Melanie Phillips: the Left’s war on the family has left us with millions of lonely people

Dina has been really wonderful lately, calming me down after Tuesday’s election loss. I’m trying not to write about politics for a little while. For me the biggest impact of the election will be on the children. The children who will be aborted by their mothers, the children who will be raised without their fathers, the children who will be raised with no mother or no father in same-sex “marriages” and the children who will be saddled with over $200,000 of public debt the day they are born. Truly, leftism is a philosophy that makes war on children.

Dina sent me this related article from Melanie Phillips, a well-known Jewish conservative based in the UK. It’s a really good article.

Excerpt:

Britain appears to be turning into a disunited kingdom of solitary and lonely people.

Recent figures have shown that ever-increasing numbers of middle-aged men and women are living alone.

According to the Office of National Statistics, almost 2.5 million people aged between 45 and 64 have their own home but no spouse, partner or children to live with them. Since the mid-Nineties, their number has grown by more than 50 per cent.

[…]A devastating study published last week revealed that, by the time they are 15, little more than half of British children are still living with both their natural parents. That means nearly half of 15-year-olds are not.

First the broken links between parents and children:

[I]f a parent disappears from his or her children’s lives, those children are far less likely to want to look after that parent when he or she becomes old and frail.

Nor will children want to look after a step-parent who, even if not actively resented, will not command the same bonds of love and duty as someone’s natural father or mother.

And the broken links in romantic relationships:

[O]ur post-religious, post-modern, post-moral society prizes above all else independence, which is seen as essential to fulfilling one’s potential without any constraints or interference by anyone else.

This fact more than anything else helps explain the rise and rise of cohabitation, and the reason why so many now prefer it to marriage.

The key point about marriage is that it is not a partnership or a relationship but a union in which two people bind themselves to each other for ever in solemn obligation.

By contrast, those who choose to cohabit regard their relationship as a partnership of independent individuals — in which they reserve for themselves the right to opt out, with no binding obligation on either side.

[…]Nor is it surprising that a principal reason why cohabitations collapse is the arrival of a baby. For a child demands unconditional obligation to another human being. And that’s what cohabitants don’t want.

And children who grow up without both of their biological parents:

Of course, there are lone parents who do a heroic job in bringing up their children against all the odds, but in general children in fragmented families suffer in every aspect of their lives.

They do worse at school and are less likely to get a job, are more prone to drugs, teenage pregnancy and crime, suffer more from depression and other mental disorders and are more vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse.

Worse still, they go on disproportionately to replicate in their adult lives the very same disordered or broken family patterns that did them so much damage.

For in fractured families, where one spouse has betrayed or abandoned another and where partners may come and go, the children grow up without any understanding of what it takes to overcome difficulties in a relationship, or what things such as trust, loyalty — and yes, real love — actually mean.

[…]From easier divorce to the abolition of laws covering illegitimacy; from the promotion of unmarried motherhood to the feminist demonisation of men; from the doctrine of non-judgmentalism, which gave a free pass to the abandonment of children, to the loading of the tax and welfare dice against marriage and in favour of lone parenthood — the wrecking ball of the Left has succeeded in smashing the traditional family to bits.

I love Melanie Phillips! And, like Dina and I, she also likes Conservative MP Iain Duncan Smith – the best MP in the UK.

Now everybody click here and go read the whole thing.

4 thoughts on “Melanie Phillips: the Left’s war on the family has left us with millions of lonely people”

  1. Great article.

    May I add something else? Independence is a great thing, but is not absolute. Strong family bonds help individuals in the family to be independent of the state, of strangers, of people who would do them harm.

    As demonstrated by Sandra Fluke, the issue is not one of independence – she’s not independent enough to make a run to CVS or do demand better of her bed partners – but of who one may rely on and via what means. Crying to the government does not make one independent. Relying on social programmes for retirement and health is not independence, and in fact leaves one at the mercy of extraordinarily wealthy and powerful people. While one is not completely independent within a marriage – as there are duties to the spouse and to the union – it is more independent than any other way to live.

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  2. No doubt independence plays a part in cohabitation. But I think a strong additional factor is the fear of broken marriage. While people are independent, every man I know who has cohabited has done it to avoid divorce. For the women it’s to “take the relationship to the next level”. Of course, we know that cohabitation leads to divorce, but most don’t recognize that.

    Maybe we have a chain here:

    feminism/no fault divorce/divorce laws -> divorce -> broken relationships -> children who fear divorce -> cohabitation -> divorce -> broken relationships -> etc.

    You can where the start of the process lies. In the general populace, I don’t think we’ll have much luck changing the beginning factor. But faithful Christians can – if we can find them and they live out their faith.

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  3. Thank you for the post! I am doing research for a class that I am taking and wonder if there is a correlation with what you have posted to the rising incidences in suicide in the U.S.. The age group (men and European descended in particular) that you mentioned have the highest incidences compared to everyone else. It is really sad! Keep up the good work. God bless!

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