Political commentators Ben Habib and Ella Whelan carried on their off air spat on GB News as a heated row about parenting boiled over.
Habib was making the argument that parents should not be sending their children off for third-party care and should instead be ensuring they are kept within the “family unit”.
Whelan hit back to argue Habib’s points would have been more suited to a bygone era.
“I was making the salient point that if Ella wants the state to get out of parental control of their children, what you should not be doing is sending them off to third-party care at a very young age”, he said in the debate, which you can watch in full above.
Ben Habib locked horns with Ella Whelan on GB News
GB NEWS
“They need to be in the family unit, being looked after by their parents.”
Whelan then said Habib had missed out an argument he had made “during the break”, which was that “it should be mothers - not fathers”, staying at home to look after the children.
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Australia is set to BAN social media for childrenPA“I think mothers do it a lot better than fathers do”, Habib argued.
“Fathers come in and do a much better job once children have got to a certain age.
“At a tender age, it is the mother that is the primary care giver. Children get much more succour from their mother than they do their father at that young age. That’s how I see it.”
Whelan angrily refuted the point, saying: “That’s how you see it, and that’s how the 1950s saw it.”
Ben Habib thinks parents should not send their children to third-party care
GETTYShe added: “There are men in this day and age, my husband included, who have a much more progressive view of women.”
Habib said the freedom of women “comes at the cost of state intervention in families” which he believes Whelan was arguing against.
The matter was being discussed after a debate surrounding Australia’s decision to implement age limits on social media accounts for children.
Legislation is to be introduced into parliament before the next election after prime minister Anthony Albanese said that “enough is enough”.
He wants to introduce laws to protect children from social media giants including Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook.
“We know that technology moves fast,” Albanese said before the announcement.
“No government is going to be able to protect every child from every threat – but we have to do all we can. Parents are worried sick about this. We know they’re working without a map – no generation has faced this challenge before.”