Absent Fathers Day

'The family' is in rapid flux - the traditional father/sole earner combination of the early to mid 1900s is dying out, and the traditional dual parent family is rapidly following.

Fractured Families, a report issued earlier this week by the Centre for Social Justice, observes:

One in two children born today will not grow up with both their parents and every year an additional 20,000 people, mainly women, join the throngs of those raising children more or less singlehandedly. One million children have no meaningful contact at all with their fathers, and that’s a conservative estimate.

The personal and social costs are huge:

Such breakdown would matter not a lot if the human and economic costs were insignificant. But they are in fact devastating. Children with separated, single or step-parents are 50 per cent more likely to fail at school, have low self-esteem, struggle to make friends and with their behaviour. They often battle with anxiety or depression throughout the rest of their lives. 

Adults’ mental and physical health can take a huge knock when relationships crumble, making it much harder for them to achieve at work and be the parents they want to be. The costs are eye-watering – rising to £49 billion per annum by the end of this Parliament, it’s more than the Government’s whole defence budget.

There is an epidemic of family breakdown, and whilst the government showers sticking plasters at the symptoms (mental health problems, educational failure, substance abuse etc.) nothing is done about the illness. Government after government has shied away from significant investment in family stability, investing in relationships & marriage and encouraging people to stay together.

92% of lone parent families are headed by the mother. Even at birth, 20% of children live with only 1 parent, by the time they are teenagers this is nearly 50%. For up to 3 million children tomorrow will be Absent Fathers Day, and here are some of the the consequences:

Children who experience family breakdown are more likely to 

• experience behavioural problems; 
• perform less well in school; 
• need more medical treatment;
• leave school and home earlier; 
• become sexually active, pregnant or a parent at an early age; 
• and report more depressive symptoms and higher levels of smoking, drinking and other drug use during adolescence and adulthood.

The report points out the structural issues, as well as the personal ones. At the more dramatic end of the scale Fathers4Justice highlight the way that family support often leaves dads out of the picture. Our experience of ante-natal classes was a lot of stuff about the mechanics of birth and feeding the baby, and nothing at all about how to parent together and support each other as mother and father, even though it was a prime opportunity to support new parents in that way. In other cases the father simply walks away. The overall effect is that over 1 million children in the UK never see their father, and up to a million more have little or no meaningful contact.

The UK is near the bottom of international leagues on this. It's peculiar that in some areas of childrens policy, league tables are assiduously compiled and published (education) but in others they are completely ignored.

The full report goes into a lot of detail, statistics, and analysis;

 -  for example that cohabiting couples are 2 to 2.5 times more likely than married couples to break up, which in turn has consequences for the nearly 2m (and rising) number of children in 2-parent cohabiting households.  

 - Or that for every £6,000 in reactive spending to family breakdown, the government spends only £1 on prevention. 

 - Or that 76% of young people in custody have an absent father. 

It's not a simple issue, there are multiple causes, from culture to cost (the sheer cost of getting married makes it unavailable to low-income families). Whatever you think about same-sex marriage, in the light of the above, is that really the top priority in family policy? Shouldn't we be debating all this instead? 

So pray for us dads, absent and present, on Fathers day, for mums, for children. And pray that this will be the generation where the tide of family breakdown turns back, and we get the political and civil and cultural leadership to make that happen. 

Fathers Day: Time for Britain to Man Up?

I was talking to our FE College chaplain earlier this week, who gets involved in a lot of pastoral support cases at the college, often because he's the only male in the student support team. He remarked on the increasingly common situation of children being brought up with no male role models for the first 11 years of their lives (most primary teachers are female, and almost all nursery staff), and the knock-on effects of that for students well into their teens. 

The Centre for Social Justice reports this week on the rising prevalence of absent fathers, and the cost of that on the mothers and children they leave behind, and society at large:

"For children growing up in some of the poorest parts of the country, men are rarely encountered in the home or in the classroom. This is an ignored form of deprivation that can have profoundly damaging consequences on social and mental development.

"There are 'men deserts' in many parts of our towns and cities and we urgently need to wake up to what is going wrong."

.....The report warns that the absence of fathers is linked to higher rates of teenage crime, pregnancy and disadvantage.

It is also costly. The CSJ puts the total cost of family breakdown at £46 billion a year, or £1,541 per taxpayer, a figure which has risen by nearly a quarter in the last four years. On current trends, the cost of family breakdown is projected to hit £49 billion by the end of this Parliament.

The CSJ criticises the lack of Government investment in families, saying that for every £6,000 spent on picking up the pieces after a split, just £1 is spent on helping to keep families together.
The report accuses the Prime Minister of neglecting his election pledge to lead the "most family-friendly Government ever".

The family stability agenda "has barely been mentioned", the CSJ says, while comprehensive action to tackle existing policy barriers to family stability "has been almost entirely absent" (more here)

There's an immediate knee-jerk response, that all this talk about family breakdown stigmatises single mums, so we shouldn't talk about it. It's the shut-down-the-discussion equivalent of saying that if you question immigration, you're a racist, or if you have second thoughts about gay marriage, you're a homophobic bigot

But this is the wrong response. From the CSJ blog: Since 2010, the formation of lone-parent families has continued to rise at a rate of 20,000 per year. By the time of the next election, we will have crashed through the two million barrier. The CSJ would be the last organisation to indulge in lone-parent bashing; our Alliance of several hundred grassroots charities tackling social breakdown works day in, day out, with parents raising children on their own. They are the ones who tell us how tough it is, how much harried mums (only eight per cent of those raising children on their own are dads) would appreciate an extra, reliable pair of hands in the home on a permanent, committed basis.

For too long a harrowing litany of statistics has been buried through the fear of stigmatising those who rarely chose to go it alone, but in so doing we have, as a society, ignored the lack of choice around parenthood facing so many women and men in low-income neighbourhoods. Aspirations to marry are solid across the social spectrum, but the cultural and financial barriers to realise those are almost insuperable, especially in the pockets of intense disadvantage we identified where up to three quarters of families are headed by only one person.

The full Fractured Families report will appear here once published later this week. It would be easy to have our superficial celebrations of Fathers Day this weekend, but each year that 'celebration' is non-existent for more and more children, and more and more fathers. Do Dads need to man up, and stick around for the children they bring into the world (or not bring children into the world until they've decided to stick around?). Does government and society need to do more in supporting men as fathers, and supporting couples as parents and partners? Forget stigmatising, this is a tragedy on a massive scale and is crying out for some hard thinking and courageous leadership. 

Motivational Signs for Teenagers

Reminds me of a quip attributed to Mark Twain, which goes something like "when I was 14, my dad was so stupid I could hardly bear to have him around. By the time I was 21 I was surprised by how much the old guy had learned in 7 years."

thanks to various people on Facebook for this one.

Riots, Fathers, Materialism, God and Redemption.

This is quite something. Former gang member on Sky telling the story of how he got into gang membership, and how he discovered Gods love and changed. This is really worth listening to all through.

"I was very bitter and resentful about my father...I was seeking that father (figure), I wanted it."

"If you have a broken society you can't ask them to take control of their children. Most of these mums are scared of their children."

"We have seen more people cry in the last few days over material things than they ever have over the life of a young person... we cannot be a society which puts material goods as more important than the life of a young man."

"What are your hopes for the future?"  "I wanna change London and the world."

One of the good things about 24 hour news coverage is that there's the chance to hear people at length, rather than soundbites, followed by a lengthy piece from Nick Robinson. So well done Sky (words I never thought I'd see myself writing) for giving these 2 guys the airtime.

Something for the Weekend

"Nobody ever said on their deathbed 'I wish I'd spent more time at the office'." (Rob Parsons The Sixty Minute Father)

Fathers Day 'World Cup' Talk

By popular demand (ok, as a result of one comment yesterday), here's the notes for my all-age talk for Fathers Day.

How is a father like a football team?

Striker/Attacker: goes and gets the goals. Fathers are often the breadwinner, on the front line. They also need to provide leadership, to help their families win.

Defender: protects the family, tackles what needs to be tackled (from DIY, to conflict issues within the family) – tackle the threats to your family: bad influences, habits, temptation, making sure the family spends time together, talks, plays.

Goalkeeper: or goal-keeper. What are your goals? Do you have an idea of the kind of family you’d like to be? Fathers need to have a vision of the good family and to promote it and work towards it. Sometimes it's easier to let things drift. Also, sometimes the goalkeeper has to pick the ball out of the net – times when you’ve got to be humble, and admit that things have failed. But then you start again.

Midfield: lots of running around, joining things up, keep things connected. Connect to your wife – talk, have special time with each other (when did you last have an evening out? Church/cells should enable this – babysit kids so that mothers and fathers can have quality time together). Connect to your children – play, spend time with them, show them the things you’re passionate about (taught my kids to play cards and cricket). Connect with other dads and men, need support.

Finally, stay in touch with the Manager.

all of the above with pics of the relevant England players on powerpoint. Or, if we lose tonight, South Americans. It needs quite a bit of polishing up, and we're going to give out Mars bars to all the blokes in church ('work rest and play' as the old slogan went, and they're all World Cup themed this year).

Fathers Day '24'

This is great

Father's Day 24 from Flue on Vimeo.

And yes, it's probably too late to order the Fathers Day resources from CVM in time for Sunday. The ladies will have already done this but no, typical men, we've left it until the last moment and now it's too late.

Who Let the Dads Out?

From the latest Baptist Union mission news

Parent and toddler work can transform relationships and strengthen families, yet the church recognised that it is usually the Mums who take part.

In March 2003, Hoole Baptist Church in Chester started Who Let the Dads Out? - a national initiative about creating space where dads and their young children can have fun together, founded on the Christian principle of wanting to demonstrate God’s love to communities

It comprises:
◊ Who Let The Dads Out? toddler sessions - toddler sessions are specifically for toddlers and their dads, stepdads, grandads and male carers. They follow the same traditional format as other parent and toddler sessions. There are toys, craft activities, stories and, if you’re brave, even song time, but with a few masculine touches, such as bacon butties and newspapers.
◊ SODA sessions - School’s Out, Dad’s About, is a special club for dads, stepdads, grandads, male carers and their infant school children. The fun involves a mix of arts, crafts, toys, games and sports.
◊ Daddy Cool! - a 5 session parenting programme specifically for dads and male carers.
◊ Soul Man? discussion group - a format through which men can explore basic questions of faith and spirituality.

The aim is to ‘turn the hearts of the fathers back to their children, their partners or wives and, most importantly, their heavenly Father’. From its opening in 2003, there are now 18 groups around the country, and the team at Hoole encourage and help Who Let The Dads Out? groups, as they seek to support fathers and their children in the local community.

It is free to join, but once a member, churches can use the Who Let The Dads Out? national initiative name and logo, materials, publicity, log on to the forum for ideas and download the ‘Daddy Cool!’ parenting programme.

There might be the odd mum who'd appreciate the peace and quiet too. Great name, great idea.

Flintoff: I'd rather be Super Dad than Super Fred

Nice interview with Andrew Flintoff over at Cricinfo, talking about how he views his retirement from Test cricket. What comes over is that he sees it as a positive step - a deliberate choice to focus more on his family - rather than a step backwards.

Nevertheless, there was a flip side to Flintoff's emotion, and that came when the players' families - including his wife, Rachael, and their three children, Holly, Corey and Rocky - joined in the celebrations. "I was looking at the lads and how happy they were which was one thing, but then I looked at my wife and kids and I thought 'I've made the right decision here'.

"I'm probably not going to get 25,000 people in my house chanting my name," he joked. "Or people shouting 'Super Fred' when I am doing the school run. However, you know, for me, spending time with my family and having the opportunity to do that is far more important and something I'm really looking forward to doing."

Holly, the eldest, turns five in September, and Flintoff admitted that the days of long overseas tours was something he was happy to put behind him. "It is quite a nice time for me to finish," he said. "The kids are coming to an age where they need their Dad around, and I am going to be there for them. Bittersweet as it is, having to finish Test cricket through injury, the one thing I am excited about is being at home. That is far more important than pinging a few down in a Test match."

Good man.

Reading for Fathers Day

1. How do Fathers Fit In? looks at all the ways in which fathers add to family life, and to the richness of a childs upbringing and experience. If you know any dads who are wondering what they contribute to their kids wellbeing, it's worth a look. It goes through each stage in a childs life, looking at how the fathers role helps the children to develop and grow, e.g:

Both mothers and fathers encourage their babies to investigate the world, manipulate objects, and explore physical relationships. However, mothers and fathers have different styles of relating. Mothers tend to speak soothingly and softly in repetitive rhythms to their infants and snugly hold them. Fathers tend to provide more verbal and physical stimulation, by patting their babies gently and communicating to them with sharp bursts of sound. As babies grow older, many come to prefer playing with their fathers who provide unpredictable, stimulating, and exciting interaction. This stimulation is important because it fosters healthy development of the baby's brain and can have lasting effects on children's social, emotional, and intellectual development. Infants with involved fathers tend to score higher on tests of thinking skills and brain development....

....Statistics about children who do not live with their fathers can be grim. On almost every outcome that has been tested, including educational achievement, self-esteem, responsible social behaviour, and adjustment as adults, children do better when they live with both of their parents. Family instability and financial problems do contribute to the poor outcomes for children from broken homes. However, as one scholar who reviewed 28 studies of father absence states: 'the major disadvantage related to father absence for children is lessened parental attention'.

2. On the catastrophic effects of absent fathers Experiments in Living: the Fatherless Family is sobering reading. It details the toxic effects of broken families upon all parties.

3. Great Rob Parsons article on 'the most important gift a father can give his child':

There is no more powerful force on the face of the earth for building strong relationships than unconditional love.

I learnt that lesson the hard way. I remember my daughter Katie coming home from school. She came running in yelling, “Dad, I got 95 per cent in maths!” I had two questions for that little girl: “What happened to the five per cent?” and “Where were you in the class order?” I’m not proud of that conversation.

Of course, every parent should do their utmost to motivate their child and help them achieve their best, but I remember realising that Katie needed to know that my love for her was not based on her accomplishments, but on our relationship – the fact that I am her father. In other words, love without strings.

4. The Dad's Domain on the Care for the Family website is well worth a visit, as is their articles section, which includes stuff on parenting, stepfamilies, money, keeping your kids safe on the web, etc.

Video for Fathers Day, from 'Blood Diamond'

I am your Father who loves you. And you will come home with me and be my son, again.

A bit early, I know, but it gives you time to suggest to your vicar that it gets used on Fathers Day. Or if folks are a bit squeamish about the gun, use Finding Nemo. Wingclips also have a selection of free 1-2 min clips from top movies on the Fatherhood theme.

The CofE has a prayer for Fathers Day and some resources for worship.

IDS on Social Breakdown

Very sobering article from Ian Duncan Smith in Saturday's Telegraph, reflecting on the Matthews kidnap case, social services, and social breakdown. Here's a snippet.

All the evidence from neuroscientists now shows that the most critical time for the development of a child's brain is in the first three years. To develop properly the child needs strong empathetic care and nurture as well as reading and conversation.

If the child does not experience these things, or worse, witnesses continuous anger and abuse, their brain will not develop at the proper rate and they will spend the rest of their childhood in and out of trouble. To turn this around will require more than one parliament, which is why all parties need to agree to act now.

A glance at the figures should show how we are already paying for this growing social breakdown. Over the past ten years the cost of policing has risen by 40 per cent, prisons and the courts by 46 per cent, youth justice by 45 per cent and working-age benefits by 25 per cent.

Too important to dismiss as Tory moralising, even if that's your instinct.

Fathers Day resources

Wingclips has a selection of video clips related to Fathers day. Or if you have grumpy dads, they've just put a few up from the new Hulk film.

My favourite clip on fatherhood is from The Incredibles - go to 6mins 18 secs of this excerpt:



Meanwhile the CofE has done a survey on how dad's see their role:
Nine out of every 10 fathers feel responsible for the souls of their children, research commissioned by the Church of England has revealed. More than eight out of 10 mothers feel the same responsibility. By age, those feeling most responsible were people aged from 25 to 34 years, according to the survey.

surprise, surprise (not), the survey in turn is tied in to a new publication, in this case a baptism prayer card aimed at dads. If anyone out there is working on baptism resources, what we really need is a new DVD resource - the only thing on the market is CPAS's 'First Steps', which is ok but quite dated and tells us what baptism 'is really all about' at least 5 times in as many minutes. It's probably ok if you're seeing it for the first time, but after a dozen baptism evenings it does start to get a bit wearing!!