Father's Day cards banned in Scottish schools

There is one person in the article who I actually know believe it or not so yes, this story is true. Whether it's still the case in that particular school, I don't know.


Yes it was only in certain regions it was implemented in at the time. The regions are named in the article, I don't know if yours was included. :)

"Will they ban Mother's Day cards for the same reason?"
No, nobody dares insult women like society in general can insult men.

"I dont agreee that this is PC nonsense...seems little point in a class activity which half of them can't do, does there?.....:}and which kids wish to reminded of their loser fathers who have fecked off?"(please no offence to good dads!)

Perhaps mothers who don't allow the fathers to visit the kids 'feel' outraged that their children may actually love their dads. (Alienation of affection syndrome) ............

("please no offence to good moms!")

"it all sounds like a waste of teacher time "

Yes, creatively showing parental affection to dads is "a waste...." (It's ok for moms though)

"that's because of the "complaints" that come from the parents who say that these cards offend them."

Hmmm, wonder if those would be male parents or female parents? Duh.

"What if you are a test tube baby... do they make a card for test tube day...?"

If the test tube is designated female then yes.

I'm reminded of all those Hallmark cards that berate men (you ladies know the ones).

Exactly.

No Muslim ever got "offended" by my Christmas tree either; in fact, quite a few Muslims have given me Christmas cards over the years! Atheist leftie traitors are responsible for PC, not the alleged offended!

:):):):):):):):)

Christmas Trees banned in Scottish schools ;-)
Fear god
patrickwright.net/wp-content/uploads/pwright-christmas-spurned.pdf

"Tina Woolnough, 45, whose son Felix attends Edinburgh's Blackhall primary school, said several teachers there had not allowed children to make Father's Day cards this year.

Mrs Woolnough, a member of the school's parent-teacher council, said: "This is something I know they do on a class-by-class basis at my son Felix's school. Some classes send Father's Day cards and some do not."

I think Mrs Woolnough should be taken to task for naming her child 'Felix' rather than get worked up about the Fathers' Day card hoo-har.

For what it's worth (bearing in mind this article refers to last year's Fathers' Day and not this year's - who knows what has changed since then) I think that the children that don't have a dad to give a card to, for whatever reason, should be given something else to do.

The article refers to "one in four" children living with a lone parent, so why be so heavy handed with the other 75% ?


I agree.

I've worked in plenty of places where Muslims give and receive Christmas cards and generally join in. In fact it was after one Christmas a few years ago, during the usual "How was yours?" discussion that the only person that said they had a "traditional" Christmas was a Muslim. True story.

If people spent half as much time worrying about stuff that really mattered as they do about some folded cardboard, the world would be a much better place.

translation: Bitter female teachers said no, male teachers said yes.


What's wrong with the name Felix? For example, Felix Mendelssohn was one heck of a composer.


From such acorns do mighty "political correctness" (PC) concepts grow.


Exactly, however our current culture demads that PC be worshipped on the feminist alter.


Dads really matter! (Children raised in single parent households are many times more likely to end up in prisons).

It's a dreadful name that is also the name of a cat food.


I was raised in a single parent household, by my Dad, after my Mum died and neither me nor my brother have ever been in prison thank you very much.

Good old Fingal's Cave :)

Banning a national practice with years of tradition, what a nonsense! Sorry, the times haven't changed enough yet to warrant outright bans.

It's a fine name; can't help it if Purina named a cat food "Felix".


Ah, but you were raised by your father. I won't bother to go into the statistics here but just google information on single parent households, especially in the U.S. and you'll find shocking statistics on how poorly kids do when raised in such an environment. Of course your situation was different in that your mother died. By far, most kids are products of divorce or the mother never married or the mother just wanted a child without a father.

We'll have to beg to differ on that one :-)


I agree and I'm not doubting your statistics at all, but I just think it is too easy (and lazy) for the media to almost forgive dreadful behaviour on account of someone being raised by a single-parent.

It seems almost the norm these days for young women, many barely not even out of education, to copulate like spaniels with anyone and everyone and end up with about three or four children from various different blokes.

Is it any wonder something like a Fathers' Day card becomes such a difficult issue ?

People make their beds, they need to lie in them and if that means they have some explaining to do to little John or Janet as to why they don't have a Dad to make a card for, then that's what they must do.

Interesting way to put it since we're talking about single mothers copulating......but I agree with your assessment 100 percent.

Oh, there is one guy name Felix that helped ruin this otherwise fine name. He was
Felix Djerzinsky- Head of the Cheka, a forerunner of the KGB. He was a vicious enforcer who was responsible for many murders.

P.S. Notice how not many people have named their kids 'Adolph' anymore? Another fine name destroyed. ...or Attila

Mister H
why they don't have a Dad to make a card for

they all have dads to make cards for - they were shagging like spaniels too. Don't forget it takes two to tango !!!


How easy it is to judge others, and condemn them without trial. Maybe the attitude of others towards single-parent families has an effect on the children growing up rather than the fact that they only have one parent. I know a family that would have been much better off if the drunken, violent father had left. Children need love, respect and acceptance from their primary care giver, whether male or female, as well as from society around them, not to be stigmatised and have the expectation put on them that they will fail. :-(

I think Mothers Day and Fathers Day are just very commercialised. It's a way for the retail and Service Industry to profit throughout the year rather than just at the traditional times e.g. Christmas, Easter etc.

Next we shall have, Aunties Day, Sister Day, Brothers day. Special Friend day and if they are spaced throughout the year then every day <seemingly> will become a special occasion day.

If that happens I shall buy shares in the card and Gifts Industry. It's madness really. If you didn't get your Dad his hankies at Christmas then you can always get them on Fathers Day.

You should treasure every minute you spend with your parents because you never know how long you will have them for. Some of us found out early in in life that they aren't going to be around for ever :(

I think kids should be encouraged and shown how to make 'Thank you' cards for any person who is responsible for their upbringing rather than singling out a a card for a Mum or a Dad once a year. They could then make a card out for that special person whenever they felt they would really like too......

:)

I appreciate that and they're just as much to blame for this situation.


Rubbish !

It has nothing to do with the attitude towards single-parents, that's just an excuse.

Of course people shouldn't stereotype, but kids grow up to be trouble if they have had no rules or proper boundaries laid out. Plenty of women manage to do it on their own.


I think that Grandparents' Day has been around for some years now, but I don't think it gets much notice ....... thank goodness !


You never appreciate what you've got until it's not there :-(

Judging? Here are the stats (U.S. only) You be the judge.

*78 percent of prison inmates grew up in a fatherless home.
*Fatherless children are 20 times more likely to be imprisoned or on probation.
*Fatherless children are 8 times more likely to commit murder.

28% of U.S. caucasion women who had children last year were single; @ 53% latino women were not married and @ 70% + of African American women were unwed!

I don't judge anyone - just have my opinion......
I think it's more likely that these figures suggest that the fathers have left because they were losers (or their partner chucked them out) which is why the kids turn out bad. It's not because the father was absent, more to do with genetics.

A lot of single parents set boundaries and bring up children that are happy, healthy and unlikely to commit crime. I do thnk that the way society judges and labels children from one-parent homes does have an effect on them. Others expectations on us can effect us and how well we do. That's a fact.

I don't live in the U.S. and wouldn't want to but I can say what I think about what I have experienced in my life and in the people around me.

US statistics
vs UK experience

different countries, different circumstances.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics..:)

That's part of the problem. The other part of the problem is the women. They date 'bad boys' which is so fashionable and then wonder why these guys leave. The women also want kids at any cost and frequently don't want the biological fathers around. Additionally, lots of these women just sleep around and don't know who the father is.


Children need a father in the home for the best healthy development. There are biological as well as sociological reasons for this. In short, it's nature.


Not so much anymore as there are so many children from single-mother households that it almost seems the norm.


Yet, these are the facts. Is it a lie when study after study after study (let alone empirical confirmation all around us) shows us the evidence? What are you disputing, that kids from single parent households don't have higher school drop-out rates; or higher crime rates, or are imprisoned disproportionately? Tell us you are not naive.

zimmy,

from wiki: "Lies, damned lies, and statistics" is part of a phrase attributed to the 19th Century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and later popularised in the United States by Mark Twain: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

Previous posts mentioned numbers. Who's to say where they came from or what their true value is.

This famous bromide is frequently overused by people who have no real answer to a question or statement posed to them. While statistics can be manipulated the facts can be stubborn things.

children from a fatherless home are:
5 times more likely to commit suicide.
32 times more likely to run away.
20 times more likely to have behavioral disorders.
14 times more likely to commit rape
9 times more likely to drop out of high school.
10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances.
9 times more likely to end up in a state-operated institution.
20 times more likely to end up in prison.

While the above stats can and do vary from place to place and time to time the overall studies and there are many of them suggest a pattern which is not dissimilar to the above figures. In short, it is a constant that children growing up in single parent families (usually female) frequently feel an emptiness and have additional psychological needs.

This could also be a correlation, rather than directly attributable to no father in the house. I might propose that the single parent household would also be a lower income household, and therefore contributing to less positive opportunities for children.

Mom's sometimes have to work to jobs to keep the family afloat.

Zimmy the emptiness is from expelling, its natural to feel empty after a good long :)

and yes we will pitch in and get you a shrink zimmy.. but I must tell you I dont like
labels. I still think your a great person, no matter what anyone thinks ;0)

now.

its all a load of bullshyt ( stats) my husband grew up father less and he doesnt feel
anything for his still alive father who left him in the middle of detroit riots ( with his
mom) no protection- never came home.

his last contact was when he was 12 years old and he called to wish him a happy
birthday after 12 years of being absent.
my husband said .. ok, gave the phone back to his mom and went out to hang with
his friends.

he didnt care cause the guy was never there to begin with from day one.

many children do just fine.. those who blame their fatherless homes use it as a scapgoat
to get treated that way so they can get more drugs..in jail if they say , yeah I am
depressed because my unlce joe raped me, come on Zimmy, they are raping each
other in jail , you cant even go by those stats, theres other factors , some of those
drugs dealers had dads.. and come from rich homes.. its all choice.

you play you pay.. simple.

Biology requires 2 people to create a child. Is it not logical then that a child requires 2 parents? Obviously, that isn't always possible but it is the ideal situation and therefore anything else falls short, resulting in a detrimental effect on the child.

Parents are responsible for teaching their child EVERYTHING (how to read, write, count, work, show self-discipline, brush teeth, treat others...) and that is simply too much work for one person. I defy anyone to disagree with this.

The increase of single parent households, the increasing delegation of parental responsibilities to schools and the increasing censorship of discipline in schools is not good for children and not good for society.

fair enough, but what if the father is not in a picture out of his own will? What about situations like that? Some people forget to mention that some fathers not only walk away but also don't pay child support, so I am not sure what you are trying to say here.


I disagree. It depends on the quality of parenting, and if both parents contribute, you have a case, if one of the parent does not (either sex) then you don't have a case. It depends on the situation and in the ideal world, both parent are nice, responsible, not stressed out, always have a good job, love each other etc. :)


There is a crisis of a family unit as we used to know it in the past and single parents (most of the time) are trying to do the job right. You forgot to mention that the family unit is going through a transition and sometimes even the single parent family has a small community of friends who are replacing the father figure, or an aunt, or another member of the family.

I know a couple of families where the father was not fit and did not contribute (alcoholic) and after he passed away, the family - children did just fine, considering the situation. Another family I know lost their father at the early age and they are still very successful mainly because they had more challenge when they were younger.

Quite likely, but surely that means that the women concerned could have been a little more selective who they let father their child(ren) ?

You only have to watch a few minutes of "Jeremy Kyle" to see the sorts of people that are reproducing these days.

Children are seen by many nowadays as a right and an entitlement; the latest "must have" accessory. I think that this is partly due to seeing so-called celebrities like Jordan and Ulrika Jonsson having kids all over the place with different blokes and the fact that the more children a person has, the more it entitles them to from the state.

There are also too many "babies raising babies" in this country.

I agree that there are a small number of people who reproduce just to get benefits and a free home etc. I have witnessed some people actually bragging that they were doing that.

But I think that life is short - people should take what happiness there is and enjoy it. In a PERFECT world, 'Miss wonderful A' would meet 'Mr wonderful B' and they would live in a beautiful home in a quiet neighbourhood and have PERFECT 'little baby Cs' .......

Real life isn't like that. I used to think that families should be a certain way or they weren't right somehow but now I'm older and wiser and I think you should give people a chance. I accept things and people more now - nothing's perfect but what the hell, we might as well enjoy what we have. As for statistics - everyone knows they are usually twisted a little by some-one with an axe to grind or just narrow vision.

I referred to the child's emptiness not someone having sex.


You demean yourself by merely stating that and not backing it up except for giving an anecdote. Evidently you disagree with virtually every study conducted on this subject.

In short:

"Controlling for socioeconomic status, race, and place of residence, the strongest predictor of whether a person will end up in prison is that he was raised by a single parent..............According to the Index of Leading Cultural Indicators, children from single-parent families account for 63 percent of all youth suicides, 70 percent of all teenage pregnancies, 71 percent of all adolescent chemical/substance abuse, 80 percent of all prison inmates, and 90 percent of all homeless and runaway children."

"A study cited in the Village Voice produced similar numbers. It found that children brought up in single-mother homes 'are five times more likely to commit suicide, nine times more likely to drop out of high school, 10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances, 14 times more likely to commit rape (for the boys), 20 times more likely to end up in prison, and 32 times more likely to run away from home.' Single motherhood is like a farm team for future criminals and social outcasts."

""A 2008 study led by Georgia State University economist Benjamin Scafidi found that single mothers - unwed or divorced - cost the US taxpayer $112 billion every year." - P.51.".......................

Me too, however, while they might only be a small group of people, they don't seem to be stopping anytime soon.


I agree, we all want the cottage in the country, roses around the door, a chicken or two to lay you an egg for your breakfast and so on......

I know that there are lots of different types of families nowadays and all that, but I still maintain that basic standards are slipping - and I don't mean that people have to be married and have 2.4 children to maintain standards.


I agree with that too. I'm not talking about what I read in the Daily Mail, more what I know and have seen real people I know get up too.