A prominent campaigner for social justice has said that mothers and fathers are being forced to outsource parenting.“Our children are being reared in crèches. They are growing up alone,” wrote Fr Harry Bohan at the weekend.
Fr Bohan maintains that the greatest revolution in Ireland in the last ten years has been in the family where CSO statistics show that in Dublin, only 20 per cent of families are “traditional” and children spend less than 5 per cent in a one to one situation with their own parents and 2 per cent with other adults.
“Is the family now an institution to be expelled or discarded as individuals see fit? Who is rearing the next generation?”
“For years, family and community were the two things that held our society together. Now both have been critically undermined. We hear people talking about suicide or crime but I don’t hear anybody asking what the cause of all this is. It’s time to ask why? Why are our young committing suicide or taking drugs?” he continued.
His answer is that young people today feel disconnected from the previous generation, from their own parents.
“People are entitled to ask can society not give them an option to work and rear their children themselves?” he said, citing the example of a New York insurance company with a branch in West Clare.
Fr Bohan praised the economic miracle, and was aware of the scandals that have “plagued Ireland in recent years” but he said there were other lessons to learn – “and living in a community where people and children come first is one of those lessons.”
Fr Bohan is the founding chairman of the Céifin Centre, a small organisation with a nationwide focus, based in Shannon, Co. Clare.
The Centre evolved from practical experience of developing communities across Ireland in an effort to counter the growth of cities and derives its name from Ceibhfhionn, the Celtic Goddess of Inspiration.
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