The traditional nuclear family is irretrievably breaking down as children are increasingly raised by relations other than their parents, the head of a Government-funded parenting group says.
The Family and Parenting Institute says grandparents, aunts and uncles are helping out more in childcare responsibilities in a form of ‘communal parenting’ as parents struggle to cope with marital breakdown and work. One in four children is now brought up in a one-parent household, the vast majority of which are led by mothers.
The Institute suggests that rising divorce rates, fewer marriages and the growth of civil partnerships mean that the traditional family model is no longer ‘the norm’ and Government efforts to rescue it are futile. Dr Katherine Rake, Chief Executive of the Institute, said:
‘[F]amilies were pulling society in multiple directions, between work and home life, singleness and cohabitation and marriage, between growing older and forming families across our many cultural divides.’
Dr Rake will use her first major speech in the post to warn against the ‘trap’ of attempting to preserve traditional family structures through Government initiatives. She will also forecast a dramatic change in the role of parents in the next decade.
She predicted that there will be no such thing as a ‘typical family’ in the next 10 to 20 years. She said:
‘People are constantly redefining what it means to be a family. What we are seeing is that family shape is changing all the time, the notion of a traditional nuclear family … certainly isn’t the norm now.
‘Because people are having children later and because there is more divorce and separation, what is happening is that people draw on resources from right across the family and their families can be more involved,’ she added.
With mothers beginning to play a less dominant role in children’s lives because of greater work commitments, fathers will experience a change comparable in scale to that seen by women since the 1950s, she predicts.
An estimated two million families in Britain already rely on the older generation for help with childcare while about 200,000 grandparents are now sole carers, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Iain Duncan Smith, a former leader of the Conservative Party and the current Chairman of the Centre for Social Justice, warned that for many young people, extended family ties no longer exist because of break-ups in previous generations.
‘It is getting more and more difficult for parents in some poorer backgrounds, on estates, because the family structures have been collapsing now over the last 20 years, largely encouraged by the state,’ he said.
‘For a young girl to get a council house near her relations is more and more difficult … that extended family link is often severed by the fact that they can’t get living near their parents.’
Sam Smethers, Chief Executive of Grandparents Plus, a national charity which champions the vital role of grandparents and the wider family in children’s lives, said she had noted the same trend toward more communal parenting.
‘There is a much more complex structure of family life than there has ever been before. It might be step-siblings, it might be cousins, it might be aunts and uncles providing that role, it is a sign of how families are changing,’ she said.
David Willetts, the Shadow Secretary of State for Universities and Skills with responsibility for family policy, said that the traditional two-parent family remains the 'mainstream aspiration' for most young people.
The Conservative Party is proposing tax breaks for married couples which would allow women who stay at home to pass on their allowance to their husband. David Cameron has given a pledge to recognise marriage through the tax system in the first term of a government led by him. Senior Tories then claimed they want to allow couples to combine their tax-free allowances – currently £6,475 – to boost their incomes.
However, it was reported this week that soaring state deficits could force Mr Cameron to water down the plans despite the last Treasury figures, which suggested that allowing all married couples to transfer their allowances would cost nearly £5billion and would benefit 41 per cent of husbands and wives. The figures showed that the tax break would save most money for high earners, making them better off by £2,590 a year.
Andrea Minichiello Williams, Director of CCFON, said: ‘The breakdown of the traditional family is the inevitable outcome of the departure of our society from biblical principles of love, truth and purity. The moral confusion brought about by the poisonous ideology of moral relativism knows no limits. Our desires and prayers are that this country does not turn its face from God but acknowledges Him as the Creator of the family where the unity of love between husband and wife create a reliable and trusted structure for the raising of children’.
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