AIBU to be very shocked only 3% of unmarried parents stay together until child is 16!

[littlemoominmamma]

3% is nothing!!! It is soooo sad. 1 out of every 3 couples have seperated before the child is 5yrs old

I am now glad that the tories are going to give married couples help.

Hey, It's the thread STARTER that gets the hammer- for being a bad influence.

it was your idea about the 600th post! But if there's a 2 for 1 deal...

Ladybiscuit - I think you are lovely and intelligent. I have no problem with people being on here and giving serious and well thought out answers, as I believe you do, if not we would have no debates and it would be very boring. Hate threads were everyone agrees!! I am a bit of a bl**dy argumentative old bat.

Single mothers do a bl**dy fantastic job, and deserve all our support and more. My sister has 2 children on her own and cries on my shoulder alot so I can understand what a good job single mothers do (and thankless at the end of the day) x

NO NO NO, I have tried to be reasonable here, taking a balanced view and all that- don't take my 'puter away from me.

You have actually marantha, its been a revelation

It's not my PC it belongs to my husband and he will divorce me if you smash it up!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I will be single ....argh!!!!!

Not me doing the smashing, the "man with van and hammer"

littlemoomin Well, look on the bright side, at least you won't be married...
Long nights in doing what you like, no criticism about your personal habits. Hey, how about a being single is better than cohabiting/ being married thread!

Actually tonight I am grumpy and hungover but that's a very nice thing to say lmm

And at your last post

Always fancied being single. Maybe we could do it together (no - not that way!!! )

No shaving
No getting out of P.J's on day off
No cooking sunday lunch
No staying up watching ice road truckers
No rugby

No sex - oh well!!!

Marantha - If you do start a being single thread I think you will be great and I will be on there museing about how lovely it would be x I do worry about what personal habits you may be hiding though

Look, being married is no guarantee against violence and rape from your spouse in your own home, nor is it a guarantee against said spouse fucking off to another country with no extradition agreement and leaving you penniless with a baby (as happened to one MNer last year). Being married is not the answer. COUPLEHOOD is not the answer.
Children thrive best when brought up by one or more adults who do their best for the children, put them first, try to provide some stability and are mentally healthy and not in abject poverty. That's all you need.

COUPLEHOOD - wtf is that? never heard of it... sure it is great, do you have to have a hood? or a hoodie?

LMM: Couplehood is the state of being in a heteromonogamous couple ie one man one woman romantically linked (married or not).
It's not something everyone wants, and it certainly isn't something everyone needs.

Solid - What children need is basic food and water and shelter, we are not discussing what childrens basic needs are. We are discussing what is best for family's - co - habitation or marriage (rape is too serious a subject to be discussed on this thread, I will and cannot comment on it as it IS too serious )

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You know it makes sense Gals!!

MrsFS: Genius!

The Observer, and David Davies on "a single, overwhelming set of facts".

"Children do well when they are brought up by two parents in a long-term stable relationship. On average ? and only on average ? married couples stay together for longer than unmarried ones. So, on average, children do better when their parents are married. There are plenty of exceptions..but that is the average."

He is a Tory and the child of a single mother.

I agree with Marantha in her last few posts: married or not-married, take your choice: it's about the quality of the relationship. But I would like to see a culture of respect for parents who plan to stay together when they have children. I don't think the money involved in any tax changes would make a difference. People wouldn't get married "for the money", in the most part. I think though that a public declaration of incentive would start to alter the cultural mindset.

Long, long, long ago, it was accepted among posters who claimed to disagree with me, that marriage does not make stability, but stability is more likely to lead to marriage. Stability is something to be aspired to, and marriage is the outward sign of that, which is why it's latched upon for a signal of this nature.

That's it.

Perfectly put, upandrunning.

i agree with that... a similar study found that when you remove the poverty issues often associated with being a single parent, that all eating dinner at the table rather than being married was a better indication of whether or not a child would go on to 3rd level education.. (obviously this is not the be and end all, a child could be educated but unhappy, but it's a good sign anyway)

Bullshit. A 'stable' relationship in that the partners continue to live in the same house and pay their taxes might sound great, but it might cover up hideous ongoing abuse, for instance. Stability can be found just as well in a family that consists of one parent and child/ren living in the household with close family or good friends nearby and part of the child/ren's lives.
It is not possible to demonstrate or prove that marriage is the Magic Bullet, because there are so many other positive and negative factors affecting how children grow up. THe biggest one being poverty. But raising the minimum wage to a living wage would cost far more than wanking on about how women should just shut up and accept being owned by men and get back in the house, really.

she did say it was the quality of the relationship though... the relationhship i removed the children from was abusive but i would n't have described it as stable becuase i was so nervous and stressed and anxious all the time. it was the same old shit.

i was thinking of the stability i offer my kids now as a single parent when i read it.

upandrunning, I totally agree with your last post about the need for a change in cultural mindset that values stability in a relationship before children come into the picture.

That's what has been woefully eroded over the years to the detriment of the 40% of children in the figures whose parents did not stay together until they were 16.

Couples should think very carefully before they enter into a relationship that involves children, taking precautions against pregnancy and cohabiting to test their compatibility before adding to the relationship with children.

That may or may not involve marriage but what marriage is good for that as a gold standard, it is a check point that both parties have to pause to consider whether their relationship is strong enough for the long term before making a public declaration to that effect.

Of course, nothing in life is certain but insisting on high standards in your life partner's behaviour and the constructing a stable structure around the bringing up of children can only work to children's advantage and society in general.

that does mean though that only people lucky enough to find love can be lucky enough to have children!?

i thought we'd established that love and encouragement and stability can come from a single parent, and that a lot of the negative issues associated with single parenting are actually issues of poverty

Seeking to revere marriage above all else opens a new can of problems. I actually pity my mother's generation, so many of her friends stayed in miserable marriages becuase of the 'cultural mindset' that values marriage.

People have to do the right thing for themself and for their child. Trying to fit in with a cultural mindset is a receipe for disaster.