IDS should champion marriage, not relationship counselling
Former welfare minister Iain Duncan Smith has this week warned the government not to cut the annual £7.5 million funding for relationship counselling. But is he right? I know a bit about this issue for a number of reasons: I’ve been researching and writing about what works in relationships for nearly twenty years; I co-wrote […]
‘Time for change’, but not the way the Social Mobility Commission sees it
‘Time for Change’, announces the Social Mobility Commission in their new report out today. In it, former minister Alan Milburn and his team talk about 20 years of public policy leaving us with a nation divided by region, income and wealth, and generation. Despite the 50 per cent real terms increase in education since 1997, […]
Marriage-rich Cabinet need to back marriage
I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. It’s the nature of being an incurable optimist. Assuming the best also means having to deal with disappointment. All of the parties have completely ignored family stability as an issue. Yes, there’s lots of good stuff in the manifestos written and spoken about family issues such as children’s […]
Cabinet MPs’ constituents back marriage – so will it be in the Tory manifesto?
PRESS RELEASE FROM MARRIAGE FOUNDATION FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE New Marriage Foundation data has shown that 25 out of 26 of the Cabinet MPs’ constituencies back marriage as the best family structure to raise children. In almost all of the constituencies represented by Theresa May’s Cabinet, the majority of constituents with dependent children have chosen […]
“I see you, mum and dad”
It’s what children see that affects them, not how parents feel Happy parents -especially happy mums – tend to have happy kids. If parents get on well together, kids generally do fine. A load of research backs this up. So it’s easy to assume that if the quality of the parental relationship changes for better […]
Cohabiting parents now account for majority of family breakdown
PRESS RELEASE FROM MARRIAGE FOUNDATION Cohabiting couples now account for over half of family breakdown despite making up only a fifth of parents, a report by Marriage Foundation has found. Previous Marriage Foundation has shown around one per cent (1.3 per cent) of married parents split in the course of a year, compared to […]
Men: The best gift for Mothering Sunday? Be kind to your wife!
(This article was originally published in this week’s Church of England newspaper) Twenty two years ago, I stood on the brink of divorce. My wife Kate and I were good parents to our two young children. I had a good job and worked hard to make sure I could feed my family. Sure, there was […]
Mothers happy to do lion’s share of household chores in return for kindness, finds survey
PRESS RELEASE FROM MARRIAGE FOUNDATION AND MARRIAGE WEEK: A new survey of 291 mothers reveals that most mothers still tend to take responsibility for the majority of the childcare and domestic chores. More than half of these consider this a fair arrangement and less than half think it unfair. Only a small minority – […]
It’s not marriage that’s ‘patriarchal’. It’s cohabitation.
In an article for Metro last month, writer Rebecca Reid expressed horror that her fiancé might have asked her dad’s permission before he married her. The whole idea has “a massive historical problem” behind it, she declared furiously. There was a time when “women were property to be traded for the advancement of a family […]
What Mums Want (And Dads Need To Know)
Marriage Week runs from 7-14 February. Here our Research Director Harry Benson tells the story of how his marriage went badly wrong, and what happened to turn it around. What Mums Want (And Dads Need To Know) by Harry and Kate Benson is out now! We did the classic thing of growing apart. The first […]