Governments must stop trying to replace families, and support them instead

The responsibility of parents as first educators must be affirmed

Mar 1, 2021 - 11:46

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Governments must stop trying to replace families, and support them instead

During the Coronavirus epidemic high-profile British soccer-player Marcus Rashford called for the extension of free school lunches even when pupils are not at school. School meals are free in the U.K. for the children of poorer families, and Rashford thought that it would make sense for this concept to be extended to the time when schools are out. Prime Minister Boris Johnson caved in to the campaign during the summer holidays, giving poorer families vouchers to use in supermarkets, but refused to do so again for the Christmas holidays, though a lot of volunteers did step in with offers of free cooked meals, and the government promised help through the normal channels of the welfare system. In the meantime Rashford was given an honour - “Member of the British Empire” (MBE). This award is usually only given to people who have spent a lifetime volunteering! Rashford received it at the age of 23.

Rashford’s initiative was prompted by a commendable compassion, but there is something slightly troubling about the terms in which his campaign took off. Feeding the very poor is a fundamental category of good work, but what have schools got to do with it? It was difficult to shake off the impression that Rashford was benefitting from an unfortunate idea which seems to have taken hold: that schools are the primary care-givers. If they are, the periods of time in which schools are not in session, for whatever reason, become problematic. Who is going to look after the children then?

Christina Odone summarizes the results of an Ipsos opinion poll conducted in January this year:

Almost six in ten parents believe that schools and parents should be equally responsible

for reading and writing (59 per cent)

for non-academic skills such as imagination and creativity (57 per cent),

for speaking and listening (54 per cent) and

for physical skills (53 per cent).

Almost half feel schools and parents should have equal responsibility for social skills and behaviours (49 per cent) and almost the same proportion (43 per cent) believe that schools and parents should have equal responsibility for children’s emotional awareness.

Another survey, conducted by YouGov, shows that 46% of children arriving in school at the age of 5 are not “school ready:” in diapers, not familiar with cutlery, not talking properly, not able to respond to questions, and so on. It is not so very surprising that parents who expect their children’s schools will teach them “speaking and listening”, may present these schools with children not very good at speaking and listening. As the second poll found, “some kids can’t even pronounce their own names.”

What is the solution to a problem created by a shift of expectations and resources from families to impersonal, state-run institutions?

Unfortunately, instead of reinforcing the responsibility of parents, it leads to a greater shift of expectations and resources from families to impersonal, state-run institutions; institutions where under-5s are stressed by the absence of their parents, and are often cared for by staff with poor English, if not actual sex-abusers. The failures by families are addressed not by supporting families but by undermining them further, leading to more failures.

Schools which see themselves as correcting or supplanting the ideas parents have inculcated into their children, are not just a problem insofar as their ideas are wrong. They are a problem because they undermine the authority of parents. If they rubbish parents’ moral and religious values, how can they expect those parents to continue to present to them children who are disciplined, hard-working, and polite?

The undermining of the family also includes the systematic dis-incentivizing of married, single-earner families by the tax and welfare system: to such an extent that in the U.K. the “tax credit” system favours single-parent families, who qualify for child grants, while married couples do not. Again, the legal status of marriage has been manipulated in such a way that it fails to encourage the life-long, legally-binding union between a man and a woman, to say nothing of the way that same-sex unions have been forced on nations around the world.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

In light of the fact that stable families, where biological parents look after their offspring and are legally married to each other, are associated with vastly better outcomes, it would be perfectly reasonable for the state to make forming and maintaining such families easier, not harder. Whenever policies in this direction are proposed, we hear the bizarre objection that they are intrusive and engaging in social engineering, as if policies which push things the other way are perfectly neutral!

This is something which Catholics and pro-family citizens should insist on when politicians come seeking our votes. The most fundamental step of all, however, is for young people to believe in the family enough to form and maintain one: when they do so, they deserve our support.

Even though the above refers to the situation in the UK, the idea that the state can assume the responsibility for the education and welfare of children in place of their parents, is a growing trend across the world.