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Family splits cause social problems - Tory report.
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
"Iain Duncan Smith's report for the Tories on poverty, found family splits caused social problems costing £20bn.
An underclass was being "left behind" by the rest of society, he warned."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6165833.stm
I have noticed myself that, among my acquaintances, the poorest ones and the ones who commit crime, take drugs and have casual sex mostly seem to come from broken homes. So what can the government do to help keep families together?
An underclass was being "left behind" by the rest of society, he warned."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6165833.stm
I have noticed myself that, among my acquaintances, the poorest ones and the ones who commit crime, take drugs and have casual sex mostly seem to come from broken homes. So what can the government do to help keep families together?
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Comments
the most common thing that causes tension between couples (not sure about splitting though) is money....
But tbh, broken homes aren't going to go away now. There's nothing the government can do about people splitting up/leaving kids etc. It's not all the governments fault....it's how society has developed....or rather undeveloped.
All of these things are linked to broken homes, so maybe, just maybe looking at supporting/encouraging family life would be one way to work on the cause rather than the result.
Like I'd give credence to anything IDS says anyway, dictionary definition of a useless tosser.
however, poorer people are more likely to have more kids and divorce - and when you're born at the bottom, it's hard to work your way up to the top. People still need to take more responsibility for their kids though, they learn from you afterall.
Indeed they don't, but a higher proportion do than homes that have the same 2 parents for the entire of the childs upbringing. I think you're right, it's about encouraging people to take responsibilty for their children.
While I agree that it's not impossible to raise a "good" child on your own, when you're attempting to recover from the emotional damage yourself you can't always keep all the plates spinning, and more often than not it's the child's stability that suffers.
Oddly enough, New Labour are systematically destroying the tradition of marriage (removal of MIRAS, all other tax breaks, and now allowing non-married couples to have all the same rights without any of the commitment) at the same time that crime, poverty and anti-social behaviour levels are all shooting through the roof. Anyone would think that it was a coincidence.
I think anyone who discounts it simply because of who published it is being a moron, tbh.
But I saw this on the news last night and one of the Tories was saying that parents should stay together even if they are unhappy and arguing just for the sake of their children.
I grew up in an unhappy home where my parents stayed together but constantly argued, fought, and it was a horrible atmosphere. I think it may have been far more healthy for my parents to divorce and in fact since I have left home they have said that they are going to. I agree with making an effort to stay together, not just splitting up at the first row, but it's not healthy for children to grow up watching a bad relationship and being stuck in the middle.
Whoever said that is a numpty too, but I think there's a growing problem with people not committing properly to each other and tossing away the relationship at the first sign of trouble. I don't believe in "staying together for the kids", though, as you've said.
I honestly think that the growing trend towards split families goes hand-in-hand with people becoming less likely to marry, and believing that co-habiting is the same thing. People shouldn't stay in dead relationships, but people seem far more likely to leave at the first sign of trouble rather than having the dedication to work through problems, because they've never committed to their partner in the same way.
Not really.
The Tories continue to be so out of touch with average problems and viable solutions it is quite unbelievable. This is not to even mention the fact that the few valid points raised by IDS are theories and issues that have been being discussed - and at length - for years now. Groundbreaking stuff, really. Of course it is far from ideal to have more parents splitting than staying together; and to also witness a steep incline in behavioural and social intergration problems possibly [and even then only in part] caused by familial turmoil. But to suggest that the solution lies in somehow forcing (or I guess we should say "encouraging") couples to stick together when they are unhappy or making it more difficult to get married and/or divorced is barbaric and basically pretty stupid imo. Oh, won't somebody think of the children! :rolleyes: I'm not sure myself what the solution is, but I know it isn't plying guilt and pressure on people to be the "nuclear family" when they aren't. Round pegs, square holes and all that.
I won't go on (here) to say what I really think about Labour's moves to lessen the importance placed on the legal status of marriage and related tradition as opposed to co-habitation etc, but suffice to say I don't personally think it's a particularly bad thing.
That would be socialism, wouldn't it? Rights without responsibilities has always been more of the doctrine of left-wing liberalism hasn't it?
and
There's nothing to argue about there, really.
I believe that the rising divorce rates, and the fact that half of all co-habiting parents split before their child gets to school, is as a direct result of New Labour policy destroying marriage and destroying any financial benefit of staying together. New Labour policy has also destroyed the extended family networks with their policies that have sent house prices through the roof- up and down the country young families can no longer afford to live anywhere near their parents and grandparents.
To put it into context, I know that me and GWST would be better off after having children if we get divorced and live next-door to each other. I can't believe that anyone thinks that's condusive to stable family relationships.
Is that anything to do with being married though, or would the situation be exactly the same if you were simply cohabiting?
It would probably be the same if we were co-habiting too, to be honest, but either way, it hardly makes people stay together.
It has been proven time and time again that the stablest way to raise children is in marriage, and I honestly think that the tax structure should reflect that. At the very least it should the geared to encourage people to live together rather than split up.
Whatever one feels about IDS, the source of the figures he produced need to be poo-pooed if they are incorrect rather than just dismissing them only because IDS is a 'tosser'.
I know that when I was growing up, troublesome teenagers almost always came from broken/single parent homes. It's not a comfortable viewpoint because it is not politically correct, but in my experience, it has been usually true ...
I get what you mean, but I very much doubt any couple would purposefully split up just for a bit of extra money. In any case, it's more expensive to live in a house with fewer people. You can't financially punish people for getting divorced or splitting up with a live in partner.
I personally believe that these tax breaks should only be for married people, because marriage is proven to be far more secure and a far more stable way of raising children, but if they were re-introduced for all co-habiting parents I wouldn't complain.
There is a certain amount of stating the obvious in this report, but why the vitriol against the "tosser" if that's the case? If he's stating the obvious then he's right, after all.
Now he appears to be the voice of the ugliest (and I had hoped defunct) side of Conservatism.
Gays apparently "don't even measure in the Ritcher scale" when it comes to raising children. Unmarried couples are not much better. Single mothers should beware: the ghost of Margaret Thatcher's hate campaign against them will being raised again next.
So much for the new, modern, caring Tories eh?
Is that really an accurate viewpoint from you though, Aladdin? My understanding of IDS's statement on gays was that so few are actually parents that any figures gleaned about them would make no difference to the overall report he is putting forward ...
It's a bit like what New Labour says about Scottish MPs allowed to vote on English issues ... there are too few of them to make any difference to the English vote. Yeah, right.
Gays weren't stuided because so few gay people are parents that the statistics would be meaningless. Which is fair enough, and shows good research skills.
As for the rest of the drivel, Aladdin must have been reading a different report to the rest of us. IDS' comments on small ships not rising with the tide seem pretty much the antithesis of Thatcherism to me.
I note Aladdin doesn't comment on the research that shows half of all unmarried parents split before their child is even in school. I wonder if that's because it blows a huge hole in his argument that co-habiting is better than marriage?
The persecution, once again, of anything other than the straight, married 2.4 nuclear family and blaming all of society's ills on those evil unmarried couples and single parents is the dictionary definition of Thatcherism. Don't you think?
If you think a child is better off locked in a loveless, unhappy marriage than in a happy and positive one parent family you need to think things very carefully.
I put it to you, and to anyone else who cares to listen, that if a couple has irreversable differences is better for the child in most cases to live in a happy one parent household than with two unhappy parents just sticking together "for the sake fo the children".
I don't think that a child is better off in a loveless unhappy two parent home than in a happy positive one parent home.
However, children do better with continuity, and the single parent homes that tend to lead to problematic children often lack that continuity. There's the one parent that stays and there's the current boyfriend who comes and goes, dumps/gets dumped and may or may not have any interest in the children.
Ruling something out as nonsense because of the person who published it is utterly daft, read the report, analyse it and then say it's nonsense fine, but think before you judge.
Looking at gay parents would have been a futile exercise because the number is statistically insignificant and would have had no effect.
Given that the comments I quoted were spoken ten days ago, I do.
Not really, I think its a case of bears shitting in the woods.
Unless you disagree with the idea that the children of single-parent families are more likely to undertake criminal and anti-social behaviour and that the children of divorced parents are more likely to suffer mental health troubles as a result of the trauma of divorce.
I don't, but I happen to think that if the child's parents are committed enough to marry each other then there is a much better chance of the child being in a happy and positive two-parent family. The statistics speak for themselves- half of co-habiting parents split before their child is in school. To contrast, about a quarter of married parents will split, and there are more co-habiting parents than married parents.
Do you agree, or not, that a child should ideally be raised in a happy and loving two-parent family?