Family life is in 'meltdown': Judge launches devastating attack on our fractured society

[ScienceTeacher]

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so I think that part of the problem with women having 7 children by 5 fathers is that having babies generally used to happen in relationships that were stable, not a passing fling. We have more control over our fertility than at any other time in history yet there seem to be a a whole section of the community that sees fit to meet someone and plan to have a baby together before living together or god forbid - getting married.

A baby is not a thing - it isn't like sharing a milkshake and yet there are young couples who over a pint of cider say - ooh lets have a baby.. IMO that sets the child up to live in a disfunctional family that is more likely to break up (not always though I know that)

We need to get children to respect teachers when they first go to school, start now with our children getting them to respect each other. as they grow to have respect for themselves. Knowing that you are valued and respected can make a child less likely to get involved with the sorts of activities that will get them pregnant or involved in crime.

MC, there is no hypothesis as to how hair colour affects the statistics, but there is a hypothesis about family structure.

I don't think anyone would point the finger at a single mother who dedicated her life to bringing up her children, rather starting new relationships with men, and repeating a pattern.

Who looks after the children when mum enters into a new relationship, especially if there are not family members around to offer support?

Of course I do, but I don't think it is exclusively that. There are far, far more single parent families these days, many the result of relationship breakdown which has meant that the families are reliant on benefits. And we all know about the benefits trap and the poverty that can ensue. There are many absent fathers who take no interest in their children and their sons, in particular, can become very disaffected, failing to thrive at school which leads to the lack of qualifications.

I am certainly not saying that single parenthood is the sole cause of the break down of society, but it is a contributing factor in some cases. And my information came from a prison officer who is dealing with these inmates on a daily basis.

Please don't take this as my being against single parent families or that I blame them for all the ills of society. I don't think you can ignore the figures and the fragmentation of family must include families where the parents are no longer together. It would be obtuse to ignore it like some sacred cow.

Janni, whilst it's true it's not easy to be a single-parent, but the thing that is not easy about it for me, is that I don't have ENOUGH MONEY!! Which leads me back to the poverty issue.

A lot of well-functioning families (!?) will be able to nip trouble in the bud early. Whether that's extra lessons in maths to get them up to standard, or enough money to move to a better area....

Tinylady, you sound like my Mother now, but she is 63 and met my dad at a dance and she was a virgin when she got married. What's your excuse? Shannon Matthew's mother was probably never going to meet a man who would love AND respect her and stick around? YKWIM!!!! From her point of view, why should she choose loneliness over appearing slutty and stupid to the middle-classes?????

Science teacher, well you can just merrily type stuff like that. But I know that all these fucking articles and the stereotyping they perpetuate, they're the only real disadvantage I can see my children facing.

OK we're not well off, but nor are a lot of well functioning families.

I'm not doing it merrily, believe me. I'm doing it out of real concern for our country.

WEll, then, identify what sector it is needs help. Label that sector correctly.

It is I think the poor who need the help.

Down the line, perhaps my children will need extra lessons. I won't be able to afford them. So it will be my lack of money that will have caused their struggle. NOT the fact that I am a single mother.

I don't agree that siblings with different fathers is new. For a start up to 20% in marriage aren't the child of their father. Secondly it was common after WWII - lots of extra marital sex etc. Thirdly my grandmother who had 17 children had 2 husbands because one died in the war and I am sure that was common. And most people didn't marry in the UK until relatively speaking, historically speaking anyway and I'm sure loose cohabitation certainly among the working classes was pretty common. Having children by different fathers is genetically actually a very good thing, isn't it, better for the human race, all that extra gene mixing.

But certainly there is truth in the fact that there is more child abuse for example where stepfathers come into a home because there isn't the incest taboo and nor is there the same love (sometimes) as between natural parent and child although even that is not always so by any means. There may be advantages to women in bringing up children without men around given how much violence is done to women by men and how unreliable many of them are now and always have been. Perhaps we're moving to a situation where we can largely dispense with men and children will benefit.

We can, and do, throw money to relieve the situation but that doesn't address the moral issues that lead to the situation in the first place. That's what the government are afraid to tackle. They think if they ignore it it will go away.

I don't think it is a single parent issue either. And too simplistic to blame noyt having enough money too- It is the case for you because you have ambitions to do things with it that wiould enhance your dc's lives
Many people wouldn't think like that

MC-It is not just the middle classes who would disapprove of this kind on carry on either, believe me
Why couldn't she have met someone who respected her? Many people in her position do
It is the mentality that exists these days taht having children doesn't bring any responsibility to bring them up and teach them morals and happiness instead of making them feel they are a pain and being held up to ridicule

Interesting post Xenia. So co-habitation and different fathers for siblings isn't new. But teenagers burning out cars etc IS new.

It's the car. The train, The plane. That's what's to blame. How can we go back in time?

Our communities our so vast now, is it just one huge community in fact? The majority of people still do behave, despite the anonymity of their daily lives, but some people will take advantage ot the fact that nobody knows who they are and that they can get away with more.

Totally agree that all children need to have more respect for their teachers. Why don't they? I saw the thread about the parents of the boy who was sent home for having a stupid hair cut. FFS I can't believe some people talk about his right to express himself!!! Expressing yourself without being able to show respect sounds like a recipe for making hideous brats to me!

Also, back in the days Xenia talks about, people spent their money on food, clothes, housing. And drink I suppose. But there wasn't quite as much stuff to buy. There weren't quite so many foolish ways to spend your money. I wonder if that is part of the 'breakdown of society'. Just wondering about that one really. I haven't given that one so much thought.

Parents sticking together and raising their childrent together shows that they both have the ability to commit and to dedicate themselves to their family. It means both parents are lucky to have found one another, and lucky that circumstances have allowed them to stay together. It is a very good thing and recognising that is not necessarily having a pop at single parents.

Children will benefit from both parents being involved and taking responsibility. That does not mean that single parents can't raise their children well or that the single parent does not have the capacity to commit themselves to rearing their children.

Reading about the horrific murder of Sophie Lancaster recently, where the mothers of the teenagers who beat her to death sniggered and joked about it all through their interviews, I wondered does this show how little responsibility some parents feel for their children's behaviour?

Those teenagers had previous convictions & their mothers probably did not take that seriously either. Those women were clearly not fit to be parents, if the boys have fathers it seems unlikely that they could be equally heartless.

Parents sticking together is not a matter of luck. Strong marriages take work, and you don't start running when things get difficult.

A strong marriage needs firm foundations, which you are not likely to get if you meet in the pub one night and then jump into bed. You need some time in a non-sexual relationship before committing to one another.

If it works otherwise, then it's probably luck.

Christalmighty, ST, you've really covered your back on that one, haven't you. If I or anyone else who has a domestic/sexual arrangement you don't agree with posts, you'll just say 'ah, that's luck'.

I do, as it happens, co-parent with my daughters' father. We also are domestically/sexually involved. We're not married. We had sex instead of on a first date. I got pregnant five months later, not particularly deliberately. We seem to work things out. Our children are quite delightful.

That is true. But it's not fair to blame the women only.

Everytime I catch five minutes of Jeremy Vile, there seems to be another man who can not even believe he is the father of his own child. It makes me wonder if it is some sort of low esteem thing in the MEN. They are so worthless generally, no job, no future to speak of, not much money etc, so they find it impossible to believe that they have done something as permanent and as miraculous as fathering a child. And like the polar opposite of a gentleman, they demand a dna test. Well these are the sort of men Shannon Matthews' mother had to choose from. SO it's harsh to blame her for having had so many children with different fathers. Her choices were a chaotic lifestyle or loneliness. She didn't have 'lovely supportive hardworking husband to choose from. I bet that was just nevre one of her choices....

So it's not even starting to sort the problems out to blame her or women like her.

I was only responding to a post that said that it is luck when a marriage does work out. I don't believe that to be true.

Well, I can't see that a lack of sex in the early days is a way of assuring lifelong stability, really.

But then I don't have a problem with single parent families. In fact I find the whole nuclear family concept a lot harder to handle, in theory and in practice.

The poor will always be with us. The feckless will always be there. Go back to Shakespeare day and people were berating the youth of the day. Young boys have always done the equivalent of burning out cars.

Some people choose to have children without men (my sister is a single mother by choice by sperm donor). That would not be my choice as I like men but I don't think any amount of work on my marriage would have stopped my being a divorced single mother of five.

But I don't dispute there are now and always have been problems for children who are not brought up in loving homes. The family of the strict judge who beats them with a cane and send them to boarding school at 7 and whose wife and children live in terror of him (not saying this judge is anything like that but it's a pattern that will have been seen) damages children for life as much as any amount of neglect on a council estate.

There is nothing wrong with being poor. You can still lead a happy contented life imo
OPoverty is different in grinding people down but I think one of the problems is that parents are not teaching their children to have aspirations and work toward something better.

IMo it's a combination that on their own don't mean family 'meltdown' but poverty of expectation (bought about usually by financial poverty but not always - thinking of m/c youth too here), lack of support for education and absence of fathers often combine badly.

Boys need a role model on how to be men in society. But it does depend on the model! Last week my dh was pushed at school by 4 youths for challenging their misbehavior at lunchtime. When their parents were called in, 3 mothers came in (1 with mental health problems, 2 just very resigned to their boys' misbehaviour) and one very aggressive father. That week it was also parents evening & out of the two year 11 classes that dh teaches 10 parents turned up. In those two examples are probably the route causes.

I think another aspect is that we are generally a very affluent society, with conspicuous consumerism in everyone's faces. If you don't have the means to acquire what you see everyone else as having then you may resort to other means. We are also a very "must have it now" society, which has different implications if you are poor.

I also feel that the policy of shovelling people into high-rise blocks or crammed housing estates with little in the way of additional infrastructure results in disaffected youths looking for something to do.

Drugs play a large part too. And they are not the preserve of the poor or single parent families.

I agree with tinylady in her post earlier when she said "I think it is a distinct lack of moral fibre, or sense of responsibility
Also no respect for other people/society in general..."

Many children just do not seem to have any respect for their parents, for other people, for property, or even, in many cases - themselves. My DC's were all grown up when we started again with GS. And I can't believe how much things have changed in 20 years. From there being the odd one or two DC's (and parents) who simply didn't give a sh*t what they and their offspring did) , it now seems to be a large number of parents (single or otherwise) with children the same age as GS, who are raising a generation of obnoxious, spoiled, brats.

I think what is more worrying thesedays is the casual knife violence. It is seen as necessary to carry a blade and look tough. It is so sad that children of such a young age can have so little regard for life and so numb.
Decent teenagers must be so stressed out