We can now add Father’s Day cards to the growing list of items that has become a victim of political correctness in the U.K.

According to a report in the TimesOnline schools in Scotland last week banned the long-standing practice of allowing children to make Father’s Day cards in school citing the need to be sensitive to those that are in single parent or same-sex couple households.  This sensitivity only extends to father’s as the students are still allowed to make cards for their mothers. 

Current figures show that there are 280,000 children in Scotland living in single parent households or 7% of the total.

Family rights campaigners have labeled the policy as “absurd” and said that it marginalizes fathers.

Alastair Noble, education officer with the charity Christian Action, Research and Education, told the Times that“This seems to be an extreme and somewhat absurd reaction. I would have thought that the traditional family and marriage are still the majority lifestyles of people in Scotland. To deny the experience of the majority just does not seem sensible.”

Victoria Gillick, a family values campaigner added: “It seems quite unfair to deny those children whose parents are together and who want to make cards from enjoying the experience. Stopping children from making Father’s Day cards is reinforcing the fact that some fathers are not there, it’s actually drawing attention to the issue.”

Local officials have defended their actions under the guise of needing to be sensitive as more students are facing family beakdowns and divorce.

“Increasingly, it is the case that there are children who haven’t got fathers or haven’t got fathers living with them and teachers are having to be sensitive about this,” said a spokesman for East Renfrewshire council. “Teachers have always had to deal with some pupils not having fathers or mothers, but with marital breakdown it is accelerating.”

According to government statistics divorce rates in Scotland increased 19% between 2005 and 2006 but they atrribute that to changes in the Family Law Act that reduced the time necessary before a divorce was official.  Officials in Scotland may have been reacting to the headline number without examing the reasons behind the surge.  Overall divorce rates in the U.K. are on the decline.

I don’t think anyone will disagree that divorce and any subsequent family breakdown is tragic.  However not all divorces result in acrimony on part of the spouses and in many cases father’s are still present in their children’s lives.  Also I didn’t see any mention of any of the fatherless families demanding that the card making activity be banned.  Why did the school officials decide to punish the majority of the students living in a traditional family? 

In the end this policy punishes all children and in a day and age when it is important to remind fathers to live up to their responsibilities.

 

 

 

 

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4 Comments for Father’s Day Cards Succomb To Political Correctness