Absent Fathers

[anotheoldgit]

Someone said in a previous thread:

/// "Heterosexual people have various partners and manage to bring up unconfused children". ///

Perhaps they should read this?

/// Absent fathers are a common factor among criminals, drug addicts, and self-harmers ///

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2359643/My-week-man-desert-In-parts-Britain-70-children-live-fathers-YASMIN-ALIBHAI-BROWN-visited-discovered-devastating-consequences.html

[ummmm]

Or a married same sex couple :-)

[Octavius]

I'm wondering which type of crim my niece will turn out to be.

[ummmm]

My kids are good....they have never been caught for their crimes.

[beso]

Absence of fathers suggests a single parent family which is associated with decreased availability of the parent as they work to support the family. It may also be associated with feelings of lower self worth by the children because their absent parent left.

These are not issues in a family with same sex parents.

Moreover the stigma imposed by some upon single parent families is also likely to contribute.

It is the stigma heaped upon same sex parented families by some that stands the greatest change of causing problems for the children. Indeed it is remarkable that despite this extra burden that the children of same sex parents are really no different from those of heterosexual families.

[dave50]

There used to be shame from the community on women for having children out of wedlock and shame on fathers who don't face up to their responsibilities. If that was still the case, this problem would hardly exist. Now everyone wants instant gratification and pleasure without have to face any consequences.

[jim360]

Is that shame really helpful though? Probably for the fathers who "hit and run" or similar, shaming them might help. But even then it's doubtful, because if they didn't want to face up to their responsibilities making them do so might not be that helpful either. Also shaming a woman for making a mistake doesn't solve any problems. Time to help and make sure that the child and mother grow up without problems, and leave moral judgement outside.

[ummmm]

Wow....lets go back to the days where women had to stay in unhappy or abusive marriages because of the social stigma.

[Octavius]

Are you suggesting we should go back to the 'good old' days when women who had children without being married were ashamed to keep their children? Has 'instant gratification and pleasure without have to face any consequences' not been mainly the preserve of men for some time now.

Have you never seen Long Lost Families???

[ummmm]

Nicely put, Octavius.

[Sharingan]

When my mother and father got together they were both single parents, my mother of one son, my father of 5 sons, they were all doing okay. I appeared and later my younger sister.I also have two ' foster' brothers for want of a bgetter way of putting it. Then my parents split up. My father has never remarried but my mother has had several relationships ( shock horror) and my German step father has six daughters from previous relationships as well as two sets of twins with my mother. They have also now split up. This totals 18 children between them all. Although the majority of the ' children' mentioned are now adults, there are seven very unconfused, very well adjusted children who simply have a very large extended family which they enjoy being part of. It's not being a single parent that is the problem, it's what sort of human being you are in the first place. If you leave your kids and ignore them, that's not good enough. If you have several failed relationships but take your duties as a parent seriously then you'll always rear intelligent, well adjusted children who are worldly but anything but confused.
Before anyone suggests this would make a good Jeremy Kyle episode or soemthing equally insulting, no-one concerned claims or has ever claimed any benefits for the children mentioned and none of us are criminals, drug addicts or self harmers.

[Gromit]

The example given in the article, Ladywood in Birmingham has a majority of White British people, so it can't have anything to do with race.

[bazwillrun]

Taken from Ladywood Profile 2012 Draft.pub - Birmingham City Council

"Ladywood has a total land area of 2,567 hectares making it the third largest constituency in
Birmingham. The constituency has a population of 115,554, the second largest population of all
the constituencies in the city; Ladywood has the fifth highest population density of the 10
constituencies at 45 people per hectare. 49.8% of Ladywood constituency’s population are
female and 43.5% of the population are aged 24 and under, resulting in the Ladywood
constituency having the second highest proportion of young people compared with the other
constituencies. In the Ladywood constituency, Blackand Minority Ethnic (BME) groups make up
64% of the total population; the highest proportionof any constituency and over twice the city
average of 29.6% and over seven times the national average of 9.1%. "

[Gromit]

Apologies AOG/Baz

My figures were from the 2001 Census. Genuine error.

[andy-hughes]

While I have no wish to suggest that AOG's stance is the same as the Mail's on this -

the Mail regularly likes to trumpet this sort of tosh because it infers, none too subtly I might add, that black men make feckless absent fathers whose absence leads to delinquent children.

This appeals massively to its target audience of middle-class marrieds who think people of colour who live on estates are akin to outser-space invaders!

Try this -

'A woman who lives on a estate who is divorced, and has three children by two different men. Her daughter lives on the same estate, is also divorced, and has two children by two different fathers.

Looks bad doesn't it?

Ecxept that the ladies in question are my wife and my eldest daughter. our estate is highly desireable, and both ladies live with their current husbands. The older lady of the two - my wife - is a Schools Inspector for Ofsted and The ISA, and lives in a £400,000+ house with her husband (me), and her daughter lives in a similarly valuable property with her husband who owns an engineering business with contracts from the MOD.

It just depends how you present the truth - but not the whole truth.

[ummmm]

That's exactly it, Andy. It comes down to money...

[emmie]

just another perspective, point.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/10110536/Liverpool-a-city-of-absent-fathers.html

[andy-hughes]

Actually ummm - I think it is far more complex than that.

Disposition towards bad behaviour can occur in any children, but those who are disadvantaged by environment, schooling, culture, family structure, support systems, and so on - all have a part to play.

To suggest that children become criminals because of absent fathers is a crass obnoxious over-simplifcation beloved of Tory MP's who wouldn't understand deprivation, unless it meant knocking fifty quid off the drinks bill one week.

[Octavius]

I contemplated the idea that this was either going to go the race route, or the 'boy with 2 mums' route. Maybe after all that it was just a class thing.

[emmie]

he makes some interesting points

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/15/families-need-fathers-david-lammy

[ummmm]

Andy...it's a lot to do with how people are judged.