Fathers and Families
Erin Pizzey criticised the views expressed by Harman and her co-authors in the 1990 IPPR report "The Family Way". Writing in the Daily Mail, Pizzey claimed the report was a "staggering attack on men and their role in modern life" as a result of its stating, "it cannot be assumed that men are bound to be an asset to family life or that the presence of fathers in families is necessarily a means to social cohesion". In May 2008 an interview she gave to think tank Civitas Harman stated that there was "no ideal type of household in which to bring up children".
In June 2008, two members of Fathers 4 Justice staged a protest on the roof of her house in Herne Hill, South East London, with a banner that read: "A father is for life not just conception." After they climbed back off the roof they were arrested by the Metropolitan Police and bailed until 16 July 2008. On the morning of 9 July 2008, fathers for justice again climbed on Harman's roof with a banner that read, "Stop war on dads." One of the complaints of the protesters was that Harman had refused their requests for a meeting yet she denied that they had even requested such a meeting.
Read more about this topic: Harriet Harman
Famous quotes containing the words fathers and, fathers and/or families:
“At this age [9–12], in contrast to adolescence, girls still want to know their parents and hear what they think. You are the influential ones if you want to be. Girls, now, want to hear your point of view and find out how you got to be what you are and what you are doing. They like their fathers and mothers to be interested in what they’re doing and planning. They like to know what you think of their thoughts.”
—Stella Chess (20th century)
“The cats will be glad; the fathers feel justified; the mothers
relieved.
The sons and husbands will no longer need to pay the bills.
Childhoods will be put away, the obscene nightmare abated.”
—Louise Bogan (1897–1970)
“Families have always been in flux and often in crisis; they have never lived up to nostalgic notions about “the way things used to be.” But that doesn’t mean the malaise and anxiety people feel about modern families are delusions, that everything would be fine if we would only realize that the past was not all it’s cracked up to be. . . . Even if things were not always right in families of the past, it seems clear that some things have newly gone wrong.”
—Stephanie Coontz (20th century)