Is anybody else angry about Cameron blaming single parents for the riots?

[Twylah]

As a single parent I am very upset and angry about Cameron blaming single parents for the riots.

I am taking it personally (although I wasn't involved) because he is vilifying and undermining the great work that many single parents do. Bad parenting can happen in 1-parent families but it also happens when there are two parents. It has also been proved that children's health can be affected in a negative way if the parents are constantly arguing. A child's emotional intelligence can also be undermined if the relationships within the family are negative.

It seems to me that the Tories have been waiting for a chance to vilify us. Many single parents, like myself, do paid work as well as voluntary work in their community.

At the moment I feel marginalized and I don't feel that I belong to Cameron's Utopia of 2 parent families where life is beautiful.

As someone who was brought up by a single parent, who did remarry, I can honestly say that my childhood traumas began when my stepfather joined our family. He sexually and physically abused me and other members of my family.

In my opinion 2-parent families are not always a good thing but as a single parent I would welcome sharing familial responsibilities as it can make life easier. However, this only works when the relationships within the family are positive. None of this is considered in the discussions around living in a 2-parent family.

I also think that structural issues such as the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer should be considered. I am not saying that being poor means that you should cause damage but I am well aware of some of the frustrations that people are feeling at the moment. (I am definitely now one of them!)

There is a saying that people will either talk or torch. Many people have been on the peaceful protests and have signed petitions but life still seems to be getting harder for the majority of people. Only people earning over £100,000 seem to be OK.

Who will be looking in to this? It is too easy to blame single parents who are vulnerable in many ways.

so, is it poverty in families that they are blaming or having one parent, instead of two, at home, that they are blaming? or is it ok for mum and dad to be on the dole? but not just mum?

Ok, so I see (Trompette appears to be problematic, too).

Maybe people should only get a vote if they can actually spell the name of the current Prime Minister.

The thing is that more LP's work than married women after a certain age of their children. All they are doing is blaming a silent group of people, made up of mostly women and children. It's called scapegoating isn't it. And the media and too many of the population think it is true.

Funny trumpet-what a blast!

there was a fab interview from teenagers on this week from radio london in response to the 'no dad' theory

on kid got away with calling david cameron a nob (on air) was fantastic

the london youths interviewed have not been fairly represented in the media.

Yes I'm very angry. There are many single parent households and the only thing that they have in common is that there is only one adult living with the children.

Tories tarr everyone in this situation with the same brush. I don't know about the stats as to whether crimes are committed by kids from one parent households.

How about finding out when the parents stopped living together and could these kids have turned out wrong because the male that has left fucked them up before he left etc.

'one kid got away with calling david cameron a nob (on air) was fantastic'

was he interviewed after coming out of one of these midnight courts?

adamschic - one thing single parent families do not set a good model for is the model of a long-lasting, committed, stable adult relationship. As a result, the children of single parents are statistically less likely to have a long lasting, committed, stable relationship themselves in adulthood. This is not a good thing in my opinion - bringing up children alone is extremely hard work and can be very lonely and complicated, and frankly a lot of people aren't up to the job, albeit that many do a fantastic job and many do a better job alone than they would have done with the useless partner they made the mistake of having children with. As a result, as the generations go by, more and more people seem to have become very poor at establishing long term, committed and stable relationships, or worse, seem to have stopped believing that they are even possible or desirable. How would you stop this trend, or do you not believe that more people than is currently the case are capable of establishing a long-term, stable and committed relationship with someone?

I don't think you can stop the trend, unless you stop educating girls and make women unemployable. Wanting a long term relationship i.e finding someone you are perfectly happy with is different from needing a long term relationship to feed your children.

Surely it's not the fault of the single parent who bothered to stick around and raise their child but of the parent who fucked off?

There are all sorts of reasons people end up raising children alone. The teenage single mum getting pregnant to get a council house and benefits is a myth. Many young girls would have hoped the father stuck around. The percentage are very low too and not a threat to the tory people or society.

Many single parents are older and divorced for one reason or another. Plenty are supporting their children with minimal state help, just child benefit and tax credits which are also paid to women in long term relationships.

Even before the riots they were having a go at single parents, they always do, the riots have just given them ammunition. They haven't a clue who some of the perpetrators are let alone their family background.

I haven't a clue whether I have raised my DD to not want a long term relationship. I have taught her to be independent and that you need to be able to pay your own way in life. So far so good, she has respect for herself which isn't always the case with teenage girls is it?

If you'd like some facts to throw in their faces, read this article:

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/19/single-mothers-uk-riots-tanya-gold

I think it is a shame if it is a trend which cannot be stopped (albeit I don't think punishing single parents and therefore at the same time their children, and blaming them for all society's ills, is a good way to reverse the trend!!!!!). I also can't help wondering why the rates of single parenthood are so high in this country compared to elsewhere in Europe. Is it because other European countries actually discriminate even more against single parents than we do in the UK? Or are there other attitudes, expectations, state interventions, or ways in which other societies are set up which enable more nuclear families to stick together elsewhere than is the case here?

Rabbitstew, have you had chance to read the link that Solopower put up, it might open your eyes a bit.

Yes, I have read the link. There's a difference between blaming single parents for the world's woes (which I don't - most single parents would rather someone had stayed around to help them and do a perfectly good job of bringing up considerate, well behaved children) and thinking that single parenthood is not an ideal. If you don't think it is an ideal situation, then I think you should be entitled to discuss it without the black and white comments that either condemn all single parents as feckless and blameworthy or refuse even to consider whether something can be done to help more parents bring up their children together. You could say it's the difference between saying single parents are to blame and saying that the society we live in is to blame and a large number of single parents living in poverty and isolation is one of the symptoms of that.

If most are bringing up considerate, well behaved children, they why are we a problem? You get some awful people in the world, some are brought up by one or two parents.

Most children in single parents households are not in poverty, some are but so are some children with two parents. You are saying it's not ideal but someone else might prefer to not want to live with their partner anymore so it's their ideal. What is it you object to?

Iggly has summed it up. Single mothers, often deserted by the men, are being blamed by misogynists (there's no other word for it) for 'social breakdown'- which is in fact represented by the selfish attitudes of the men involved. Yet apart from the odd bit of cant about 'fatherless families', this is ignored. For men in particular in this society, there's always something better, someone younger and 'fitter', more time 'for yourself', more time down the pub. There's a reason you don't usually see women buggering off into the ether with new partners leaving dad to look after the kids, and that is that women are a. socialised to care and b. seem to have a lot more resistance to the individualism and selfish 'achieve/enjoy' rhetoric that abounds in the Western world.

I find it quite repulsive that the Right (and it is mostly them- in fact pretty much only them) have twisted the facts of a plethora of sad contemporary situations to create a caricature of a man-eating-then-spitting-out, selfish Norma Bates style single mum who breeds feral young and squats brooding over them, like some sort of Queen Spider. Usually ensconced on a council estate where she can also suck up money from righteous 'taxpayers'.

There may well be disadvantages to bringing up a kid alone. God knows I am feeling them tonight and I am a divorced mum with a 50:50 custody arrangement so not a true 'single mother' but I do have no respite from another adult when my boys are with me and god does it get draining.

however, I constantly read posts on here where the father behaves appallingly in 'happily married' couples: does nothing, behaves like another kid.

I think what single mother haters really hate, is women, not single women who have kids. Because women are to blame for reproduction, and for not 'keeping their man'. It stinks to high heaven.

not just single women who have kids....

adamschic - I think it's a problem because a large proportion of my friends from school were from single parent families and, whilst they have all grown up to be responsible adults holding down good jobs, several of them have actively chosen never to have children because (their words not mine) they are scared of repeating their parents' mistakes and didn't have happy childhoods themselves - better to make the mistakes without children involved, they think. And none of them (with or without children) have remained married/in a committed relationship for more than ten years. All have also spoken of the stress of witnessing a parent having to deal with suddenly being financially much worse off, having to work far harder, being more stressed, getting more tired than they ought to, having less support than they had expected, being more bitter and critical than they ought to be in front of the children, arguing over visiting rights, holidays or Christmas presents, bringing potential new partners into the household that were not liked or trusted by the children etc, etc... not to mention the fact that they missed the absent parent and felt they couldn't be honest about their feelings for their father in front of their mother or their mother in front of their father without being scared they would upset someone, or that they secretly did worry that it was their fault that one parent had left them, even if they were reassured this wasn't the case, or that they felt sad that they no longer saw grandparents on one side of the family, for example. Yes, they all have good manners, are respectful and have good jobs, and their single parents did their very best, but I don't think their upbringings were a resounding success if they don't want to repeat them.

Of my friends whose parents have remained together, the vast majority are in a similar position themselves. Yes, I'm sure that in another 10 or 20 years some of these people will be divorced, but to date, these friends seem to be happier in their adult lives, seem to have fewer insecurities and express greater fondness for their childhoods than my other friends do.

As a result, I do find it hard to believe that becoming a single parent is desirable rather than, in some cases, inevitable.

Oh I see, I don't know anyone like that tbh. My parents were together. I have lots of friends most have children and some who don't. 3 of my friends are childless (and past it now) 2 because they couldn't find the right man (I find that quite sad) and 1 didn't want them. Only 1 friend was brought up by her mum alone and has 2 children. Cannot think of any friends who's parents had divorced at all. I think family breakdown and bad handling by parting parents are to blame for children being traumatised rather than single parenthood.

I don't know how you address this either.

I didn't get divorced, never married DD's dad so she hasn't had to suffer that. She really wants children of her own though.

well, the Tories would say that wouldn't they. Men love marriage; married men are the happiest group of people in society, followed by single women, then married women and finishing off with single men.

Conservative politicians aren't doing their job if they're not promoting patriarchal agendas, and what they're trying to do is frighten women into marriage. Fairy stories about princes don't seem to be working any more; you can't force women into economic dependence like you used to... so one of the only options left for these men is to make single mothers into pariahs in the hope that women will keep marrying.

I'd be surprised if single women with children were amongst the happiest in society.

Well you might just be surprised Rabbitstew. I think we have it quite nice all in all. No man to scivvy for pick up after, tell us what to do and frighten the children .

I'm so much happier as a single parent and I've watched dd blossom. I'm financially better off, dd lives in a nicer home, I'm calmer, have less stress and aggravation and plenty of support. I've never had an argument over contact, I don't see it as "visiting rights", he has as much "right" to see her as I do. She misses her Dad and tells me so. Oh and I've done all that without any financial help from him and no help from him other than having her a couple of nights a fortnight.

I really can't relate to the picture you're painting of being a single parent rabbitstew.

. I see I have it lucky with my dh!