Thoughts on fatherless families

I read with interest about the findings of the CIVITAS report, and CARE worker Philippa Taylor's comments on them. From my own experience, two thoughts sprang to mind.

Firstly, my husband and I have two children and, although my husband works full-time, I am at a loss to imagine how I would cope in bringing up the boys without him. I have a part-time job and on the mornings when I work my husband takes the boys to school. I have been ill recently and he took some time off work and church duties to look after the boys when I couldn't cope.

We don't live near my parents and although I have good friends at church I could never ask them to make the sacrifices that he makes.

Similarly, I imagine that if I was in a new relationship, with a man who was not father to my children, that I would be very, very wary of asking for the same level of support from him, especially if that relationship was not 'secured' by marriage. Thus I am well aware of the benefits of a family based on a married father and mother.

The second point comes from my experience of teaching in 'inner city' schools, in both white and multi-cultural areas. This leads me to observe that the 'devastating and widespread effects of this (single parent family) experiment' are so entangled with the effects of every other form of social problem that they cannot be separated from the others.

My own female friends, mainly white and mainly middle class, are part of that majority that 'do still get married, and still want to get married'. Most of us have been privileged to meet men who feel the same and have not encountered circumstances too destructive to our marriages.

Women I met in my schools, however, have had the odds stacked against them from the beginning, due to poor upbringing, low levels of education and self-confidence, the cultural expectations of men, poverty, drugs ... the list goes on.

Unless someone is prepared to face these differences of class, social exclusion and culture, we are 'preaching to the converted', ie only those who have time and inclination to read these reports will pay attention to their findings.

Those who are struggling with poverty and lack of support for their children will probably have more pressing issues on their minds.

Alison Heal, Harrogate

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