The price we’ll pay for fatherless homes
Our organisation, Amen, regularly hears from fathers who are removed from or marginalised in their children's lives through no fault of their own.
Family court decisions on divorce and separation routinely remove fathers from family homes and leave them in a position where they can no longer function effectively as fathers in their children's lives. This situation is further compounded by some mothers who breach access orders and undermine the status of their children's fathers.
Because of the manner in which courts treat fathers they usually get very limited access to their children and cannot provide suitable accommodation to keep their children overnight. The result is that they become peripheral figures in their children's lives.
These men care deeply about their children's welfare and want to be fully involved in their upbringing.
They often tell us that because the children have no father figure in their lives, they lack discipline and supervision and often get involved in crime as well as alcohol and drug abuse.
The lack of a positive male role model adversely affects every aspect of their lives social, educational and moral and will detrimentally affect their ability to become functional parents in the future.
There is no doubt that Government policies are creating a fatherless generation and society will pay a huge price.
Mary T Cleary,
National Co-ordinator,
Amen,
St Anne's Resource Centre,
Railway Street,
Navan,
Co Meath
