Happy ever after?

Pupils with chaotic homes are desperately in need of help from school mentors, says Michael McMahon, while Katherine Blueman believes one parent can definitely be better than two when it comes to some of her pupils

Paul's got his head down again, in my first period lesson. He's usually bright-eyed and keen to please. I don't ask him what's wrong. He works hard and, although he sometimes struggles, I'm confident that he will achieve that gold-standard A-C grade in three years' time. That's not why I skip asking him what's wrong this morning, however. I don't ask Paul what's wrong because I already know.

Last year, Paul missed several days of school without explanation. When he came back he had a black eye and the bruises on his cheek were only a shade less livid than if they were fresh. Paul had intervened in an argument between his parents, and one or the other had sent him flying.

This autumn, Oxo decided to scrap their long-running advertising campaign featuring a family sitting down to a home-cooked dinner lovingly bathed in mother's gravy. The company admitted that this snapshot of life in Adland Utopia, featuring a happy nuclear family at the end of their day, was no longer truly representative of the Oxo-consuming families who, while grateful for their quick and easy product, might find it less quick and easy to summon up that standard-issue family, let alone seat them amicably around a kitchen table.

Yet, despite this, David Blunkett, the Education Secretary, is suggesting that teachers should "talk up" marriage with their pupils. Well, if he is so keen on writing the script for us as we set homework and deal with truancy, perhaps he could write me a special few lines which would help Paul.

I doubt whether even the gifted spin-ministers of the Blair administration could convince Paul that he's better off with both parents at home. Nor is Paul alone. I often have quiet talks with pupils whose fingernails are chewed to the quick, whose nerves are as steady as a plate of jumping beans, thanks to parents who have "stayed together for the kids' sake". I don't work in Liverpool or inner London; I work in the country, where the stresses of parenting and married life in the Nineties are not much calmed by the pretty scenery.

My reservations about talking up marriage are not only due to the fact that it would be patronising to Paul and insulting to the dozens of other pupils whose single parents do such sterling work in raising them to be confident, cherished, contributing members of our school. I further object to all this because I am also the product of single parenting and feel I know perhaps a little more about it than many of Labour's policy gurus.

I was also one of those pupils whose home life wasn't quite the image of the Oxo family dinner. It is a slight to my own background and to all that I have achieved, to hint that there is something undesirable about it, or to imply that my family circumstances were in some manner second rate. Teachers also have a right to have their identities respected. There is nothing to be gained, and much harm to be done, in making children feel different or sub-standard, and all who work with them know they will not take this message any other way.

Of course, we all wish for children to grow up in happy, stable homes with loving parents who are both physically and emotionally present. It is misguided, however, to pretend that any pair of parents is better than no pair at all.

Children are more sensitive than anyone else to atmosphere and tension, let alone rows or abuse. Teachers know their pupils better than Mr Blunkett, and teachers deserve far more respect than to be asked to act as his ciphers for a message which is at best naive and outdated, and at worst insulting and hurtful. Multi-national companies are rarely distinctive for their sensitivity but, in this case, Oxo are serving up a vastly more imaginative menu than Mr Blunkett and his sociological Starry Gazy Pie.

KB