Blokes are crap, survey reveals

[Jade]

Quarter of mothers are single parents after being enticed by benefits 'lifestyle choice'
By Steve Doughty
Last updated at 9:56 AM on 25th February 2010
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'Rewarding life': Most single mothers prefer to live alone. (Posed by model)
One in four mothers is now a single parent, having made a 'lifestyle choice' to rely on benefits rather than a partner, a report revealed yesterday.

More than half of mothers with children under 13 have never married or lived with a boyfriend and find it 'rewarding' to stay at home supported by state handouts, it said.

The British Social Attitudes survey also found that most single mothers preferred to live without a man because so many are too feckless to support them.

Researchers called for more efforts to encourage young men to take jobs so that more young mothers will choose living with a reliable breadwinner over a life on benefits.


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So in effect, we as a society have now recognised the feckless nature of men and have removed from women the punishment of having to rely on them

Darned good thing, too!

Its not the majority of course - but a quarter of women's experience of men would, I suggest, mean that MUCH more than a quarter of today's "marriageable" young men are utter wastrels, unreliable and without a sense of common decency.

Where are the older men making sure that todays lads stay on the straight and narrow? We women can only do so much with the boys we produce, men have to take their share of the blame. Their male role models (and don't even think of blaming us for them!) are glamorous and libidinous louts who respect nothing, value nothing outside of their own hedonism and whose moral compass went south a long time ago.

One in four women choose single motherhood over the alternatives

Says it all, really.

[alanseago]

I quite agree Jade and you may live without me for as long as you wish.

[Jade]

You counting yourself in the "young marriagable men" category huh Mr Seago?


*raises perfectly plucked eyebrow.........

[jamesjosh]

I hardly think you can describe girls who deliberately get pregnant so they can live on benefits as not being feckless. These girls might not have a boyfriend but they are dependent on men as men are the majority of tax payers.

And female role models - Katie Price, Kate Moss, Amy Winehouse, Paris Hilton, female TV producers who choose younger women over older women; the women who slept with Tiger Woods/John Terry/Ashley cole knowing they are married !!!!!!!!!!!
At least the men are known for something other than sleeping around.

The reason why some women do not want a man around is becaused they cannot control them, whereas men run rings round women. Considering the increase in womens alcholism, drug taking and violence, it is men's agenda that dominates society. What men do today, women do tomorrow.

Men do not blame women for anything it is women who say men get them pregnant, men force them to commit a crime, men exploit them etc etc.

What is sad about the first posting is the denial of the real state of women today. IMO men and women are equal in their vices as well as their virtues, the difference is that men know some men are crap while women continue to be in denial about the failings of others of their gender. Feminists of the nineteenth century would turn in their graves if the saw the state of some women today. The fact there are less than a 100 women MPs is as much a failure of women as it is of men.

[sweetjessicajane]

My concern with this story is that if these women have such a negative view of men what do their children think of men?

Are the daughters brought up to think all men are useless and so themselves turn in to unmarriaged mums?

What do the sons think themselves? Without a positive male role model do they think of themselves simply as sperm donors and have no idea of how to be a father? And so turn into "feckless" men.

[lark descending]

I found that story rather depressing Jade. So young men are freckless. Nothing new there - so why not wait until they grow up a bit before settling down with a family?

From the link I find "Research also suggests that children of single parents are more likely to do badly at school, suffer poor health, and fall into trouble and unemployment as they grow up."

Single parenthood appears not to be such a great choice after all.

[aubrey]

Children from poor families "are more likely to do badly at school, suffer poor health, and fall into trouble and unemployment as they grow up." Single mothers are a bit of a red herring (or someone to blame).


Considering that this story is from the DM, who have always had a bit of a thing about single mothers (and blaming them for pretty much everything that is wrong in today's world), I'd be a bit suspicious about this. (Actually, not a bit; I'd be more likely to believe the opposite of everything they say.)

[aubrey]

And what is meant by feckless? If you want your man (or woman) to be perfect, and the relationship to be just like in a pop song or a Government pamphlet, you're buggered. It's not going to happen.

[pippa]

well said Aubrey - what can you expect from that awful propagandist paper? single mothers have been demonised as long as i can remember - grief, is society so afraid of women bringing up kids on their own. most single mothers i've ever met shoulder their responsibility very seriously especially when there is no father around. i don't know why we have to have these lines drawn all the time. there is a sense today that we are heading for the 1950s straightjacket of conformity. and i've just read something on bbc WOM about little posters appearing on the tubes requesting people to snitch on fare dodgers. what a petty minded society we are becoming.

excellent point about poverty being the problem.

[lark descending]

Feb 27, 2010 9:31:38 GMT aubrey said:

Children from poor families "are more likely to do badly at school, suffer poor health, and fall into trouble and unemployment as they grow up." Single mothers are a bit of a red herring (or someone to blame).


Considering that this story is from the DM, who have always had a bit of a thing about single mothers (and blaming them for pretty much everything that is wrong in today's world), I'd be a bit suspicious about this. (Actually, not a bit; I'd be more likely to believe the opposite of everything they say.)

I've seen that reported elsewhere, Aubrey; (initially from someone on the defunct board?). But it would be interesting to see a comparison between children of similar socio-economic backgrounds to see if the results still favoured the couples.

[jamesjosh]

The problem is not women bringing up children on their own, it is the use some women make of their children, so they can live on benefits.

True this is not in every case and I agree that many women make very good mothers but equally many men are great fathers. However, demonising men based on a few is surely just as unacceptable.

And even if the mothers are great at parenting they are not dependent, indeed none of us are really dependent. The "women can do without men" mantra is simply a childish as we are all interdependent on each other. And there are many men who bring up their children without a wife/girlfriend.

What I object to is the seeminly misandrist attitude of Jade's post. I think the idea that women are these perfect creatures who are so superior to men is tedious and is not born out by fact. What girls and boys need to be taught is assertiveness and to become a person in their own right.

[lark descending]

Well, Jade is very good at stirring up debate, and she seems to have succeeded here....

But her question in the opening post "Where are the older men making sure that todays lads stay on the straight and narrow?" begs such an obvious answer that I won't even bother to type it.

[jamesjosh]

And where are the older women to turn young girls from sexualising their daughters or teaching girls to be more assertive by start respecting their own bodies and stop seeing men simply as cash machines ?

Why does anyone need someone else to keep them on the straight and narrow ?

An adult person (ie someone over 16) should not need a role model (how I loathe that mis-used tabloid expression) to know the difference between right and wrong.

To be a person in your own right you should be able to intelligently make your own choices and intelligently seek advice when you realise that you have made a mistake.

The truth of course is that there are millions of boys and girls who actually do that.

[aubrey]

Do you know what benefit levels are, James? Not inticingly high. With no slack for emergencies (shoes, for eg, or school trips). When the Daily Mail give out what a single mother gets, it will include the rent, which she doesn't get but which goes straight to the landlord or council. If girls get the idea that benefits are very high, it will be from Mail reports and the like, not a look through DWP leaflets.

Sexualised girls are always other people's children.

[jamesjosh]

Aubrey, I know them to very low but for a mother they are higher than that for girl without a baby.

And as they are low it is surely better for girls not to see them as a way of life. The implication of Jade's posting was that she to seemed be supporting girls who do that and taking (IMO) anti-feminist line. Bringing a child into this world when you cannot support the child is an example of feckless behaviour. True for many women they have no choice but it is not those women we are talking about.

I objected to her denial that there are only feckless boys and girls are not feckless. And the denial that men do not share the blame for how some men grow up which is utter crap. I really cannot abide the holier than thou attitude of some women.

There are plenty of great role male models (if we have to use that expression) for men - the many professional footballers who are self-disciplined in looking after the bodies, get married, manage their money and are great fathers, but women like Jade want to deny that as much as they want to deny the many appalling female role models.