The Tragic Lives of Britain’s Fatherless Girls

Imogene is a 17-year-old girl with a “career of violence.” She also has a baby on the way.

To her a baby is the only way to escape her violent past.

“When I was 2,” she said, “I remember my dad strangling my mum.” Her father burnt and stabbed her, and microwaved her mother’s pet dog.

Despite all this, at 11 years old, she wanted to live with her father. “I wanted to be a daddy’s girl. I wanted those hugs and kisses,” she said.

Imogene moved in with her father. On her second night, her father’s friend raped her. Her father called her a whore and threw her out on the street. Since then she’s been living with foster parents and in care homes.

“I haven’t had a very nice childhood, but a baby is going to love me to bits,” she said. “And I want to prove that I’m not a little kid anymore and that I’m responsible.”

“Everyone told me a baby was going to ruin my life,” she said. “But I don’t have a life to ruin.”

Her tragedy is one of several outlined in three excellent articles by Harriett Sergeant, published in the Daily Mail on March 7-8, that detail the depths to which British society has sunk.

Sergeant’s statistics and examples show girls living violent lives, let down by society, family and the government. She also uncovers what it is these girls need most: a father’s love.

The stats show Britain’s girls need help. Although the number of criminal offenses by young men has decreased, the number of offenses by girls ages 10 to 17 has increased by a quarter over the last three years.

Violent offenses have risen by 50 percent. One in four of all violent offenses involve a woman.

Sergeant also highlights Britain’s high teenage pregnancy levels, and the problems they cause. One quarter of British mothers are bringing up a child on their own. Over half with a child under 13 have never lived with a partner.

Seventy-two percent of children with single mothers grow up in poverty. “They do less well at school; they’re also more likely to suffer from behavioral problems, have sex earlier, suffer from depression and turn to drugs and heavy drinking,” writes Sergeant.

Sergeant found that these two problems—teen violence and teen pregnancy—are linked. “Sadly, as this series will make clear, becoming a teenage mother or beating up a passerby turn out to be part and parcel of the same problem,” she writes, continuing:

Over the past 10 months, I have interviewed girls all around the country to find out what’s triggering such extreme behavior.What was striking is that nearly every violent teenage girl I met could trace her problems back to an absent or abusive father.All reported overwhelming feelings of rage and a sense of powerlessness. And many had turned to gangs to fill the vacuum left by their fathers.

Consider some examples of statements from the girls she interviewed:

“I wouldn’t have needed to go out looking for someone if my dad had loved me.”

“I do know my father, but he’s got a lot of other kids. He gave me a little £20 here and there, but he was never there for me. I was desperate for anything that felt like love.”

“If you don’t have a parent at home who cares for you, you want a baby who’ll do it instead.”

When Imogene said she was desperate to be a “daddy’s girl,” she was “voicing a yearning common to nearly all the violent girls I interviewed in the 10 months I spent researching this series,” says Sergeant.

These girls went out and joined gangs or deliberately got pregnant at a young age to find some kind of replacement for a father’s love.

In the eyes of many of them, pregnancy is the only way of escape.

The government makes this a very attractive option. Since 1997 the government has increased the money it gives to single mothers by 85 percent.

“By allowing schools to sink to a level where girls can emerge after 12 years of education with no qualifications whatsoever, the state has removed any chance of self-improvement,” writes Sergeant.

“At the same time, it has taken over the roles of both husband and employer.”

Having a baby and receiving this money from the government is one of the only ways these girls can get away from abusive family members.

Many of the girls Sergeant spoke to would love to get married and raise a child in a family. But as one girl put it, “The men I know haven’t got jobs. They’re living the fast life, doing drugs and crime. They’re in and out of prison—they’ll never have a job, never have a pension. Marriage and children don’t go with that lifestyle.”

So they have a child on their own, raising another generation of fatherless children, who will suffer the same problems as their mothers.

“Brutalized mothers risk raising brutalized children,” writes Sergeant. “A vicious cycle in every sense.”

At first the new mothers are ecstatic to finally be away from their abusive households and have some cash, and, often for the first time in their lives, some unconditional love. “But the tragedy,” says Sergeant, “of course, is that this euphoria rarely lasts.” She continues:

Most of these very young mothers are destined to inflict on their children all the problems that blighted their own childhoods.The facts are cruel and inescapable. Teenage mothers are three times more likely to suffer from poor mental health than other mothers.Babies born to teenage mothers are 60 percent more likely to die in their first year, compared to those born to older parents.Mothers of children on the “at risk” register are five times more likely to be single, teenage mothers.Like their mothers before them, they are highly likely to have boyfriends who are a danger to their children.

After reading Sergeant’s articles, one point is obvious. Britain needs fathers. Desperately.

But there is hope for these girls. In just a few years, Jesus Christ will return and set up a wonderful world here on Earth. Britain’s families are so messed up that this is the only solution.

“In the World Tomorrow, the greatest social triumph will be the restoration of the father as the head of the family,” wrote Fred Dattolo in his article “The Plight of the Children.” “Fathers will be taught how to be effective, loving leaders of the family and how to be inspiring role models for the children.” That is the only way to fix broken Britain.