Please note that I have no affiliation whatsoever with Gingerbread.
Gingerbread is the main British charity for single parents. It began life a century ago as the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and her Child, with two goals:
To reform the Bastardy Acts and Affiliation Orders Acts which discriminated against children born out of marriage, giving them fewer legal rights than those born to married parents and making it difficult for unmarried mothers to obtain maintenance for their children from the father.
To address the high death rates for children born outside marriage by providing accommodation for single mothers and their babies.
The workhouse system was abolished in 1930, but it wasn’t until 1987 that the Bastardy Acts were repealed.
Another organisation called Gingerbread was founded in 1970, to develop local support groups for single parents. In 2007 the two charities merged, taking the name of Gingerbread.
In the Department for Education Voluntary and Community Sector grant for 2011-2013, Gingerbread was begrudgingly awarded £367,183, while the Centre for Separated Families, consisting of a married pair of fraudsters and a part time administrator, running a charity which HM Revenue & Customs had petitioned the Insolvency Court to wind up, was paid £444,000 - 17% more than Gingerbread.
It is also instructive to look at the prominent signposting still given to the Centre for Separated Families - which Karen and Woodall had abandoned by autumn 2013! - on the Government’s Sorting Out Separation website, compared to its reticent signposting to Gingerbread, which is still very much in existence.
8 February 2012: In the best interests of children: how Gingerbread get the rights argument wrong
“Gingerbread have, for many years, perpetuated the myth that family separation only looks like one thing, a mother being abandoned by a father and left to care for children alone. In Gingerbread land, where their only contact is with those parents who have been left holding the baby, it is easy for researchers to perpetuate the stereotype that upholds their own belief.”
“In Gingerbread land, at the point of separation, mum turns into a single parent and dad becomes the non resident parent. Almost like magic, these labels appear and in Gingerbread land labels matter a great deal. Whilst the rest of us are getting on with working with mum and dad and how to support their relationships with their children, Gingerbread are busying themselves with concepts of ‘contact’ and how good or bad it is for children. For an organisation with a high profile campaign entitled ‘let’s lose the labels’, it seems to me that Gingerbread are overly concerned with making sure that post separation we all know which labels to stick on.
“Too many families end up in the families courts simply because of the discrimination, stereotyping and adversarial attitudes of parental rights organisations such as Gingerbread.”
“We are a tiny organisation compared to Gingerbread but we will keep on doing what we are doing until the day that families get the support that they need to work together after separation and the divisive legislation is a thing of the past.”
“In Gingerbread’s case, their agenda appears in my view, to link back to their roots as the National Council for the Unmarried Mother, set up a hundred years or so ago to support what would have then been called fallen women who would have been at risk from the poor house or having their child taken from them. whichever way you cut it, these agendas have everything to do with women’s rights and nothing to do with fatherhood and these are the people who have made and shaped legislation for four decades.”
“Gingerbread, once the doyenne of family separation, have opposed the reforms at every end and turn, including a mass campaign to influence the House of Lords debate over charging for the use of the Statutory Maintenance Scheme. As Gingerbread lose their once mighty grip on the issue of maintenance and the punishment of fathers, the introduction of new services, to support families to collaborate around the issue of providing for children, forms the backdrop to the next stage.”
20 December 2013: A Year in the World of Family Separation
“As I sit on the tube reading, I see an article by the head of the single parent charity, Gingerbread, in the paper. “Single parents ‘you’re brilliant’ goes the strap line. I think about the little one’s face as the bun in the bag went in the bin. I wonder how, for so long, our children’s precious hearts and minds have been allowed to be treated with such callous indifference. Where are the services that help parents to understand the impact of separation on their children? Where are the helplines that offer advice and guidance? Where is the compassion that offers grieving and heartbroken parents and their children, the support that they need to recover from one of life’s most awful challenges? Gingerbread’s CEO is ranting about the money that single parents need. I close the newspaper. My heart feels heavy in my chest.”
“Perhaps it is time for a new story at Christmas, one which conveys the reality and not the verisimilitudinous tale, spun by the women who bake gingerbread.”
“In the reform of the child maintenance system, something many of you will remember I was intimately involved with, the power of the single parent lobby to oppose anything and everything that they felt would be detrimental to their membership (read women), was demonstrated several times over. From texting, emailing and writing to every member of the House of Lords, to forming coalitions with charities which were ostensibly part of the reform but actually working against it, this lobby group was relentless in its determination to protect the single parent model which relies heavily upon the stereotype of bad dads and good mums for its justification (and which leads to the continuation of all state support, both financial and otherwise being framed around one parent (usually the mother) to the exclusion of the other parent (usually the father). “
“Viewed through a post feminist lens, those big bucks Charities such as Women’s Aid and Refuge, Gingerbread et al, all start to look a little bit 1970’s. Their policies and practices sounding more like a second wave feminist manifesto than a truly modern set of proposals to support the separating family in 2014. Continued concentration on women’s rights is all well and good, but the grip they hold on the consciousness of another generation is starting to slip as it becomes apparent that their rule over the sphere of family separation is disappearing. Change or die goes the old maxim and in line with many other countries, it is time for those organisations to modernise their act. Or shut up shop.”
“On the left we have Gingerbread. Those gals who fervently want you to believe that all families come in shapes and sizes, or is it families come in all shapes and sizes? Either way what they want you to know is that one parent or two, the only thing that matters is the money. Forget children’s psychological adjustment, ditch the concerns about mothers who alienate, away with the idea that children benefit from the relationships between their parents and off with the heads of anyone who thinks that fathers are necessary – unless of course they are deserving single parent fathers, which basically means that they have to be widowers or the mother of their children must be bad, bad and dangerous to know (think drug/drink/mental health problems). Any father who is non resident is automatically suspicious, especially if he wants to have a relationship with his child. Such men are only good for the colour of their money, which should be hoovered from their pockets and their bank accounts, preferably by the state, with a threat of severe punishment (if not death) should he fail to tip up. Gingerbread have recently released their pre-election manifesto (sorry research), confirming that the only thing that matters after separation is money (to pay for their enormous staff team and cover their senior management salaries/ whoops, sorry, so that children can be fed and have shoes).”
“From Gingerbread to Women’s Aid and all in between, the services, training, consciousness raising, campaigning, lobbying and downright overwhelming mighty force that emerged from the women’s movement, changed the face of family separation legislation, support services and public attitudes forever. Leaving dads blindsided and punch drunk when it came to understanding what had happened and why and in garnering a force to fight back.”