A major study on the state of childhood in the UK has been released to a mixed response. The Children’s Society report, A Good Childhood, was based on research which took into account over 35,000 contributions from children, parents, and teachers from all over the country; but, mostly from children. Unsurprisingly, the one thing most children say they want more than anything else is—love.
The report, published by Penguin Books, presents the results of the research in a readily available format The details on which the report is based can be followed up on the charity’s website. The book offers the basic evidence, and makes recommendations for families, teachers, government, and society in general. Many of the conclusions clash with the predominate narrative of the day; thus the mixed response.
For one thing, the expression of the desire to be loved seems rather simplistic, and even cliché, to our hardened society. The issue is how to interpret this simple statement.
The writers of the report, Richard Layard and Judy Dunn, begin by attributing the sad state of childhood experience in the UK (bottom of all EU countries in every report, if sometimes ahead of the US) to one overarching factor: excessive individualism—the individual pursuit of private interest and success.
They then go on to offer seven elements for a flourishing childhood at the very beginning of the study:
1. Loving families
2. Friends
3. A positive lifestyle
4. Solid values which give meaning to live
5. Good schools
6. Good mental health
7. Enough money
The criticism of a culture based on individualism seemed simply to offend those who needed to be offended. But, the first item on the list drew the harshest immediate response from critics. This observation—that the best environment for children is a stable setting with two parents who love and show love, who set boundaries without dictating—was considered to be a stick to beat single parents, particularly single mothers. These poor women will be made to feel at fault by this study for failed childhoods, and made the scapegoats for society’s ills.
This is a cheap shot, seemingly intended to shift attention to a more comfortable focus—those poor deprived and brave people that we all feel sorry for. That the study shows the best chance of a good childhood is a stable family relationship with two loving parents is not to place blame on single mothers; it is simply to state that which is plain to see. To reject the finding out of hand because against current orthodoxies is a blatant refusal to face facts, and not impressive in people who have influence on public policy.
We live in a society which views single-parent homes as normal and satisfactory. There is neither value nor gain in blaming those who live according to society’s norms. This report places the source for this commonly accepted norm on an individualism in which people ‘have babies’ for their own short-term purposes and satisfaction rather than to nurture young human beings to maturity. Like the posters say, a child is not just for Christmas. Single-parents can be considered victims of societal failure; but their children are the greater victims.
For their sake, the positive message needs to be heard. Life-time commitment in relationships, into which children are born with a similar life-time commitment of nurture and love, is the environment of love which children need. And they know it, even if they have never experienced it themselves.
Children can grow in single-parent settings, to be sure. Such a setting is preferable to abusive family life. But it is so much harder, and gives children only half a life-story. And raising children is about the children—not about the parents.
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