ABSTRACT
The word family has enormous symbolic significance in contemporary British society. It evokes images which are uncompromisingly positive. The family represents all that is good and wholesome-the cornerstone of social life, ‘a haven in a heartless world’. Society’s health and well-being is assumed to be linked inextricably to that of the family. Yet, as the previous chapter demonstrates, the media carries the persistent message that ‘childhood’ is in ‘crisis’ and at the eye of the storm is the family. From across the political divide this message reverberates. According to Health Minister Peter Lilley, Britain is experiencing ‘widespread collapse of the traditional family’. For Tony Blair, Leader of the Labour Party, it is a ‘cycle of family disintegration, truancy, drug abuse and crime’ (in Utting, 1995:6).
