By Guest
Kate Bell is Director of Policy at Gingerbread, whose Lose the Labels campaign launches today.
Community Links hosted a great debate here a few weeks back about the portrayal of people on low incomes in the media. With half of single parents living below the poverty line, they often end up on the sharp end of negative coverage. We think there’s an additional stigma though that goes with single parenthood – one that, although it’s changed, hasn’t gone away since Gingerbread launched back in 1918 as the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and her Child.
Back then we were opposing the ‘bastardy’ acts that stigmatised children born out of wedlock. 92 years later, our single parent members tell us they are angry about the labels that are used today. Lone parent employment has climbed steadily in recent years but single parents are still portrayed as ‘scroungers’. Recent evidence has confirmed that most children growing up in single parent families turn out fine but single parents are often depicted as ‘bad mothers’, responsible for ‘broken families’.
We all know someone bringing up a child alone – one in four families is now headed by a single parent. We mostly know that our friends and relatives don’t fit the stereotypes – Vicki Pollard is a fictional character, not a portrait of your average lone mother. While of course there’s no such thing as a ‘typical single parent’, if she were to exist today she’d be 36, divorced and working.
But not only are the stereotypes wrong, they’re damaging. Constantly talking about non working lone parents helps justify punitive welfare reform measures, and distracts attention from issues faced by the majority of single parents who do work. The idea that single parenthood equals social failure risks leading to a focus on policies to promote certain family types, rather than on improving the quality of family life. Portraying single parents as second class citizens won’t help their children thrive.
Gingerbread is starting a campaign to ‘lose the labels’ attached to single parenthood. We’ve got Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg to sign a pledge to challenge prejudice against single parents. And we’ve produced an ad to challenge people’s perceptions.
To ask your MP to sign the pledge go to www.gingerbread.org.uk We hope that in the run up to the election we can get the facts straight about single parent families today – not repeat the stereotypes.
I am with the campaign as well. Single parents have the right to be treated well in the community and not like being discriminated by prejudiced minds.
Single parenthood does not measure on how well one raises his or her child. A lot have been successful in living their lives with their children alone.
These stereotypes are somewhat damaging and can cause backward process in the development of self confidence in their children.
What’s best to do? Stand up and show to the world that despite the lack of partner, you are still the best parent in the world for being strong and raising your kids very well.
As a single parent I welcome this campaign by Gingerbread.
I do get fed up at times with all the stereotypes about single parents and their children and it’s about time something is done about it.
I became a single parent 6 years ago and at the same time I became redundant, my house was going to be repossesed, I had a lot of debts and my self esteem was at an all time low.
I thank God that a friend of mine introduced me to Gingerbread. The help and support I received was fantastic. . Six years on, I managed to sort out my debts, I still have the house, and my self esteem is at an all time high.
I work full time as an online tutor which means I can do the school run and still take my children to their various activities.
I run part time business, and I set up a support group to help other parents with the help of Gingerbread. I also set up a project called confident children, where we run half term and holiday activities for children. Parents make a donation and we get some funding to do this.
Their are a lot of single parents who are also doing a terrific job in managing their lives as well as raising wonderful children. Thanks again to Gingerbread we are 100% behind this campaign