What do New Right and conservatives blame lone parent families for?

What do New Right and conservatives blame lone parent families for?

• A. A decline in the importance of family life and juvenile crime
• B. Housing shortages and rising drug abuse
• C. A range of problems including decline in family life, juvenile crime, housing shortages, drug abuse, and educational failure
• D. The general breakdown of society

Answer: (C)

New Right thinkers see the family as the main unit that holds society together and shapes children's behaviour. They argue that lone parent families, especially those headed by a single mother, disrupt this stability by weakening parental supervision, reducing economic security, and breaking down the traditional male breadwinner model. From this perspective, the social problems people blame on lone parenthood aren’t limited to one area—they cascade across many aspects of life. This is why they point to a broad range of consequences, including a decline in family life, more juvenile crime, housing hardships, higher drug misuse, and educational underachievement. The idea is that the family’s structure underpins social order, so breakdown in that structure is linked to multiple problems. The other options don’t capture the fuller range of issues they associate with lone-parent families, or they’re too vague to reflect their emphasis on widespread social consequences.