Family life 'meltdown'

[Joenoir]

Family life is in 'meltdown': Judge launches devastating attack on our fractured society
By STEVE DOUGHTY Daily Mail 5 April 2008

Family breakdown is a "cancer" behind almost every evil affecting the country, a senior judge will declare today.
Mr Justice Coleridge blames youth crime, child abuse, drug addiction and binge-drinking on the "meltdown" of relations between parents and children.
He warns that the collapse of the family unit is a threat to the nation as bad as terrorism, crime, drugs or global warming.
The speech to family lawyers contains a fierce attack on the "neglect" of successive governments.
The 58-year-old judge, who is married with three grown-up children, will say family breakdown is an epidemic affecting all levels of society from the Royal Family down.
It is "on a scale, depth and breadth which few of us could have imagined even "a decade ago. It is a never-ending carnival of human misery. A ceaseless river of human distress.
"I am not saying every broken family produces dysfunctional children but I am saying that almost every dysfunctional child is the product of a broken family."
The judge, who is in charge of family courts across South-West England, will say he has a duty to speak out.
He will call on the Government to put the family at the top of its agenda, alongside the economy and the war on terror - and make it "rather more important than taking oaths of allegianc".
His speech will say: "Families are the cells which make up the body of society. If the cells are unhealthy and undernourished, or at worse cancerous and growing haphazard and out of control, in the end the body succumbs.
"In some of the more heavily populated urban areas, family life is quite frankly in meltdown or completely unrecognisable . . . it is on an epidemic scale. In some areas of the country family life in the old sense no longer exists."
The judge condemns families with a mother and several absentee fathers.
He says: "Single parents often do a fantastic job, but a great many, perhaps through no fault of their own, do not.
"A large number of families now consist of children being brought up by mothers who have children by a number of different fathers, none of whom take any part in their lives or support or upbringing.
"These are not isolated, oneoff cases. They are part of the stock-in-trade of the family courts."
Judge Coleridge has spent the past eight years presiding over cases of divorce, children in care and family break-up.
Last year he supervised courtroom attempts to negotiate a voluntary divorce agreement between Sir Paul McCartney and Heather Mills.
He will say: "Almost all society's ills can be traced directly to the collapse of family life. We all know it. Examine the background of almost every child in the care system or the youth justice system and you will discover a broken family.
"Ditto the drug addict. Ditto the binge drinker. Ditto those children who are truanting or who cannot behave at school.
"Scratch the surface of these cases and you invariably find a miserable family, overseen by a dysfunctional and fractured parental relationship - or none at all."
Calling for action before it is too late, the judge will say family breakdown is as serious as global warming.
"It is as big a threat to our society as terrorism, street crime or drugs, but far more insidious. It will be more destructive than any economic decline caused by international markets."
Mr Justice Coleridge says it is too late to help families just by bringing back tax breaks for marriage.
He sets out a five-point plan including more effort to educate parents and children on how to keep families together.
The judge also calls for higher spending on family courts, more court time for family cases and modernisation of the laws on divorce and family break-up.
He will absolve any political party of sole blame for family collapse and point to neglect before Labour's time in power.
But he accuses the government of "fiddling while Rome burns" and dismisses "highsounding declarations about taking children out of poverty" as insufficient.
Latest figures show marriage rates at a historic low and divorce at a historic high.
Children from single-parent families are far more likely to do badly at school, suffer poor health, fall into crime, drug abuse, heavy drinking and teenage pregnancy.

[Frank63]

He's probably right in what he says but all the government will do, if anything at all, is throw some money at it

[Mark O]

The Government will probably do nothing about it, they're all basically Closet Communists/Champagne Socialists anyhow.......there's a scene in 'The Killing Fields' where a Child 'rubs out' the Connection between Kids and Parents on the Blackboard.......that's the way the UK is heading as most School Teachers are Commies too!

[samkydd]

We've had broken families for centuries, and mostly in the working classes where there were too many children in families, not enough income and so many were cast out on to the streets to make a living as best they could, without any help from The State.

Look how many kids grew up without fathers post World War I in this country after they'd been slaughtered in the trenches. There was a report about serious delinquency in the 1930s where working class adolescents in some areas were running riot and a law unto themselves. The only thing that put a stop to it was calling them up to fight in World War 2 so they could meet the same fate as their fathers!

If discipline is missing both at home and in schools then children grow up with no frame of reference, and they aren't even aware that there is a line that they shouldn't cross. Their mentors are often older children in their peer group.

[homeguard]

It seems everyone knows what's wrong, but nobody knows how we got here or how to fix it. In 1946 there was a similar surge in the anti-social behaviour of young men (re: Let Him Have It, etc.), blamed by many at the time on the fact that children had grown-up in homes without fathers. Then the law dealt with the problem by adopting a zero tolerance approach and the population of borstals increased accordingly. But even without the father at home, mothers seemed to have much more control and communities were more stable. Accountability was the dread of every recalcitrant child who would have been well known in his local village or town. And how many naughty boys had their ear 'clipped' by a neighbour, or their 'crime' reported to their parent/s?
But a more sinister, and probably unintentional, factor has crept in since the middle 70s according to a Consultant Psychiatrist I know. He has been researching the prevalence of anti-social behaviour and has concluded that television is a critical. Not in the type of programme particularly, but in the advertising. I've checked what he said and can see he has a point. Since the emergence of the feminist movement advertisers have used women in a much more dominant role, often humourously, to sell their products. So you have the fat guy slumped on a sofa watching the football match on the television and the sprightly wife whizzes in to brush food crumbs off his chest, or open his can of beer, etc., because he is too thick to do it himself. We've all seen them. Useless at cooking, ironing, even carpentry in the home. So, slowly the pendelum of ability has swung far towards the woman. The only male role models left are the extreme variety. Pop stars, and the more infamous the better, or footballers who can spit with unerring accuracy. And it seems if they are black, gangster-type rappers who deal with their women with 'attitude' and call them 'bitches', this ices the cake. My Psychiatrist pal has also concluded that this last stereotype group has even managed to change the language patterns of a whole socio/economic group of young men and boys of all races growing-up in inner city areas.
Maybe we ought to try and find better role models who are not embarrassed by being normal, respectful and hard-working, and have a word with the film makers who churn out advertising. Propaganda can be used positively if we bother to think it through.
Regards,
HG

[CaptainWaggett]

Originally Posted by Mark O The Government will probably do nothing about it, they're all basically Closet Communists/Champagne Socialists anyhow.......there's a scene in 'The Killing Fields' where a Child 'rubs out' the Connection between Kids and Parents on the Blackboard.......that's the way the UK is heading as most School Teachers are Commies too!

That's a fairly sweeping statement. Leaving aside the question of the government being full of communists and socialists (would that were the case!), do you know of a single school teacher who is a Communist?

[Moor Larkin]

Originally Posted by CaptainWaggett do you know of a single school teacher who is a Communist?

I remember a Physics teacher when I was about 14, who was leaving our school. On our very last lesson, he had us all sit down and he gave us a potted history of the Russian Revolution and the Communist party. We all thought it was great because physics was sooooo boring.

[Steve Crook]

Originally Posted by CaptainWaggett That's a fairly sweeping statement. Leaving aside the question of the government being full of communists and socialists (would that were the case!), do you know of a single school teacher who is a Communist?

We used to have a music teacher that was a party member. That was in the mid 60s. He never tried to hide it in any way and nobody thought that he was plotting the overthrow of the country

Steve

[batman]

My mate Frank is a schoolteacher and is a bona fide Communist, has been for years. But then he also supports Liverpool.

[CaptainWaggett]

I stand corrected. Clearly that's why I'll never make a proper Evil Overlord - I don't have enough teachers in my private army of revolutionaries.

I suspect at my school, voting Liberal would have been considered dangerously radical and not something to be mentioned in the staffroom.

[Steve Crook]

Originally Posted by CaptainWaggett I stand corrected. Clearly that's why I'll never make a proper Evil Overlord - I don't have enough teachers in my private army of revolutionaries. I suspect at my school, voting Liberal would have been considered dangerously radical and not something to be mentioned in the staffroom.

But you're still right to query Mark's claim that the Government are all basically Closet Communists/Champagne Socialists. They've spent the last 10 years disassociating themselves from anything as "extreme" as socialism

Steve

[Harleybloke]

Mrs.Harley is a teacher and she likes champagne, I guess Mark O might be right after all............................

[Moor Larkin]

Teachers are often idealists and they're far more dangerous than communists

[samkydd]

Originally Posted by Moor Larkin Teachers are often idealists and they're far more dangerous than communists

Most of the ones I've met lately are Ikeaists!

[Fellwanderer]

Originally Posted by batman My mate Frank is a schoolteacher and is a bona fide Communist, has been for years. But then he also supports Liverpool.

Well, of course he's going to support the Reds!