Sugar and Spice, Slugs and Snails
‘He also made, I think, a very valid point about people moving off the system altogether and whether or not the Options service will be an approach were people do, in fact, get everything to which they are entitled. And I know that, for example, Gingerbread are particularly concerned that we might just see a re-establishment of what I will call traditional gender relations, and women, for the sake of peace not pushing as hard as they ought.’
Work and Pensions Minister Helen Goodman in response to a question by Steve Webb MP (LD): Debate on the Child Support Agency, Westminster Hall 16 December 2009
That single parent pressure groups like Gingerbread paint the world in simple pictures is understandable. Their mission is to lobby on behalf of one particular, but limited, experience of family separation. Generally speaking, the bigger the caricature, the more effective the campaign. Their job is to convince policy makers that the world consists of ‘single parents’ (good) and ‘non resident parents’ (bad) and, to be fair to them, they do it very effectively.
What is more concerning is that the Minister in charge of the child maintenance system should have such an unsophisticated view of family separation and the relationships between mothers and fathers. Her attitude may be just more of the same ‘sugar and spice’ versus ‘slugs and snails’ silliness that we’ve been hearing for years, but it is upon such attitudes that laws are built and policies enacted.
What evidence does she have for her assertion that women are more likely to want peace than men or, come to that, that these behaviours are traditional? She would do well to talk to some of the Child Support Agency workers that I have worked with who will tell her that women are just as capable of using child maintenance as a stick with which to beat the other parent. Perhaps she might also spend a little time talking to fathers whose relationships with their children are at the mercy of mothers and whose lives are controlled by the power to gate-keep those relationships.
Relationships between men and women, mothers and fathers are complex. When separation happens, they also become raw and painful. Anyone who argues that all men are loving, responsible and decent would be a fool. But anyone who portrays all men as scheming, irresponsible and unpleasant is equally silly.
Personally, I don’t want to live in a world of caricatures. I see, on a daily basis, how laws, policies and attitudes that are based on caricatures bring heartache and sadness into the lives of so many people. Isn’t it time we had a more mature debate around family separation?
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Sugar and Spice, Slugs and Snails
16/12/2009 Leave a comment
‘He also made, I think, a very valid point about people moving off the system altogether and whether or not the Options service will be an approach were people do, in fact, get everything to which they are entitled. And I know that, for example, Gingerbread are particularly concerned that we might just see a re-establishment of what I will call traditional gender relations, and women, for the sake of peace not pushing as hard as they ought.’
Work and Pensions Minister Helen Goodman in response to a question by Steve Webb MP (LD): Debate on the Child Support Agency, Westminster Hall 16 December 2009
That single parent pressure groups like Gingerbread paint the world in simple pictures is understandable. Their mission is to lobby on behalf of one particular, but limited, experience of family separation. Generally speaking, the bigger the caricature, the more effective the campaign. Their job is to convince policy makers that the world consists of ‘single parents’ (good) and ‘non resident parents’ (bad) and, to be fair to them, they do it very effectively.
What is more concerning is that the Minister in charge of the child maintenance system should have such an unsophisticated view of family separation and the relationships between mothers and fathers. Her attitude may be just more of the same ‘sugar and spice’ versus ‘slugs and snails’ silliness that we’ve been hearing for years, but it is upon such attitudes that laws are built and policies enacted.
What evidence does she have for her assertion that women are more likely to want peace than men or, come to that, that these behaviours are traditional? She would do well to talk to some of the Child Support Agency workers that I have worked with who will tell her that women are just as capable of using child maintenance as a stick with which to beat the other parent. Perhaps she might also spend a little time talking to fathers whose relationships with their children are at the mercy of mothers and whose lives are controlled by the power to gate-keep those relationships.
Relationships between men and women, mothers and fathers are complex. When separation happens, they also become raw and painful. Anyone who argues that all men are loving, responsible and decent would be a fool. But anyone who portrays all men as scheming, irresponsible and unpleasant is equally silly.
Personally, I don’t want to live in a world of caricatures. I see, on a daily basis, how laws, policies and attitudes that are based on caricatures bring heartache and sadness into the lives of so many people. Isn’t it time we had a more mature debate around family separation?
Like this:
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