time and had a young child, my mum didn’t know this.
I had a lovely childhood and wouldn’t have swapped it for the world. I remember feeling sorry for kids with either grumpy or critical men at home. My home life was like the bit at the end of Matilda where her and Miss Honey are free! That didn’t stop my mum reading all the Thatcher fed rhetoric about how statistically I was likely to end up in prison, not drugs. Statistics aren’t helpful if you don’t have a choice, it could be self fulfilling, and like others said mostly linked to poverty.
I am also a single parent and have a great relationship with my ex. Nothing broken about our home.
Let’s sort out the poverty trap which most single mums fall into following a split. Let’s make men pay for their children. Also don’t move your new boyfriend in. Statistically new partners pose more of a danger to children than coming from a single parent family.
More people are single parents now. How helpful is it to constantly bash them for not ‘trying harder’ in their relationship or wanting to be happy?

Single parents don't get to decide whether their kids experience a broken home or not. That's for your kids to conclude, perhaps they'll only know and feel the effects of it when they're older. You don't get to decide for them what their childhood experience is or was.

I come from divorced parents. Neither of them would have said I experienced a broken home, because they were satisfied with the lives they went on to live and homes THEY had, but I bloody did have a broken home. They didn't experience what I experienced.

You don't get to decide whether your child experiences a broken home. I'm not saying your child has one, I'm just saying you have zero right to dictate their experience with this. Just because you feel fulfilled doesn't mean they do and doesn't mean it's not effecting them. Let your child tell you when they're older what their conclusion is.

Probably because of the cost of living crisis - people feeling they have no choice but to stay in their shit marriages 😒

I hate the term broken home. I spilt with exh because I fell out of love with him. No violence, no arguments etc. my children see way more of their dad now then when we were together. They are not from a broken home, they know love, they know safety etc and are happy kids. It’s such a horrible stereotype and designed to make people feel like shit for “breaking up a family” so healers a horrible phrase as to what you’ve done!

Of course it's shaming - it's intended to shame. Which is why it's never used about widowed parents or families where dad works overseas for years at a time.

You're being sensitive, my parents were divorced when I was around 6 an extremely messy divorce (won't go into it ) and I was a single parent for a good five years so this doesn't come from a place of not understanding but the phrase "broken home" is not a big deal

Sorry, but that is for your children to decide and define for themselves, not you or their behalf.

I have never wanged onto my parents about their divorce, it was over 40 years ago now, all is good in my life, time heals etc etc. But I still consider I came from a broken home. Your children may well feel the same. Divorce breaks up homes. Yes, you can create new ones, but your children have still had to experience a broken home.

Funny too why two-parent homes are never described as "whole" or "intact" - because everyone knows that a lot of two-parent homes are shitty places run by adults who abuse, despise or cheat on each other. So it's not that two-parent homes are good, it's that people want to talk down anyone who's broken (sic) free.

But there is OP, a child "should" have a mother and father, those that do have vastly better outcomes, countless studies have proven this.

A single parent can do their best, but their efforts will never be as good as a raising a child with both a mother and a father.

Its self explanatory isnt it, parents raising children together, and then they split up (whether originally married or not is irrelevant), the relationship is broken, the home is broken up. Its clear what it means and it is applicable.

But if a marriage ends in divorce, it IS a failed marriage. It's not suggesting either party is a failure per se, just that the marriage itself failed.
There needs to be a way to describe these things - that's all it is, really not that deep.

A single parent can do their best, but their efforts will never be as good as a raising a child with both a mother and a father.

You really need to write a ‘good’ mother and father.

They are never described because that should be the accepted norm. We also don't say "I'm buying a new car that will have four wheels" because having four wheels is the expected norm for a car to function properly.