Selfish parents ruin their children's lives

[HecateQueenOfGhosts]

according to this

What do you think?

About the working Mums, I always want to point out that it is far less common to find a SAHM (beyond maternity leave) in Scandinavia, so why should this mean that the UK is worse than other European countries.

I know plenty of kids here who are at home with their Mum until they start school: I don't know any child in Sweden who hasn't been to nursery.

So I think it's less simple than blaming working Mums. The problem is, the factors that I think we should be blaming are so horrendously difficult to do anything about- easier to blame those Mums again.

I really don't see how a civil birth ceremony is going to miraculously cure society's ills!

same in Belgium cory, I'm one of very few SAHMs. Wasn't there a government leaflet in England recently encouraging mothers to go back to work? They can't make up their minds can they (the government that is).

"It also suggests that having many more working mothers has contributed to the damage done to children.

"Most women now work and their new economic independence contributes to levels of family break-up"

I think the way this has been put is outrageous.
In one breath they say that bringing up children requires 2 people and in the next blame working mothers
Surely it's not women's economic independence that is always the cause of family break-up but the means for some women to escape abusive relationships.

From the Children's Society Good Childhood Inquiry

Full report

Summary

yes I thought that juuule, about women being able to leave abusive relationships due to more financial independance.

It's disgraceful the way they sweepingly blame unhappy childhoods on working mothers, without being able to back that up.

breathtakingly shite article.

This is the link to the Reflections on Childhood, Family part of the inquiry.

or leave the kids to go feral while they spend their life on the internet.

Load of old tosh

This is aside from the situation in the o.p BUT what is worrying me, a few of my friends are single mums with young famillies nd several of them have taken jobs in a new supermarket locally,thats all well and good but whilst they are being given some extra £50 a week incentive to go back to work for a year....none of them have been able to arrange childcare to back up hours they will be working there is no care in place for illness or school closure (wont go into holidays) 'oh ill ring in sick' said one of these ladies - the lone parent dviser has told them they will be far better off in work and they wont have to attend the interviews nymore there lives will become so simple once they are earning their own keep.

So what of their children?
left to the haphhazard childcare?
how long before my friends realise that calling in sick doesnt go down well?

Im concerned the government is using scare tactics to get single mums into work any work and not pre planning the consequences.

Well, comments like "three times as many three year olds living with lone parents or a step-parent have behavioural problems" are simply outrageous - it implies blame without explaining what the relationship between the two things could be.

It might mean - "living with a lone parent damages children". But it could just as easily mean "the circumstances which cause couples to break up also damage children", or even in some cases "having a child with behavioural issues adds an extra stress to marriages"

I agree with a lot of what the report says, but am very disappointed that they have yet again re-hashed the old myth that women just go out to work for fun, leaving latch-key kids at home going feral.

If housing became affordable, family life would get a lot less stressed, and we could ALL, men and women, afford to work less.

Part of the reason why I am in Germany is because the work-home balance is better for my children, mainly because housing is more affordable. But I have ranted before on mn about the preciousness of the SAHMs here, who are in the majority, and are wasting their super-management skills on annoying others being the class parent rep.

AMum - they made no attempt to distinguish between children who had experienced their parents divorcing, and those who hadnt. That might have been a more meaningful statistic than the implied blame of single parents.

It reminds me of something I read that Riven had written yesterday that made me think.

IMO, It's not that mothers work but that family as a whole seems to be much less helpful.

Many of my friends at school had mothers at work or were from single parent families and they had no issues, but they, more often than not had help from extended family, Grand-parents, aunts, uncles etc all looked out for the child/ren, now the 'family' is much smaller with everyone worrying about their own lives. The same lives that used to be entwined.

Now I heard this vaguely on radio this morning. And I sort of agreed in principle with the sentiments expressed. I can see that selfishness in society in general isn#t going to help children to grow up well and happy.

But it appears it's the fault of working mothers. Of course! How stupid to imagine it could be anything else. Isn't it lovely when life is so simple