What is the typical Irish Family? Britain = Two single mothers, one heavily pregnant.

Lapin

Einhard wrote: »

But what if it were t be shown that the traditional family unit performs no better than other forms of the same thing? Would you change your perspective then?

It would probably take a couple of generations for such results to manifest themselves. The traditional family has by and large, been the mainstay and basic unit of society for millenia and I don't think it has done us any harm.

To reiterate, I'm not saying children raised by a mother and father automatically grow up to become more rounded individuals than those with single parents or any other form of fragmented family.

I simply think the traditional family unit is the best template for society to base itself on. And I do think its disappointing that in modern life it has come to be accepted that fathers aren't considered by some to be a valuable part of the family anymore.

nokia69

I remember reading an article a while back that pointed out that most of the poor families in the UK were the single parent welfare families, they did poorly in almost all measures, education, crime, teenage mothers ect

its not the best way to raise children, its amazing the number of people who just can't admit this

ideology trumps facts for some people

Einhard

Lapin wrote: »

It would probably take a couple of generations for such results to manifest themselves. The traditional family has by and large, been the mainstay and basic unit of society for millenia and I don't think it has done us any harm.

To reiterate, I'm not saying children raised by a mother and father automatically grow up to become more rounded individuals than those with single parents or any other form of fragmented family.

I simply think the traditional family unit is the best template for society to base itself on. And I do think its disappointing that in modern life it has come to be accepted that fathers aren't considered by some to be a valuable part of the family anymore.

You didn't answer my question. If evidence showed that the nuclear family has the same outcomes for children as less traditional family groups, would you change your position?

I can see where you're coming from, but I'm not at all comfortable making sweeping generalisations which affect others (because such assumptions always do) based on intuition and a feeling in me bones!! :pac:

Paulownia

Presumably these two ladies have private means to allow them to spend their time happily producing children.
Or am I old fashioned too?

Lapin

Einhard wrote: »

You didn't answer my question. If evidence showed that the nuclear family has the same outcomes for children as less traditional family groups, would you change your position?

I thought I answered it clearly. As such evidence would not be available for a couple of generations I'm not going to speculate or try and predict the future, so there is no point in playing with hypothetical situations in the meantime.

Einhard wrote: »

I can see where you're coming from, but I'm not at all comfortable making sweeping generalisations which affect others (because such assumptions always do) based on intuition and a feeling in me bones!! :pac:

What sweeping generalisations?

Annasopra

nokia69 wrote: »

I remember reading an article a while back that pointed out that most of the poor families in the UK were the single parent welfare families, they did poorly in almost all measures, education, crime, teenage mothers ect

its not the best way to raise children, its amazing the number of people who just can't admit this

ideology trumps facts for some people

Link to article?

Annasopra

Paulownia wrote: »

Presumably these two ladies have private means to allow them to spend their time happily producing children.
Or am I old fashioned too?

Show us your bank account before the state allows you to have a child so.

RDM_83 again

bodice ripper wrote: »

If they aren't worse, what is the problem with representing them in sculpture?

I shouldn't bother replying since again your not actually engaging with any of the other points and you'l probably just try and assign me again the views I've made clear I don't hold. I don't judge any of the single parents I know, when I open my facebook I don't get angry when there's loads of pictures of the sweet little hispanic kid a single woman in her 40's I know adopted. But yeah I'm a bigot.

My point is that this is a choice of statue to erect that reveals more than it seems. As does the public art or material culture of any society at the time.

This is not a representation of a lesbian couple, this is not the representation of a lone single mother, this is a representation of technically non-nuclear family (cousins aren't nuclear family) where there is the complete absence of fathers (3 that couldn't have all died) and of the adult male (such as the womens male relatives). Does this make me angry, does it make me think hmmm I wonder where all the guys in this picture thats an interesting choice when absent fathers and lack of male role-models for boy/young men is an issue of which there is growing awareness.

Paulownia

Joeytheparrot wrote: »

Show us your bank account before the state allows you to have a child so.

Perhaps it should be, more appropriately, look at your own bank account before having unprotected sex that mat lead to the birth of someone who deserves a decent chance in life

Annasopra

Paulownia wrote: »

Perhaps it should be, more appropriately, look at your own bank account before having unprotected sex that mat lead to the birth of someone who deserves a decent chance in life

Poverty isnt static at the point of sex.

LorMal

Nodin wrote: »

When you add the mention of the lack of a father figure being "disappointing and wrong", there seems to be a bit more than that.

Ah for crying out loud - should we be celebrating the disappearance of the Father role in so many families today? Is that not 'disappointing'?
Or should we blithely accept that the Fathers role can be limited to the insemination?

Einhard

Lapin wrote: »

I thought I answered it clearly. As such evidence would not be available for a couple of generations I'm not going to speculate or try and predict the future, so there is no point in playing with hypothetical situations in the meantime.

I'm not asking you to speculate. I'm merely asking you would you change your views if the evidence contradicted them. No speculation needed at all.

What sweeping generalisations?

Sweeping generalisations such as children have a better chance in a family consisting of a mother and a father; that society functions better when the nuclear family is the bedrock etc.

These may be factually accurate statements, but nobody here has presented any evidence to support them.

Paulownia

Einhard wrote: »

I'm not asking you to speculate. I'm merely asking you would you change your views if the evidence contradicted them. No speculation needed at all.



Sweeping generalisations such as children have a better chance in a family consisting of a mother and a father; that society functions better when the nuclear family is the bedrock etc.

These may be factually accurate statements, but nobody here has presented any evidence to support them.

Leaving aside the economic considerations of single motherhood it must be harder to fulfill the physical obligations of parenthood alone. As a young parent I was often tired and irritable with my children although I had a spouse to share responsibilities with.

Lapin

Einhard wrote: »

Sweeping generalisations such as children have a better chance in a family consisting of a mother and a father; that society functions better when the nuclear family is the bedrock etc.

These may be factually accurate statements, but nobody here has presented any evidence to support them.

Here

bodice ripper

RDM_83 again wrote: »

I shouldn't bother replying since again your not actually engaging with any of the other points and you'l probably just try and assign me again the views I've made clear I don't hold. I don't judge any of the single parents I know, when I open my facebook I don't get angry when there's loads of pictures of the sweet little hispanic kid a single woman in her 40's I know adopted. But yeah I'm a bigot.

My point is that this is a choice of statue to erect that reveals more than it seems. As does the public art or material culture of any society at the time.

This is not a representation of a lesbian couple, this is not the representation of a lone single mother, this is a representation of technically non-nuclear family (cousins aren't nuclear family) where there is the complete absence of fathers (3 that couldn't have all died) and of the adult male (such as the womens male relatives). Does this make me angry, does it make me think hmmm I wonder where all the guys in this picture thats an interesting choice when absent fathers and lack of male role-models for boy/young men is an issue of which there is growing awareness.

But public art represents all kinds of things, some wonderful, much of it violent, most sadly meaningless of late. Or do you feel there should be tight controls on the content of public sculpture, and if it isn't pushing the right family template, it shouldn't be there?

suicide_circus

LorMal wrote: »

Ah for crying out loud - should we be celebrating the disappearance of the Father role in so many families today? Is that not 'disappointing'?
Or should we blithely accept that the Fathers role can be limited to the insemination?

Listen, the sooner men are removed from society and consigned purely to a few 'The Matrix' style milking facilities where their reproductive juices are harvested, the better. No wars, no crime, no comedy.

Lapin

I reckon if men were removed from society you'd still have war and crime.

Recondite49

Lapin wrote: »

I reckon if men were removed from society you'd still have war and crime.

It's like the Fem'nists who say that if women were in charge there'd be no wars i.e women who seemingly have never heard of Boudicca, Margaret Thatcher, Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth I etc. ... then complain when no one takes them seriously. :-D

Einhard

Lapin wrote: »

Here

While an interesting study, it doesn't state what you want it to state- namely that traditional, nuclear families perform better on a host of indicators because of the fact that they're traditional and nuclear.

The fact is that single parent families are more likely, for a host of factors, to be lower on the socio-economic scale than other family types*. The study that you put forward doesn't account for this- it merely compares one family type with another.

The only way in which a study could definitively take account of other variables (which all good studies worth their salt do) would be to compare nuclear and non-nuclear families from the same socio-economic groups. Your study doesn't do so, and therefore I'm afraid it can't be used to back up your contention that one family type is intrinsically better than the other.


* I know that some posters will jump on this and claim that it contradicts my argument, and validates Lapin's thesis. However, they would be wrong. We have only witnessed a significant number of single parent families in this country over the past two decades. The mother (or father) in such units would generally have come from the traditional families where both parents were present, so the lower socio-economic status of that family could not be attributed to the head being raised in similar circumstances.

bodice ripper

Recondite49 wrote: »

It's like the Fem'nists who say that if women were in charge there'd be no wars i.e women who seemingly have never heard of Boudicca, Margaret Thatcher, Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth I etc. ... then complain when no one takes them seriously. :-D

But no one said that. In fact, it was brought up to mock feminists who aren't here saying something that wasn't said in the thread. It's like there's an agenda or something.

Like I said, this crap is just feminists with testicles. Looking for slights.

Recondite49

bodice ripper wrote: »

But no one said that. In fact, it was brought up to mock feminists who aren't here saying something that wasn't said in the thread. It's like there's an agenda or something.

Like I said, this crap is just feminists with testicles. Looking for slights.

I certainly agree there's nothing offensive about realistic art.

Perhaps the Feminism debate is one to have another time. Still it's a popular conceit of theirs that women leaders would be less likely to wage war, which is not supported by data - but then again, Feminists aren't exactly renowned for grounding their opinions in reality at the best of times.

bodice ripper

Recondite49 wrote: »

I certainly agree there's nothing offensive about realistic art.

Perhaps the Feminism debate is one to have another time. Still it's a popular conceit of theirs that women leaders would be less likely to wage war, which is not supported by data - but then again, Feminists aren't exactly renowned for grounding their opinions in reality at the best of times.

I am a renowned misogynist. I have no time for feminists at all. But let us not become polarised in response to their lunacy, and end up aping their behaviour.

Wibbs

Lapin wrote: »

Here

Again this is another US based study. A very different cultural and social set up to Ireland. I'd be surprised if single parent families weren't worse off on a few metrics, but I'd like to see more local studies, even EU based ones

Duggy747

Always thought this was the typical Irish family :pac:

Recondite49

bodice ripper wrote: »

I am a renowned misogynist. I have no time for feminists at all. But let us not become polarised in response to their lunacy, and end up aping their behaviour.

Well said bodice ripper, we must rise above it all! #chauvinistandproud

:-D

bodice ripper

Recondite49 wrote: »

Well said bodice ripper, we must rise above it all! #chauvinistandproud

:-D

Oh I am not proud of my misogynistic tendencies, but know thyself and all that. If I can't conquer all my character flaws, I should at least know what they are.

And chauvinist just sounds classier, more continental.

Lapin

Wibbs wrote: »

Again this is another US based study. A very different cultural and social set up to Ireland. I'd be surprised if single parent families weren't worse off on a few metrics, but I'd like to see more local studies, even EU based ones

I was asked and asked to come up with some kind of study by another poster so I threw up the first one I found to keep them happy.

Its nearly always possible in a lot of cases to find a study, academic thesis, or survey to back up something you want to say so I don't really take much stock in them for an informal exchange of personal opinions such as this one.

I don't regard After Hours as place where too much reliance can be placed on providing peer reviewed material to substantiate a point of view as it would run the risk of someone providing another study to counter the first one and so on....

We could spend all day batting surveys and statistics back and forward and discussion and opinion on the original topic would lose out.

Einhard

Lapin wrote: »

I was asked and asked to come up with some kind of study by another poster so I threw up the first one I found to keep them happy.

Its nearly always possible in a lot of cases to find a study, academic thesis, or survey to back up something you want to say so I don't really take much stock in them for an informal exchange of personal opinions such as this one.

I don't regard After Hours as place where too much reliance can be placed on providing peer reviewed material to substantiate a point of view as it would run the risk of someone providing another study to counter the first one and so on....

We could spend all day batting surveys and statistics back and forward and discussion and opinion on the original topic would lose out.

But surely if you have strongly held opinions on something, then you should have more to back them up than mere intuition?

Lapin

Its not just intuition though.

My views and opinions stem from my experience in life and the environments I grew up in and lived in.

And in this, I am no different to anyone else.

Statistics have their place but we shouldn't over depend on them to shape how we think.

bodice ripper

Lapin wrote: »

Its not just intuition though.

My views and opinions stem from my experience in life and the environments I grew up in and lived in.

And in this, I am no different to anyone else.

Statistics have their place but we shouldn't over depend on them to shape how we think.

My experience is diametrically opposed to yours.

Now what?

Lapin

bodice ripper wrote: »

My experience is diametrically opposed to yours.

How would you know that?

Have we met ?

bodice ripper

Sigh

Lapin wrote: »

Its not just intuition though.

My views and opinions stem from my experience in life and the environments I grew up in and lived in.

And in this, I am no different to anyone else.

Statistics have their place but we shouldn't over depend on them to shape how we think.

Likewise. So, now what?

RDM_83 again

bodice ripper wrote: »

But public art represents all kinds of things, some wonderful, much of it violent, most sadly meaningless of late.

What public art or more correctly public funded publicly displayed art fronting an institution does is gives a look into the mindset of the society at the time.

You mention much public art is violent, I can think of fairly modern public art that is violent, this would be a very good example, this isn't publicly funded or institutionally emplaced art though, I can't think of any publicly/governmentally funded art that is though we don't stick up statues to generals anymore, you might have a load of historic statues around of Columbus about but thats what they are, historic and they give a glimpses of the mindset of the time.
You can't honestly compare the past to the present.

bodice ripper wrote: »

Or do you feel there should be tight controls on the content of public sculpture, and if it isn't pushing the right family template, it shouldn't be there?

I'd like there to be a moment of reflection on what publicly funded art means and the image it portrays past the superficial, as I said in a previous post we could have a statue of a neglectful mother ridden with negative class stereotypes and it would be just as real.
This statue doesn't make me angry, what it does do is make me wonder why there is the absence of the male and what that says as a publicly funded piece of art, if it was one single mother and her child or a lesbian couple (both actually nuclear families) I wouldn't consider this.
So no I don't think that public art should have to push a traditional family model (see your at it again!) what I would like is some consideration of those absent from that family unit when the unit being shown is an extended unit.


ps for those that are arguing about it mainly being male artists portraying the female form what your looking for is the Gaze concept, or more specifically the idea of The Male Gaze

pps its good to find out its not only feminists I argue with :cool:

Lapin

bodice ripper wrote: »

Sigh



Likewise. So, now what?

Well how about actually coming up with a point of view of your own and expressing it instead of following me around and simply disagreeing with everything I say just for the sake of it.

Recondite49

Lapin wrote: »

Its not just intuition though.


Statistics have their place but we shouldn't over depend on them to shape how we think.

"When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir?"

- John Maynard Keynes