News just in from Mount Deluded – the Government hopes that by offering fathers a few fatherhood classes we can rebuild the “two-parent family.”
President Ronald Reagan identified “the nine most terrifying words in the English language as”: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’ Now at the beginning of 2015, we can update this to, I am from the government and I am here to help you be a better father. Never in my worst nightmare did I think the new year could get off to such a bad start.
The geniuses in the DWP think the Government can put the family back together again. Note it is now mandatory government-speak to talk about the two-parent family, not the married family. This is because Western culture is set on the course of marriage annihilation and no politician wants to appear judgemental.
So it is the wonderfully neutral two-parent family we must focus on, even though getting married is much more likely to result in a long term two-parent family in the first place.
This need for government-sponsored fatherhood lessons follows a report by the Centre for Social Justice that found that 62 per cent of teenagers sitting their GCSEs own a smartphone, compared with only 57 per cent who are still living with both parents.
Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith tells us: “It is not only the bond between a mother and her child which makes a real difference to a child’s life, it is the bond between a father and his child too. The problem of absent fathers is far too common – with households left worse off and, more importantly, children left without the positive involvement of two parents in their life.”
Few other than Harriet – fathers are not good for families – Harman will disagree with this.
Duncan Smith continues: “As a society, we must do more to nurture loving family relationships and encourage parental attachment. Government has a role to play too. That is why we are introducing relationship support for fathers, and families as a whole. If we are serious about promoting a strong society, then we also have to be serious about seeking to support and strengthen families.”
Duncan Smith believes classes teaching about the importance of fatherhood should become the norm.
Dearie me, things have come to a pretty pass when we need government-mandated classes on the importance of fatherhood. Up until very recently, through much of human history, this was a given. But then the feminists have been spectacularly successful in trashing fatherhood over the last forty years, perhaps we should not be that surprised that fatherhood lessons are now deemed necessary.
In fairness to Duncan Smith, his intentions are no doubt honourable, but I fear, misplaced. We are not told how much this will all cost but it will not be for free. I also have grave misgivings with the idea that government can somehow teach young men about the importance of fatherhood.
What the Government could do, as a very first step, is stop penalising married two-parent families in the tax system. This would send a very strong message that the State is no substitute for a father. The good enough father is the one who is there, reliable and breadwinning. This is what both our tax system and our feminist culture are so hostile to. The last thing needed is fathers to be feminised, to be told that to be a good father he has to do what the mother does.
The truth is, how to be a good father was a cultural and religious norm that, until recently, was passed onto boys by families, religion and communities over the course of their childhood and young adulthood. In other words it takes decades to mould a good father. The cultural norms such as commitment, loyalty, and steadfastness were tossed on the pyre of the sexual revolution as damaging to individuals who should be free to do as they pleased. So I doubt a few classes before baby is born are going to turn the tide on the all powerful cult of the individual.
