Parents lacking skills, Grayling
Many parents do not know how to bring up children, Conservative frontbencher Chris Grayling is to say.
The shadow work and pensions secretary will warn in a speech that parenting of the type seen in the TV show Shameless has become the "norm" in many places.
But he will warn that the Conservative Party should never again be seen as being "at war with lone parents".
He is expected to back action to revive parenting skills, emphasising the role of work in helping to structure lives.
In a speech to the Reform think tank, Mr Grayling will say the Conservative Party should focus on parenting problems generally - not on single parents.
'Disappearing' skills
"In too many parts of our society responsible parenting and good parenting experience is disappearing," Mr Grayling is expected to say.
"I think many parts of our society no longer know how to bring up children. We live in a country where in many places Frank Gallagher-style parenting has become the norm and not the exception."
He will say in many families children are "largely left to their own devices" and will ask how people learn parenting skills, "if that inherited knowledge simply isn't there".
He will add: "Those skills can quickly disappear. In many of our most troubled areas, the generations pass pretty quickly. Thirty-year-old grandparents and 45-year-old great-grandparents are far from unusual in today's Britain. "
But he will say it is a more complex issue than family breakdown alone.
"Sometimes over the past 25 years the Conservative Party has seemed to be at war with lone parents. That should not happen again," he will say.
He said the party should concentrate on helping lone parents, not stigmatising them, by reforming the Child Support Agency.
And he will re-emphasise the value of work in structuring lives and strengthening a sense of personal responsibility.
Source: BBC News, 14th May 2008.
13th May 2008
