Another day, another stabbing, shooting, moped mugging, acid attack, gang or drug incident … And more often than not, when we see the perpetrators (and often victims), we hear a tale of a young man brought up without a father. We see the mother trying to fathom the mess her out-of-control son has made of his life. It’s not always the case of course, but more often that not it is. Especially when talking about violent street crime … and mostly in busy cities like our capital: rudderless young males joining gangs at tender young ages and engaging in more and more violent crime and anti-social behaviour.
The most shocking incident lately was the story we awoke to the other morning, of a young 7-year-old boy being burnt to death in his home. As the day went on we learned that it was gang related – a revenge attack. We saw the distraught mother in the news. Where was the father? Who knows …
The mother later laid the blame at the feet of her other son – probably the real target of the arsonist – a young man who had been released from prison on a gang related drug crime. She said his lifestyle of drugs and crime had brought the arson attack into their home and was directly responsible for the death of his young brother. Of course she is right. Poor woman, poor dead son. But also, poor family … imagine how the older brother must have felt when he heard that. And where, as I say, is the husband and father?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to place responsibility for what happened onto anyone other than the arsonist and perhaps the brother who was caught up in a gang revenge situation. There comes a point in our lives when we must take responsibility for our actions and the consequences on ourselves and those around us.
What I am saying is that if we want to somehow stop all this and deal with it, we have to look at cause and effect. For so long now society has been dumbed down. We are told that children no longer need traditional families – that a mum and dad and family unit are unnecessary. That we can do it any way we see fit and no one has the right to tell us any different. We are to believe that boys and girls do not need role models or father figures in their lives, and that no child must be stereotyped or brought up in any particular way. And yet … I cannot help but notice that most of these young men who get into so much trouble never seem to have a father or even a father figure standing in front of the cameras as the press try to find out what happened. Surely there is a link? Of course there is!
Before the late 70s and early 80s it was extremely frowned upon for young women to have a baby before marriage, whether in a relationship or not. Accidents happened, yes, and you either got married, gave the baby up, or the family brought it up as your sibling. Sad, I know, but it meant the traditional family survived and the majority of children grew up in a secure home.
I’m not asking you to look through rose-tinted spectacles either. I know there were still unhappy homes, divorces (mainly among the wealthy), bereavements and so on, but it wasn’t the norm to bring children up without a father, and certainly not an outright intention. It was the exception rather than the rule.
But now we have whole generations brought up by single mothers, and often the single mothers themselves were brought up by a lone mother as well, and so it perpetuates. I’ve lost count of the number of young men I meet who only have a mum – dad doesn’t seem to figure anywhere.
And I’m not saying we should go back to judging anyone, especially those who find themselves in that situation by no design of their own. But I do believe we should never have let go of the idea that children need two parents and a family unit.
Why did it all change? I guess there are a few reasons: left wing liberal idealists pushing their agenda through schools and universities; ‘feminazis’ (not old school feminists); the dumbing down of society; the undermining of men’s role in society; the habit of blaming white men for everything which is now spreading to all men. The main reason – in my estimation – is the desire to destroy the family and introduce Marxism where the state controls everything: go to work (or go on benefits and just have as many kids as you can), put your children in full time nurseries and after-school clubs and allow the state to influence your children from the day they are born, thus breeding a whole generation of young adults who have no sense of family, discipline, rules or working for what you want.
You either buy into the left-wing ideology or end up on the scrap heap. You’re either a totally spoilt, self-entitled snowflake or a deadbeat that ends up in a gang and then prison. Or worse. I know I’m exaggerating, but you get my point. Even the young and ‘successful’ are in a mess. There seem to be huge spates of young people, especially males, killing themselves if they cannot keep up with what they think they should achieve, but that’s a whole other story.
Next time a mother appears on screen, desperately lamenting what her son has done or his fate at the hands of another young thug, ask yourselves: where is the father? And why on earth did we allow men to be pushed out of the family picture and end up in this mess? Many mothers do a great job on their own of course, but why make it the aim?
We have bred a whole generation of lost young men.
Boys need fathers, and so do girls. But most of all, society needs families with fathers too, now more than ever.
Great piece Janice, thank you. Seems to me that youngsters will seek out gangs to give them the sense of ‘family’ they don’t get at home. There they learn that they should just take what they need, be it a bar of chocolate from a corner shop or someone’s life – it’s theirs because they want it.
You’re right in that there are some families where the parents who can’t stay together for one reason or another, but it appears that leftie social workers are far too quick to offer money and help to mothers and children without a male influence. Would it be better if it were more difficult for a couple to split up? Then you come into the reasons for the split, be they abusive, financial incompetence or simply that one of the couple has found someone else.
I’m not criticising every splitting couple but the ease with which it can be done nowadays doesn’t help families stay together when the going gets a bit tough.
Neither man nor woman is perfect or complete without the other. Thus, no marriage or family, no ward or stake is likely to reach its full potential until husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, men and women work together in unity of purpose, respecting and relying upon each other’s strengths.
Sheri L. Dew
“Boys need fathers”
What two of them ?, I don’t think so.
Well done to this newsletter for carrying this useful article about the root of many of todays’s problems. We ignore tradition and nature’s plan, of God’s plan if you prefer, at our peril. The deliberate destruction of the nuclear family is impacting the working and middle classes especially badly. But the prosperous liberal elite, mostly all married, who encouraged all this are so selfish and smug they don’t care a damn about the problem’s they’ve given to society.
yes I noticed that – the liberal elite are all leading lovely ordered lives with marriages and a nuclear family…!
The welfare state is at the bottom of so much of this problem. Well meaning do gooders have changed the system over the years so that it now encourages girls to get pregnant, and rewards them with their own flat and an allowance. Well, for many of them that beats stacking shelves in Poundland so they happily climb on this bandwagon. The acceptance of this state of affairs has removed the stigma of single parenthood and it is now considered perfectly OK to have children by any number of different men. In fact, again, the system of benefits encourages it as then the child allowances add up. Single mothers get priority in the awarding of Council flats and those couples who bother to get married before starting a family find they are pushed to the bottom of the list. Indeed many couples now claim to have split up so the woman can get a flat and the father then “visits”.
I have always advocated the housing of pregnant single girls, who cannot remain in the family home, in Council hostels, where they would receive training in infant care and be supervised. This would bring benefits to the babies and improve their chances of being properly cared for, not left alone and howling while the teenage mother goes out clubbing with a variety of men, night after night, as we see so often in our towns and cities.
Re-housing them in hostels might decrease the demand for Council accommodation by those who choose not to establish a stable partnership before becoming a mother. Other than that Councils should not use ratepayers money to subsidise the feckless in independent flats and houses.
I don’t think Poundland will employ them until they are 18 years of age. Add the eternal demonisation of young Britons not blessed with the means or grades to go to university.
With 250 million EU workers to choose from, the crucial years between 16-18 leave too many kids on the scrap heap choosing either welfare dependency or criminality as a career.
I honestly don’t blame them.
It’s Freebie not GB now. Take what you can kids, learn from the real robbers at the top.
A week’s welfare for a single parent with 2 children is less than a QC earns in an hour to send innocent people to prison.
Father or not it almost always comes down to the same group of people but lets not rock the boat . Let’s stay schtum for fear of someone somehwere getting upset of offended .
I know there are cultural issues too – not a very edifying idea of single parenthood that was brought here in the 50s – but many ‘indigenous- people do it too now and use it as a lifestyle choice
Try getting any sort of justice or fair treatment in the family courts. My ex repeatedly found flimsy excuses to stop the contact. I had to keep taking her back to the court to restore it. This was over a period of 8 years! Most fathers would give up long before that. However I am persistent and do not give up easily. It does take its toll in terms of time, money, and heartache.
Eventually my ex blatantly broke a key condition of a court order. Then when it came to light the judge, instead of re-affirming the earlier order (which the judge herself had made), ignored it and sided with my ex! You would not believe it? At that point I realised the whole situation was hopeless, and it was time, at last, to give up.
There seems to be a formula which mothers use to cut out the fathers from having contact. Their solicitors seem to follow a pattern. Online searching will show you this pattern. It looks as though the legal system is deliberately trying to destroy the bond between father and child.
On a similar vein, what about the baby handed over to a couple of perverts for “adoption”?
Murdered by the “Wife”.
Makes my blood boil to think of it. A bad outcome was so predictable. I bet the person/social worker responsible is still in post.
Where do these people get these crazy ideas from?
So predictable? ?
It wuz Harriet Harmun.
I remember it well. She came out with, “Families come in many shapes and forms”.
Or some such similar bullshit.
You can blame all our woes on socialism.