Anyone with the recent misfortune of having had to take a journey by bus in any of our cities at the end of the school day, when their streets are filled with the teeming ranks of their all-too-frequently ill-mannered, foul-mouthed, and indecorous charges, will have had no need to brave a visit to the apparently still wilder reaches of our out-of-town shopping malls to know a deep-seated pathology currently afflicts all too many of our youngsters today.
Yesterday, having somewhat belatedly recalled his promise as Shadow Home Secretary to get tough in office on the causes of crime, Prime Minister Blair took a pot-shot at those whom he declared to be the true causes of the waywardness of so many of the country's children today -- their parents.
The Prime Minister singled parents out for special mention among the causes of the rowdiness and unruliness of children, by berating them for having failed to impose adequate discipline at home and to instil in them due respect for others.
Having so identified what he considered the principal cause of their unruly behaviour, Blair was quick to disclaim any power to improve it. ‘I cannot solve all these problems… I cannot … raise someone children’s for them.’
Well said, Mr Blair: you certainly can’t. Indeed, as I recall, you too seem to have experienced the same difficulty many parents have in raising their children to behave with proper decorum in the case of some of your own off-spring.
But, frankly, if the Prime Minister cannot be expected to raise successfully other people’s children, then neither can the army of public-sector workers whom his Government has so busily recruited these last eight years for the purpose: teachers, social workers, race advisors, mentors, drug counsellors etc, etc.
Neither alone nor together can they make up for one vital ingredient needed to ensure children grow up well-adjusted that is all too-often missing today: the chance to grow up alongside and under the loving care of a father as well as of a mother.
Fathers are natural authority figures for children and typically are much better able than mothers to impose discipline, especially in the case of adolescent boys, which category of child is that most likely to be disruptive and whose disruptiveness is most likely to serve as a role model for younger children.
Above all other factors contributing to the increasing absence of fathers from the homes and lives of children in this country today has been the ever-increasing ease with which women have become able, if not positively, encouraged, to bear and raise children outside marriage, an institution whose vitally important child-rearing function has been steadily reviled and undermined for many a year now.
Two statistics culled from today’s Daily Telegraph indicate the scale of the problem and how limited the resources of the state are likely to be in solving it, unless and until it grasps the nettle and restores to the two-parent family its rightful role in the up-bringing of children.
First, it reports that last year the number of babies born out of wedlock in England and Wales reached record levels, with no fewer than 42.2% of births falling into this category.
Second, it also reports that, despite citizenship studies having been since 2002 a compulsory subject in schools, no fewer than 60% of young people today declare themselves to know little or nothing about politics, half of these expressing happiness at their ignorance.
In some respects, one cannot help envying those youngsters who live in blissful ignorance of politics, given how appallingly badly governed the country has been these last years.
Those, however, who have eaten of the tree of political knowledge will also know these children are only living in a fool’s paradise, all too many of them being liable to fall victim to some form of violent crime, or else become embroiled in trouble with the authorities for perpetrating it.
Time is running out for Blair. If he is serious about wishing to get tough on the causes of crime, it is high time he was man enough to make reviving the two-parent family a central part of his war on the causes of crime.
Otherwise, I simply can ‘ave no respec’ for da man, kno wot I mean?
Comments (6)
Dear Tony, You cannot have it both ways. On the one hand you are spending our money on hordes of social workers, family support workers, educational support officials and even a Minister for Children. You are telling us parents when we can smack our children, when to put them to bed, what childcare we can have. You discriminate against women who want to stay at home with their children.
You give more money to couples who break up than on couples who stay together. You spend more on children who have one parent in their lives compared to children who have two.
You have even removed the married couple's tax relief. As a parent who is still at home, I have got the message loud and clear - you do not think much of us. You think we are feckless, and cannot look after ourselves. You think you know what is best for us, and you think you can spend our money better than we can.
Now you have a sudden insight and realise you cannot control everything. At the very least you owe us an apology. What we really need is for your government social engineers to get out of the way, and let us get on with our lives.
Give us back our power.
Posted by Ricky | May 18, 2005 1:52 PM
Posted on May 18, 2005 13:52
> Blair was quick to disclaim any power to improve it. ‘I cannot solve all these problems… I cannot … raise someone children’s for them.’
He can't even raise his own, if the rumour about his daughter attempting suicide last year is anything to go by.
Posted by AB | May 18, 2005 1:10 PM
Posted on May 18, 2005 13:10
I'm old enough to remember the howls of outrage which greeted the late Keith Joseph's musings in 1974(?) about how single motherhood, among other things, was leading to a deterioration in the country's "human stock". His choice of phrase was unfortunate, of course, and handed his enemies all the ammunition they needed - but who can look at Britain in 2005 and deny he was right? I'm typing this on the morning of the 17th of May; the BBC radio news has just carried a report that a FUNERAL CORTEGE in Widnes was attacked by stone throwing yobs, breaking the windscreen of a limousine carrying mourners. Just pause to consider the mentality - or lack of it - of those who did this; the harvest of decades of reflexive liberalism, non-judgementalism, moral relativism and cultural denial and self abasement. Cases like this surely throw the "moral panic" argument into sharp relief - but one despairs also; how do we get our country back?
Posted by Paul | May 18, 2005 10:16 AM
Posted on May 18, 2005 10:16
Government certainly can't bring up children but they can do a lot to create a society that boasts high moral standards. In the area of education it could and should place far more insistence upon standards of discipline and remove the constraining influence of "rights".
Any move towards censorship would, of course, meet with howls of protest but can there be any doubt about the contribution made by the entertainment world in presenting role models and ideas that shape the behaviour of some of our young people.
The empty churchs are more of a symptom than a cause of today's moral relativity and there has been far too much dismissal of religious beliefs for the trend to be reversed now. The church itself, in an effort to retain some of its congregations, has been only too willing to "adapt" to modern circumstances.
Governments CAN do something to change society - as has been readily proved in the past fifty years or more; the fact is that they're not interested and do not view any of their social policies in the context of the effect they will have on the nation's morality.
Posted by Henry Kaye | May 15, 2005 8:54 PM
Posted on May 15, 2005 20:54
I recall reading Joseph Campbell, or maybe Robert Bligh, discussing the lack of fathers and as well, the lack of ritual in the lives of adolescent boys. In the old days, there was usually some rite of passage differentiating the difference between childhood and manhood. This was usually overseen by the community of men. (One can argue that National Service acted as one such initiation process. I know my Navy Boot Camp graduation ceremony certainly felt like an end of ordeal initiation ceremony.) Without ritual, the boys are left to make their own up.
In primitive communities this sort of initiation is done under the auspices of the religious institution. But I don't think the issue is necessarily one of morality; Theodore Dalrymple often wryly points out that many of his patients do know the difference between right and wrong. I think much of it comes from the fact that men, and particularly the latest batch of adolescents, do not know how to be men because they haven't been taught how by other men.
Perhaps those of us who are concerned about these sorts of issues should get involved with Scouting and groups like that to act as surrogate fathers to teach some of those who may fall by the wayside; we can't get all of them, but it sure beats the army of social workers out there.
The societal change is not going to come from government, although there are policies that can be abandoned to insure economically that there is no upside to absent fathers. I plan on getting involved with Scouting as soon as I get to a point in raising my daughter (who will be going to Girl Guides when she's old enough) where she will not need me as much on a daily basis as now.
Posted by James | May 14, 2005 6:44 AM
Posted on May 14, 2005 06:44
Do you think the fact the United Kingdom is known as the country of empty churches has anything to do with it? In the absence of transcendental authority, it's up to the individual to create his own morality. In these relativistic times, it is, well, child's play to develop one that excuses any behavior. So you're going to have to increase police authority and generally move toward a more authoritarian society. All those surveillance cameras will be helpful.
Posted by JJay | May 13, 2005 3:11 PM
Posted on May 13, 2005 15:11