New guidelines on fostering issued earlier this year placed no particular value on the traditional model of the family. Even The Children's Society chooses to define a family as 'an emotionally supportive network of adults and children, some of whom live together or have lived together'. The drip-feed effect of seeing marriage and the family downplayed in the media makes us question its validity. Divorce rates in England and Wales are the second highest in Europe. In addition, the number of people getting married has fallen sharply, dropping by 20 per cent between 1986 and 1996.
More people see cohabitation as a better option.
Of course children are so often caught up in the middle of it all. Over 400 children a day see their parents divorce. At least a quarter of children will experience this before they are 16. The situation is even worse if we include children of cohabiting parents since a quarter of all children born today fall into that category. Taking them into account the figure rises to almost half.