Single parent charity Gingerbread shames media with new Let’s Lose the Labels campaign

Single parent charity Gingerbread, is aiming to stop the rising tide of discrimination against lone parents by shaming the media and asking people to sign up to their new campaign.

Launched at the end of February this year, party leaders David Cameron, Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg have all signed up to the Let’s Lose the Labels campaign challenging single parent stereotypes.

According to Gingerbread, a staggering 83 per cent of single parents surveyed by the charity said the media portrayed them in a negative way.

These claims appear to be founded as members of the public are given the opportunity on the charity’s website to name and shame publications and articles stigmatising and villainising single parent families.

The Daily Mail, the Economist and the Daily Express are just some of the publications shamed on the website.

The discrimination is further proven by reader story comments.

A typical reader response on a Daily Express article ‘Now one in four mums is a single parent’ said: “Its too easy to be a single mum , as another post said .Stop there benefits unless there doing something to earn there keep . Grrrrrr Dolites !”

Gingerbread Chief Executive Fiona Weir said: “Single parents are fed up with being portrayed as ‘benefit scroungers’ or ‘bad mothers’.   We want to lose these labels in the run up to the general election and welcome support from party leaders as a first step.”

Currently, there are 1.9 million single parents in the UK with just 24 per cent of all children growing up in one.

Despite the belief that they are scroungers, research from YouGov shows that nearly 60 per cent of single parents actually work.

Those terrible teenage mothers who are a frequent target of bile make up just 2 per cent of all single parents, with the average age of single parents sitting at 36 years.

Chopsy Baby editor, Jen Smith says: “Being a parent is one of the hardest jobs in the world, so imagine having to do it alone. The late night rushes to casualty when they are very ill, having no one to back you up when the children stand up to your authority, endless patience, trying to make money go as far as possible, having to make all the big decisions alone and get them right every time.

“No one would deliberately chose this as a way of life for £60 per week, no choice in what hovel you live in and to be victimised by those sitting comfortably in their ivory towers.

“It’s time parents, especially single parents were given some more respect and whilst the Government has put incentives into place for them to go back to work, in reality they are not always practical and can leave families on less money than the meagre amounts paid out in benefit.”

To find out more about the Let’s Lose the Labels campaign, visit:  www.gingerbread.org.uk