Selfish parents ruin their children's lives

[HecateQueenOfGhosts]

according to this

What do you think?

"I am stunned that this report has blamed family breakdown on women's financial independence" me too. In times past when women didn't have their own income they had little access to legal help if they wanted to leave a marriage. They were often trapped in horrible relationships. So now that women earn their own wage they are less vunerable and can make changes to their lives (and the lives of their children) if they need/want to.

If they think this is a bad thing then they can stuff it up their arses!

Oi! Smiley interpolation

(Sorry, not you beanieb)

And it is interesting to note that the reasons UK children fare so badly are almost exactly the same reasons why we are so badly placed to weather the global recession. It's not good for any of us. and

Snowleopard - excellent posts.

Someone has told me this is a study funded by Christians. Would that explain the 'mothers should be at home' and 'couples should be married' bias?

"But looking back my mum was miserable and lonely much of the time. She wanted to work and couldn't. She was always juggling money and doing without so that they could afford the school fees. She made clothes, made all our food, grew all our veg, kept chickens, not because it was a nice middle class occupation, but because she had to.n She did a lot of the gardening and decorating as well as all the normal chores. My idyllic childhood depended entirely on my mother's domestic servitude (and that is not putting it too strongly). And DB and I picked up on our mum's lack of confidence and resentment and it left it's mark. And fwiw our education wasn't all that great either."

Would she have been happier shopping in waitrose and picking you up from after school care at 6pm ?
For god sake what will it take for people to just appreciate what they've got and live in the moment.
I think we are all a miserable bunch because we cannot stop and smell the roses.

It seems from the website that not all in the information is being released today.

Here's one first thing I've found about working mothers:

'Other major changes that have an impact on children?s lives include the working patterns of parents. People in the UK work
longer hours than in any other country in Western Europe. There has also been a large rise in the proportion of mothers working,
with the largest increase among women with a child under five. In households with children, 1.5 earners are now the norm. Over
a third of people find it difficult to meet their family responsibilities because of the time spent at work over the last three months.'

That's an observation of recordable facts, not a judgement on anyone, it seems to me. (But there could be more...)

But I don't think this report is all about working mums - it's about society as a whole. My childhood was very carefree - I could go out on my bike all day, and school life was much less pressured than it is now. We now have very high expectations from life, and everything has to have a purpose. I have friends who will not let their teenage children do part time work or voluntary work as it could interfere with their studies, but they have time to fit in music, football etc, when working is so useful and fulfilling. There are children that are totally pressured in their exams - and what for? So that they can all have City jobs, when there are so many less well paid jobs that are fufilling. My SIL recently said that she would not let her DS be a teacher because they do not earn enough! Maybe aspirations are high now, and that is not a bad thing, but the happiest people I know are those who are happy with their lot, and maybe that is what we need to encourage.

sorrento, I think one compelling reason why people should not 'just appreciate what they've got and live in the moment' is that our children have some of the lowest welfare indicators in Europe.

policywonk - but it is just a misconception that the British work such long hours. They don't. What the British do do, for cultural and logistical reasons, is travel a long way to work/school. It is really quite easy to spend a lot more time with your family if you all work/go to school within 10/15 minutes of home and it lots of European countries this sort of arrangement is considered standard good practice.

Blame the government in the 1960s which subsidised train fares and got everyone moving miles from work...

agree with you quattro

Children today are being killed by kindness in so many ways, literally eating themselves to death, but that's actually not what I mean at all.
If you have to work then you work 40 hours a week, that gives you lots of time not at work to enjoy your life yes ?
So make the bloody most of it.

Right, that bit I posted below is the only mention of working mothers in the whole of the 'Family' section - everything else is about 'parents' (quite rightly). It's also very even-handed on the subject of separation and divorce IMO.

And also what VS said about family as a whole. Families are so much more splintered. So are communities. Particularly in inner city areas.

That's interesting Anna - I was just quoting from the report below.

agree with Anna - When dh and I worked in England, we both spent more hours in work, but in Belgium, we're expected to work harder in fewer hours.

Children's Society is an Anglican organisation, yes.

Okay I haven't read the report properly, but I've skimmed and searched for keywords and I really don't think it does say that couples should be married (it's harder to search for keywords on mothers should stay at home but haven't found that either). There are some quotes from the children surveyed saying they think it would be better to have two parent families (a significant minority said this apparently). But that is hardly surprising, since they're constantly bombarded with media reports slagging off the lone parent family. It's not the Children's Society recommending this.

I really don't think the CofE or Christians generally are peddling a 1950s housewife lifestyle in this report.

In fact, I've found hardly anything in the report to back up any of the assertions made in the BBC report the OP linked to. (And I'm a married, Anglican SAHM so I've got a vested interest in finding something to massage my ego with)

Right I ought to go and interaact with my, y'know, kids.

But please ladies, take some time to read the actual material - don't rely on the media reports. They appear to be making it up as they go along.

(Although I agree that the Children Society's status as a church-affiliated organisation ought to be made much more clear.)

x-post with mrsg - i think we're saying the same thing

What I will agree with is that we are being sold a serious lie in this country. When it has got to the point that even high earners find it hard to make ends meet in some parts of the country because of stupidly high house prices, what hope have the majority got?

The values of this society may be all wrong, but we don't even know how we got here, let alone how to get out.

One thing I am sure about is that a massive credit and asset price bubble has been engineered by Gordon Brown and other Western governments. What I don't understand is why? Whose vested interests were served by this?

When life is a constant struggle against debt and money problems, it has an impact on family life and well-being. Working excessive hours, money problems are definitely contributory factors to miserable parents and miserable families.

What is so so ridiculous is that we all need a roof over our heads, and that should be a fundamental, not something we have to sell our souls to achieve.

This has driven a wedge between rich and poor that very very few people can bridge. Capital keeps the rich rich and the poor poor.

If you ignore the DM type twaddle about working mothers ruining the fabric of society (haven't read the report, and that may be pure media interpretation for all I know), what has been reported on the BBC seems pretty sound to me. I do think that in Britain far too many children are left at far too young an age to fend for themselves: many children live in houses where for convenience everyone grazes on ready meals and snacks rather than sits down to shared meals, and where every child has a telly and computer in their room to avoid having to negotiate over which channel to watch/ whose turn it is on the family computer. Ultimately loneliness is not so much about being alone as being alone in a crowded place iyswim. As someone brought up in France (where the rate of working parents is far higher traditionally than it has been in the UK), it shocks me to see how uninvolved many people are in their teenaged children's lives, as though on reaching 11 they suddenly no longer need adult input.

The result I think is children who have little meaningful contact with their significant adults from a shockingly young age, and who first impulse as soon as they are able is to find a supportive peer group- be it a "gang", online contacts, etc...

duchesse - 11 year olds around here, in Paris/Neuilly, are very much left to fend for themselves. Basically the start of collège, where timetables are varied and flexible, make "childcare"/adult company at the beginning and end of the day impractical (unless you are really very rich and have maids at home as a matter of course).

is there a list of the questions they asked while doing their research anywhere? full report is not published until 5th Feb.

Oh for god's sake, not this 'working mothers are to blame for all of society's ills' drivel again. Ok I haven't read the actual report, but the way BBC is reporting this (without challenging any of the assumptions in the report, or even worse, presenting the report in a particular light) is shameful.

The way words such as 'selfish' and 'individualistic' are thrown around with a very clear assumption that this has to do with working mothers is also shameful (and so so predictable & boring).

As for the substance of the issue, whether children are more unhappy today than they were in the past. To be honest, I find the whole thing a non-issue. The 'past' is a very general, vague thing; the way things were in the past were different from town to town, from household to household, from country to country etc. I agree with everyone who wrote about our ridiculous idealization of the past, especially the '50s. There was no such ideal past, it's simply an illusion.

One thing that I do think is a real problem in today's world, is the fact that children don't have independent space & time of their own. They're always with an adult present(particularly in big cities). When I grew up (and I'm 35 now, so not THAT long ago), I was able to roam the streets with friends, especially during the summers, play, discuss, fight, create our own rules, without our parents. I think this is a huge change in today's society and it really influences how children experience their life. So that could be a change for the worst... I personally think all the rest has to do with economic difficulties (again, especially in big cities where property costs what it costs) & definitely has little to do with 'working mothers' or the 'break-up of marriage'.