Absent parents - Are we doing the right thing?

THERE are few minefields as vividly framed by political correctness as the area of lone-parent allowances.

However, as today’s story about the great difficulties in securing child maintenance from absent parents shows, it may be time to reconsider how we support lone parents and their children.

In far, far too many instances one parent avoids making any contribution to their child’s welfare. If that is because of economic reasons then so be it, but in very many cases it is not and the state picks up the tab.

Though there is a financial cost to the state in all of this it is relatively modest and is, essentially, irrelevant. The real question is this: is the state, by so readily supporting lone parents sustaining the culture that traps so many of our young women?

Might we, and the young mothers involved, be better off if they deferred motherhood until they were economically independent? After all, if you are unable to support a child in a stable environment it must represent gross irresponsibility to have one.