Time for Parenting...

...because raising children is a full-time job

May 2002 Newsletter

From the chair; New members write; Then and Now; A Mum's CV; Women's National Commission; What the papers say; What the committee does

What the papers say

Broken Hearts

Jill Kirby's lucid publication Broken Hearts, written for the Centre for Policy Studies, of whose Family Policy Project she is chairman, came out on 11th February during National Marriage Week. It was widely covered in newspapers and periodicals.

The aspect most focussed on in the press was Britain's soaring divorce rate. Hello magazine ran a full page interview with Jill entitled WHY ARE WE THE DIVORCE CAPITAL OF EUROPE? The Mirror widened the debate by getting responses from spokesmen from various organisations. Relate blamed British lifestyles; we work too hard to give relationships the time they need.

Cary Cooper, Professor of Organisation, Psychology and Health identified the link between the rising divorce rate and too much stress at work. We have the longest working hours in Europe, two out of three couples both work, and couples feel confused about their role at home. They have less time together to sort out problems. Children demand their attention when they do get home and the couple do not have time for themselves. It is all too easy to drift apart.

Children's charity Kidscape's spokesman said that people give up on marriage too easily. 'We constantly say that it doesn't matter if a child is brought up by a single parent as long as there is love. But research shows this isn't true. Studies show the best family situation for children is a household with a man and a woman who stay together. In Britain the message seems to be that everybody has a right to have a child, while the child's right to a stable family is ignored. Excluding cases where there is violence, most children would give anything to see their parents back together.'

The Telegraph chose to highlight the fact that co-habiting couples are far less likely than married ones to stay together after the birth of a child. The sorry facts, as they reiterated, are:
* By the time that child is five; over half the co-habiting couples with have split up.
* Of those who marry after the birth, a quarter will have split up.
* Of the married parents, only 8% will have split.

As Jill Kirby says, the outcomes for children in two-parent families are far better. Yet while the European figure of children living in one-parent families is 14%, in Britain the figure is over 25%.

Problems at School

The National Union of Teachers official magazine, The Teacher, carries a report Behaviour problems make teachers' lives hell, which makes disturbing reading. 80% of teachers questioned said behaviour had 'worsened' and two thirds said that behaviour had got 'very much worse' since they began teaching. One third had witnessed possession of an offensive weapon, two thirds experienced offensive language on a weekly basis, 26% reported weekly damage to property, and 46% reported persistent malicious damage. 32 % saw regular bullying, 81% experienced regular disruption to their classes. Even nursery schools were reported as displaying high levels of unacceptable behaviour.

"The very high level of disruption to lessons is making teaching a decreasingly satisfying experience. Many teachers point to it as the final straw in making them leave the profession."

Comments from teachers included 'The rights of the disruptive child seem to take priority…5 per cent of students take up 90 per cent of staff time…..depriving the majority of their right to an education.' 'Pupil behaviour reflects a meaner, nastier, more selfish society…..start by reminding parents that they too have responsibilities'.

The plight of boys

In a thoughtful piece in The Times, Libby Purves comments on the plight of twenty first century teenage boys. In the feminised society we all now inhabit they are suffering badly from loss of role and opportunity. Those on the fringes of crime "have lost any respect for society. They have no fear of the law, the police, or even the prospect of prison" They are "calamitously dislocated from society". In its turn, society regards them as thugs or titters at them as sex maniacs.

But, says Libby Purves, throughout history most cultures have built formal gateways into manhood while their sisters entered the domestic sphere. Feminism put a stop to that, but regard for boys' needs was simultaneously erased. Boys need scope to use their strength and energy, they need physical challenge and adventure, they need male role models, they need order and last but not least, they need love. Ignoring these things, allowing them to feel incompetent and loutish in the feminised world of today, does no one any favours.

Good Neighbours

Oliver Letwin, Shadow Home Secretary, was in the news early in the New Year with his speech putting forward his idea of the 'neighbourly society'. With the idea of focussing on the positive, in other words, on the opposite of crime, he described the 'virtuous cycle of social responsibility' where the individual plays his part in the community and the community sustains the neighbourly society'.

He emphasised the need for creating good relationships, supportive communities and networks of friends, families and schools and other sources of identity and self-worth. Active community policing would also be important.

At FTM we would applaud these ideas but suggest that the work of creating good citizens starts at or even before birth, with support for both parents and child. Then there is a real chance of setting an individual on the path to becoming a good neighbour.

The cult of self-esteem

There seems to be a slightly brisker less PC attitude coming in. A piece in The Times attacked the 'cult of self-esteem', the over-lavish giving of praise. Children programmed so hard to feel good about themselves find it hard to handle disappointment or respect the feelings of others. Empty praise makes them into empty adolescents who are more self-absorbed and materialistic than previous generations.

Slaves to children

In another piece in The Times entitled 'A slave to my children' Maeve Haran wonders how children have gone from being seen and not heard to ruling the roost. She says that 'the pressure to be a perfect parent means self-sacrifice, but it is not really worth it.

Now that so many women work, we also worry that we aren't physically as available as our mothers were, and try to make up for it by giving in. I've watched myself and my friends being turned into slaves by our children, and I've finally had enough….. We've lost that sense of natural authority that guided previous parents, and we've ended up giving in in order to be popular. It's time to take control again,' she says, 'clearly and without apology.'

Family first for fathers

Another change in the air seems to be 'the new trend among high-flying men who have decided to put their family first.' The Sunday Telegraph described how it is now not unheard-of for fathers to re-think their working life in order to have time for their children. Some have shrunk their working week to three days, some have changed careers, some are working from home, and even Prince Charles is said to be cutting down on his official engagements in order to spend more time with his sons.