Boys and Fatherhood

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 6:00 pm on 24 January 2001.

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Photo of Lord Weatherill Lord Weatherill Crossbench 6:00, 24 January 2001

My Lords, this debate is an extension of the debate that we had last Wednesday on marriage and the family, initiated by the noble Baroness, Lady Young. We are greatly indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for giving us this further opportunity to debate a subject of very great interest and importance for the future of our nation. However, this debate is rather more specific. It concentrates on the importance of fathers in families as role models for preparing boys to become good fathers, and thereafter good citizens.

As the Member of Parliament for Croydon North East, I recollect attending a function in my constituency, when I said to a young man aged about 11, "What are you going to do when you grow up?", to which he replied, "I want to be like my Dad". There your Lordships have the answer. There can be no doubt that the influence and example of our parents shapes our future attitudes and our success in life--sometimes, sadly, our failures--and, in addition, of course, the future success or perhaps failure of our nation. Of course, it is true that for the first few years of a child's life the influence of a mother is paramount. Your Lordships may recall the words of James Barrie:

"The God to whom small boys say their prayers has a face very like their mothers'".

But later in a child's life, at about the age of seven, the father becomes the role model for boys.

In last weeks' debate, and again today, it has been pointed out that some 25 per cent of our country's children live in one-parent families--about 22 per cent of them with their mothers rather than with their fathers. We may not like it, but it is a fact of life. It is therefore essential that we seek to fill this gap. That is the importance of today's debate.

In my village of Brasted, Kent, is the headquarters of RPS Rainer, of which I am a vice-president. The Royal Philanthropic Society is one of our country's oldest charities, founded in 1788 to overcome and to assist the increasing number of homeless children then infesting the metropolis. So the subject that we are debating today is not exactly new. I believe that Samuel Johnson said that all men--he probably meant women, too--need to be reminded more than they need to be informed. This is not a new problem.

For some 200 years, RPS Rainer has been working with disaffected young people through 45 projects across the United Kingdom. Because this debate is time limited, I mention only three with a direct bearing on the topic of the debate this evening. The first is the Breaking the Cycle project, which targets the most disaffected and excluded young people in order to help them to develop their potential and to progress to become fully integrated members of society. The second is the Fresh Start programme, which works with socially excluded young men, many of them in prison, some 65 per cent of them fathers themselves, with responsibility for caring for their young babies and children. The third is the Simply Dads initiative--a parenting project for young fathers.

Of course, the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, is absolutely right when he says that children need the security, predictability and commitment of two loving parents. A comment was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, in last week's debate that it may be that by the year 2020 the number of married couples in this country will be in a minority. The noble Baroness said that if that materialised, we should become one of the first countries in history in which marriage is not the basis of society--a worrying thought. Given those comments and the statistics, we have to find some way of giving boys a role model to guide them in their path to maturity. Of course, partners can do this, but many boys will be living with their mothers and will not have that advantage--hence the importance of the initiatives of the kind that I have mentioned and the programmes that have a track record of success.

Time does not allow me to carry forward this debate from fatherhood to good citizenship, which is, of course, a natural progression. But, fortunately, the next speaker will be my noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury. He and I have a joint interest in citizenship initiatives--he as chairman of the Citizenship Foundation, I as the founder president of the Institute for Citizenship. I make only one point. Good citizenship is not a matter of chance. It needs to be taught. Thankfully, it is, at long last, now part of the national curriculum.

It is equally true, of course, that today's boys are tomorrow's good citizens. In youth, they also need to be taught. I suggest that they need to be taught the five Rs, which, I remind your Lordships, are reading, writing, arithmetic, right and wrong. At best, those subjects probably can be taught, by example, only by mothers and fathers. Where there are no fathers, substitute fathers are important. The kind of mentoring programmes, run with such success over the years by RPS Rainer, and by other bodies such as local authorities and churches, are to be encouraged and applauded, as we this evening rightly applaud the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for enabling us to again debate this very important subject.