What really pisses me off about all these reports, is that they don't analyse the statistics correctly. There is no denying that the children of single parents are disadvantaged, statistically. There is a correlation between criminality, mental illness, alcoholism, truancy, blah di blah di blah and growing up in a single parent household.
But if you take poverty out of the equation, then suddenly all the statistics even out. And no-one ever mentions that. The biggest single factor in disadvantaging the children of lone parents, is poverty. Take poverty away, and all the other factors level off too. But hey, funnily enough, not many people are interested in doing that.
Ann Atkins really pisses me off because whenever she talks about how kids are better off being brought up by a couple, she always talks about couples as being loving, respectful and good role models. As if lone parents had that on offer and wilfully decided that actually, they don't fancy that, they'd rather have the stigma and difficulties of raising children alone. She is not a stupid woman, she is intelligent and humane, so I've wracked my brains to come up with an explanation as to why she believes that lone parents would turn down a happy partnership in favour of lone parenthood. It's like she can't imagine that some relationships are so unhappy and so bad for children, that it is a far better choice to be out of them. I'm a LP because a respectful, truthful, loving, happy relationship wasn't on offer with the father of my children. I wish it had been. These wankers all talk as if it were and we just decided not to go for it. It's part of making us the incomprehensible "other".