It didn’t take long for Danny Kruger to get jumped on for stating the obvious. His observation yesterday that ‘The normative family, the mother and father sticking together for the sake of the children, is the only basis for a safe and functioning society. Marriage is not only about you, it’s a public act to live for the sake of someone else’, would once have come into the class of things so obvious as to not need saying.
It tells you a lot about where we’re at now that this is daringly controversial, divisively edgy. But then once the social consensus was shared by all parts of the political spectrum – John Smith, Tony Blair’s predecessor as leader of the Labour party could have said every word without a qualm. Now it’s something probably Rishi Sunak wouldn’t say.
No surprises, really, about where the opposition is coming from. Alastair Campbell, wrote that ‘This is all very weird. Was on TV with Danny Kruger yesterday and he talked about a leftist agenda which meant absolutely nothing to me or Shami Chakrabarti who was also on the panel. It was like listening to a fantasy story…’
But then the real problem about mixing just with your own ideological kind is that you struggle to get your head round the idea that there’s a mass of people out there who don’t share your view of what’s normal. Campbell’s response tells you more about him than Danny Kruger.
Then there was the response of Sarah Owen, Labour MP for Luton and a party whip. ‘I do wonder if Danny Kruger has ever met anyone who has escaped an abusive marriage? Or the loved ones of victims who died in one? No one should have to “stick with” Domestic abuse.’
Look, there are hard cases that you can advance against any argument. There are people who abuse their spouses and it’s right to take this very seriously indeed. Kruger is surely not saying that people should ‘stick with domestic abuse’.
But, while there are clearly exceptions, this doesn’t undermine the truth that, on the whole, all things considered, marriage is a better environment for raising children than the alternative. There are any number of abusive parents at large who should by rights have their children taken into care, but it doesn’t undermine the notion that most parents have their children’s best interests at heart. Sarah Owen can express her concern for the victims of domestic abuse, but that doesn’t amount to an argument against Kruger’s point.
And then there’s the scientist and BBC host, Dr Adam Rutherford, who said this: ‘Big shout out to the single parents, gay parents, foster parents, people who adopt children, and people who separate for good and healthy reasons: you guys are not the basis of a safe society according to Kinder Küche Kirche Kruger.’
Of course there are any number of variants on the family norm but they don’t undermine the general case that married fathers and mothers make for a uniquely stable basis for raising their children. As it happens my own father was adopted at a day old – they didn’t go in for formalities back then in Ireland – and was, I’d say, better off with the mother and father who wanted him rather than the unmarried girl who didn’t, but that proves nothing.
Danny Kruger is right. In one respect I know he is; in another, I believe he is. His contention that ‘the father and mother sticking together for the sake of the children’ is an assertion that a child’s own father and mother are the best people to raise them. And I do think that having a mother and father is better than the alternative. You learn your cues about the opposite sex from your parents; if you grow up with two parents of one sex, you’re missing out on something crucial – an engagement with the other.
This isn’t to say that homosexual married parents aren’t loving: the figures available to date show that their children have equally good outcomes to those of heterosexual couples – see the exciting former Finnish PM, raised by lesbians. But the fundamentals matter too.
As for the contention that married couples are better for raising children than unmarried or single parents, the answer is borne out by all the research. See the very thorough report by Cristina Odone (which doesn’t distinguish between homosexual and heterosexual couples) for the Centre for Social Justice in 2020, here.
Or, if you just want the statistics on marriage as the best context for raising children, Cristina Odone provides those as well. I’d say it shows that Danny Kruger isn’t weird; just brave and unfashionable.
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