Sonia Poulton seethes about feckless fathers in today's Daily Mail - prompted (as is so often the case when fatherhood pops up in the tabloids) by the extreme case of one Jamie Cumming, a 34-year-old who's about to have his 16th child, by the 14th woman he has impregnated.
Few could disagree with Ms Poulton's outrage, and there's little doubt that 'the system' should come down harder on such 'deadbeat dads'. What's missed out here - and is so often omitted from policy and media analysis - is that the 'the system' fails almost completely to engage with fathers. Not just the feckless ones, but all of them.
The answer to this is not to take a pair of rusty scissors to Mr Cumming's nether regions, tempting as it might be to do so. It's something much more comprehensive. Check out this blog from the Fatherhood Institute, written around the time of the summer 2011 riots, to get a sense of where we might start.
Few could disagree with Ms Poulton's outrage, and there's little doubt that 'the system' should come down harder on such 'deadbeat dads'. What's missed out here - and is so often omitted from policy and media analysis - is that the 'the system' fails almost completely to engage with fathers. Not just the feckless ones, but all of them.
The answer to this is not to take a pair of rusty scissors to Mr Cumming's nether regions, tempting as it might be to do so. It's something much more comprehensive. Check out this blog from the Fatherhood Institute, written around the time of the summer 2011 riots, to get a sense of where we might start.
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