GOVERNMENT POLICIES ENCOURAGE LONE PARENTING
Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton announced this week that the government hopes to alleviate child poverty by encouraging lone parents back to work.
Many parents, for all sorts of reasons, find themselves literally ‘holding the baby’ and coping with bringing up children alone and needing extra support. However, the uncomfortable reality is that many lone parents are only ‘lone’ because they have chosen to eliminate the other parent from a child’s life after they split with their partner.
The vast majority of children of ‘lone-parents’ already have two real parents and very often the ‘other’ parent is ready and willing to play their part in the parenting of the child, but are prevented from doing so by the ‘lone parent’.
Any parent so inclined can do this only too easily without any good reason and unfortunately, instead of preventing this behaviour, our dysfunctional family law system will in fact facilitate it. Even worse, our taxation system positively encourages it. Together, these influences make ‘lone parenthood’ a rational lifestyle choice for those who simply prefer not to deal with the child’s other parent.
Instead of encouraging the choice of lone parenthood as a lifestyle, government policies should encourage the much better alternative for children, where both parents continue to co-operate in the shared care of their children after separation. This is the best chance the children have of keeping away from poverty – and improving their overall life chances - altogether.
Whatever the merits may be of helping lone parents back into work, more children would be saved from poverty if government policies simply encouraged co-operative parenting after separation, rather than rewarding the parents who exclude the other parent.
ENDS
NOTE TO EDITORS
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The Equal Parenting Alliance is a new UK political party, formed in February 2006. We aim to promote a system of family justice in the UK that puts the needs and interests of children first.
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We will be fighting at least two seats in the upcoming Scottish parliamentary elections in May this year, and then several seats in the general election in England & Wales.
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We think the family justice system should respect the right of children to normal parenting by their two parents above the rights or wishes of either of their parents alone. The current system does not do this. To give the most obvious illustration of this; it allows one parent to easily eliminate the other parent from a child’s life, if they wish. We believe this is fundamentally wrong and bad for children.
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FOR MORE INFORMATION
See our website: www.equalparentingalliance.com
Contact : Ray Barry 0790 550 2856
