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LADS NEED DADS.....A CHARITY FOR TODAY
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| Phillips |
In today's Times Melanie Phillips draws together the multiplicity of evidence linking fatherless children to gang membership: it's a sobering READ
The Mayoral candidates, Bailey and Stewart have both come up with their own ideas as to how to address the problem and their ideas are just that....ideas.
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| Shaljean |
What they need to be do is see how they can help this amazing charity LADS NEED DADS
Founded by Sonia Shaljean the charity is driven by a mentors who step in to provide guidance and support to children without fathers.
I hope RBKC is supporting this amazing charity
ReplyDeleteMore to the point have any of the mayoral candidates met and encouraged this great idea?
ReplyDeleteI agree...this charity seems to have a grip on the problem. A nationwide network of mentors would send a message out there
ReplyDeleteMelanie Phillips is a nasty Daily Mail columnist who only moved to the times when she got sacked.
ReplyDeleteYou think? I find her eminently readable!
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteStupidly offensive comments will always be deleted 18:30
ReplyDeleteThat's a new policy from the hornet
ReplyDeleteIt is reactionary to say, "Lads need dads." Widows have bringing up their sons for years on their own and no one correlates this type of parenting with gang membership. Whereas a child from a so called "broken home" is immediately correlated with the anti-social aspects of society and far too often labelled "the dregs".
ReplyDeleteI am the product of a single parent family and was brought up by my mother. I have never been in trouble with the police, have had a university education, and have always worked. My brother is highly successful and earns a quarter of a million pounds a year without any further or higher education.
Children need one strong parent. It does not matter if the strong parent is a mother or a father. Dual parenting should be better than single parenting but this is not always the case. A dysfunctional father who beats the mother and kids, who does not work, who enjoys the booze and drugs is no role model.
You were lucky. You probably came from a secure, middle class home. This charity's focus is on families who have not the advantages you enjoyed.
DeleteThe reality is that boys need a male figure in their lives-especially when the lure of local gangs is ever present. We are delighted you have managed your life so well.
Are you suggesting that there is no need for Lads Need Dads? If so I suspect that many of the young people it helsp would disagree with you.
05.53 here.
DeleteI did not come from a middle class home. My mother worked as a Barmaid and a Hospital Cleaner. We did not have much money but we ate three meals a day and went to school clean. We did not go on holidays or have much in the way of luxuries. My mother was determined that she would do as good a job at bringing up her children as any two parent household. She did not need a man behind her and, as I have proved, neither did her two sons. My mother was a very strong, no nonsense, woman!
My mother had no time for people who joined "Gingerbread", the charity for lone parents and their kids, because she did not want her children stigmatised. I think "Lads need dads" is typical of middle class intellectuals who think they know best with their patronising ideas. I was at school with other boys, some of whose mothers had been deserted by their children's fathers, some of whose fathers had died and none of us did badly or went off the rails. Most of the men who taught me were not good role models.
When I look at the mothers and fathers that I have come across through my professional work, I am not surprised that some lads turn out so badly with the appalling parents that some of them have.
It is typical of "middle class intellectuals" who think they have the last word in terms of policy prescriptions.
DeleteIf, and it is not accepted that, there is a "significant correlation" with lads joining gangs and absent fathers , the most that can be argued is that this is a correlation. It is a scientific fact that "correlation is never causation" regardless of what Melanie Phillips and Sonia Shalijean might suggest to the contrary.
Shaljean is no middle class intellectual: she has seen the issues at the coalface....you have not.
DeleteShaljean is now middle class! The mere facts that she is running lads needs dads is proof positive she is middle class. Hardly, a working class occupation.
DeleteWell said 10.58 and 05.53. You know what you are talking about because of your background.
ReplyDelete11:21 you talk arrant rubbish.
DeleteIf you are a an 10 year old boy from a sink estate with a father who the boy has not seen for years and a mother with mental or other health problems there is bound to a huge gap in his life.What will fill the gap? Some form of bad influence. Lads Needs Dad does an amazing job finding mentoring father figures able to help the child have the experiences that a boy in a normal home would have.
You need to think before blurting out nonsense.
20.12. What could the writer at 10.58 and 05.53 possibly know about single parenting?
DeleteHe was brought up by his mother, a single parent, a woman who clearly had some decent values. It is values and good parenting that turns out decent kids not the number of parents in a family unit or the gender of the parent looking after lads. The young lads to whom you are referring are now being helped by surrogate dads. These lads from your description appear to have two dysfunctional parents; not just an absent father.
What are you blathering on about 22:24?
ReplyDeleteLook at the profiles of the amazing mentors drawn to Lads Needs Dad. Take the trouble to read the success stories.
I once heard a Roman Catholic priest arguing along the lines that Lads Need Dads. Well he would, wouldn't he. He was dumbfounded when an Irish single parent mother asked him did the lads being raised by Christian Brothers in Ireland really need men to bring them up. Many of these men, "dads" were guilty of sexually abusing many boys in their charge. Just look at the many men who were once lads in such male dominated institutions in Ireland. Many of these lads became men with serious depression problems, many of them had serious behavioural problems in family life, many were in and out of prison and some committed suicide.
DeleteDo lads need dads. Lads need good parents. Boys being brought up with absent fathers is not the problem with boys militating towards gang life.
Charities make all sorts of claims to justify their existence but I can assure you that boys growing up in a household with one strong parent turn out fine.
Your fatuous comment doesn't deserve a coherent response. We are discussing you black kids whose fathers have deserted them....grow up, man!
Delete@07:52 Are we? Where does it say dads for lads is just for black kids?
DeleteIt doesn't and it isn't but it's a problem that no one dares to talk about so they don't get accused of racism
DeleteUnfortunately the article in the Times appears to be hidden behind a paywall.
ReplyDeleteHowever, based on my previous experience of such newspaper articles I suspect the evidence described will be entirely anecdotal and no peer reviewed studies to support the views expressed will be cited.
The article will be nothing more than a poorly disguised attempt to deflect attention from, for example, the lack of resources available to the Police caused by ten years of politically motivated austerity. And to validate and reinforce pre-existing views held by the paper's readers, who are after all paying to read it. It would be too much to confront them with anything that might put them out of their comfort zone.
Want to stop kids joining gangs? Given them a future to look forward to and something meaningful to do in the meantime. You don't do that by cutting all their services to the bone.
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ReplyDeleteIt is enlightening to read the what the mentoring team have to say about their work https://ladsneeddads.org/meet-the-mentors
ReplyDeleteLads Need Dads appears to have questionable, possibly racist, motives. There are plenty of Black women bringing up their sons on their own. just as there are plenty of white mothers bringing up their mixed race (black) sons on their own. These mothers want the best for their sons; no different to the mothers and fathers living in Knightsbridge who send their lads to public school. Decent lone parent mothers, regardless of racial background, manage to keep their sons out of gangs.
ReplyDeleteHas it occurred to the proponents of Lads Need Dads that there is evidence that a sizeable number of the Black boys who join gangs come from two parent households. You cannot pin this one on lone parent mothers.
Lads need to learn the difference between right and wrong. It is arrant nonsense to suggest that lads can only learn right from wrong if they have a man or a "dad figure" in their upbringing.
ReplyDelete