FAMILIES need fathers. So why are they treated as an optional extra? Except for this weekend, of course - when sentimentality is carefully manipulated into a profit boosting exercise for card makers.

And manufacturers of everything from designer watches to football-decorated boxer shorts try to get in on the act.

But after that, what?

A large proportion of our children now live without their fathers. In some schools in some areas, entire classes of children have no father at home and never have had.

There are different reasons, of course. An absent father can be a loving father. A divorced dad can still be a dad. Sad and tragic circumstances can leave families fatherless and leave mothers doing a brave and brilliant job on their own. And at least those children have a legacy of love.

But actually choosing to bring up a child without a father... now that's different. Deliberate deprivation.

When friends did it years ago I cheered them for their bravery. Which only goes to show how stupid I was.

Apart from the

practicalities - another pair of hands, a live-in babysitter, someone to share the worries, the bills and the horrors of parents' evenings - children without fathers miss out on half their heritage.

No father usually means a missing set of grandparents too and a double dose of heartache all round. All those roots, that knowledge of where you've come from - gone. Not to mention holidays, stories and another set of people to love you.

Worst of all, perhaps, is what we are doing to our sons.

By choosing to bring children up without a father, women are totally undermining men - and that includes their own sons.

For what they are saying is: "Men are redundant. We don't need you. You are a sperm donor and no more. We don't need your name, your money-earning skills (and all the pride and respect a job can bring), your support, your help, even your company."

In a word, they are telling their sons that, when they grow up, apart from the briefest sexual act, they have no role in life, no purpose.

So is it any wonder we have an increasingly lawless generation of young men with no concept of ambition, purpose or responsibility? And, for once, we can't put all the blame on men. Well, not all of it.

A new website for children missing their fathers is full of heartbreaking messages, some of them from children who have never ever seen their fathers, yet still have this desperate unfulfilled love and need for them.

Fathers who desert their children have a lot to answer for. Mothers who make access difficult must share the blame.

Meanwhile, long after they split up, Jerry Hall is anxiously awaiting Mick Jagger's return from his latest tour. Their teenage son has been a pain in the neck, blasting music out at all hours and disturbing the neighbours.

Jerry is no pushover mom. Quite capable, you would have thought, of reading the riot act and sorting out a stroppy 16-year-old.

But sometimes - however strong the mother is, however rich, however forceful - it still helps to have a dad around.

Happy Fathers' Day.

DRIVING without insurance - as a first offence - will no longer automatically land you in court. Instead, you could face a £200 fine and six penalty points.

Sounds like a bargain to me. And it will certainly seem like that to plenty of young drivers.

Smaller Son's third party fire and theft insurance on an ancient rusty Metro, with a bit of no claims is still nearly £600 a year - many times the value of the actual car.

What possible incentive is there for him to pay up?

For him and many more young drivers - whose insurance can easily top £1,000 - the fine is going to be a fraction of their insurance costs.

Rather than stump up the full amount, it will be cheaper for them to break the law - which makes the new ruling a bargain.

And so unbelievably stupid.

www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk/ news/griffiths.htm