Will paternal paranoia triumph?

I really can't stoop to reply to this except to say that it is sexist crap.

freddie, if only it were so. i support fathers rights to access and to be a dad, but what trish says is unfortunately true. If you check out any of the fathers rights sites, you will find a hell of a lot of abusive ranting against women in general. when i talk to other women, i find quite a lot of support for dads and for this particular cause, the law is messed up. But there are also a lot of idiots out there using this to attack women. Sooner or later the fathers rights people are going to have to look at their membership and weed out the abusive guys - they are not doing them any favours.

"If you check out any of the fathers rights sites, you will find a hell of a lot of abusive ranting against women in general"

Random, this appeared on the London section of indymedia. I know of three fathers' rights/equal parenting groups operating in London - fathers-4-justice, the direct action group; families need fathers, the pastoral care group; and equal parenting council, a small lobbying group - can you please tell me where exactly on any of these groups' sites you find abusive ranting against women, because I can find none.

BTW, I have heard an awful lot of abusive ranting against men and fathers by those who oppose family law reform. The above abusive rant by Trish Wilson is just one of many examples. Julie Burchill - who walked out on both her sons from different partners - recently wrote in The Guardian that all fathers rights campaigners are "goons" who...."stand no chance of ever truly becoming men - that is, fully developed, adult males. Until they grow up, they should shut up, for their own good".

I can't but wonder if it isn't the feminist movement that needs to mature and realise that just because a growing group of fathers are speaking out about the very real inequality they experience as parents, it doesn't mean that they are attacking the rights of women. That is, of course, unless feminists believe that women should have absolute rights over their children and that dads shouldn't get a look in.

Regards

Dad

I've also noticed that some of the groups claiming to advocate "father's rights" seem to consist more of men who hate women than truly concerned fathers. These men rant against feminism, saying that women now have all of the rights and men have no rights. They don't seem to know or care that feminists are opposed to the damaging stereotype that looking after children is "women's work", and have been fighting against it for decades.

I'm not sure if "fathers 4 justice" is a group who want equal rights for both parents, or if the are anti-feminist. Does anyone know?

Arp

You make it sound like supporting equal parenting and being "anti-feminist" are somehow mutually exclusive. Feminists do not promote equal parenting - if only they would - they would be doing women everywhere a real favour.

What fathers-4-justice say is that parents should have a legal right to see their kids - a right that can be removed if appropriate (as opposed to the present system where the non-custodial parent relies entirely on the goodwill of the custodial parent to allow them to see their own children). Fathers 4 Justice also say that when parents split, there should be a presumption that they will share custody 50:50. This 50:50 arrangement will not be appropriate in all cases but using it as the default settlement promotes equality and provides a level playing on which to negotiate a speedy and amicable settlement. The present system distorts power in favour of one party, it is adversial and it provides financial incentives to hostile parents - the less you let your ex see the kids, for example, the more money you can demand in child support.

I support those two proposals because they are built on the internationally accepted wisdom that children's interests are best served by knowing both parents. They also promote the notion that men and women should jointly and equitably share the rights, duties and responsibilities of raising children.

These proposals are put forward because they are fair, equitable and they have the best interests of children at heart. They are also "anti-feminist", not by design, not because those who would have the law reformed in this way are themselves "anti-feminist" but because it is feminists and feminist organisations who oppose these reforms.

The fact is, it isn't the equal parenting lobby who are anti-feminist but the feminists who are anti-equal-parenting.

Best Regards

Jed

i think you'll find that feminists have been fighting the battle for equality for decades, and if you f4j had ever cared about equal rights before we might not be in this mess. stop making sweeping generalisations about people who you've obviously never bothered to find out about or talk to.

In f4j manifesto - "All parents should be assumed to be fit, loving, caring parents unless proven otherwise. " ie if women cant prove abuse or threats then she must be assumed to be lying - this is the reason why rape is such an easy crime to get away with, because women are apparently not to be believed. i wonder what sort of evidence you want us to have? somewhere else i read that one father who was accused of domestic violence later won "personality of the year" therefore the woman must've lied. violent people hide right in front of you folks, havent you learned anything from ian huntley and gary glitter?

"resident parents (mostly mothers) enjoy unlimited public funding" riiiiight.

"the establishment of a more just division of family income and property after separation. " like what? elsewhere i noticed this referred to as "the divorce racket". so now women are liars and money grabbers.

F4J has also been campaigning on behalf of Simon Clayton, a man who on a routine access visit abducted his daughter and was caught in Portugal six weeks later. In the F4Js pressrelease, they say [i]"Clayton was arrested whilst with his daughter Esti, age 4, some 6 weeks after they had left Britain and after a series of mechanical failures with his camper van rendered them stuck in the country for several weeks before they were able to continue their holiday. Previously both My Clayton and his daughter had travelled abroad together extensively without incident."[/i] - he abducted this girl and the police were scouring europe for him, he took ten grand with him, and bought one way tickets, this was hardly a sunday trip! F4J used this story for publicity, and accused the [i]"local Police of "gender apartheid" after they refused to help the fathers locate children who had disappeared with their mothers in cases known as "maternal abduction". "[/i] Yes when a woman does this its wrong, but that doesnt make Simon Clayton right!! Is F4J fighting for the rights of dads to abduct too??? another quote [i]"There seems to be one law for mothers and another for fathers. I can't imagine that a mother would ever spend this amount of time in a foreign prison cell."[/i]

so far: women = money grabbing liars with the law prejudiced in our favour. Ha!

Also on F4J : "All children, their parents and grandparents have inalienable rights to enjoy a meaningful, loving relationship with each other"
Grandparents do not have any legal entitlement nor should they. Allowing grandparents access to the child is and should be up to the parents, and the law has no right to get involved.

"the child's best interest principle has now effectively become the mothers best interest" and "the green light to recalcitrant mothers that they could veto contact between children and their fathers if this made them 'anxious or depressed."
If the father is causing so much stress to the full time parent then damn right they should back off. If the mother is depressed, anxious, stressed this has a huge impact on the childs home life. The answer - treat the mothers of your children with care and respect and there wont be a problem. Treat her like crap, and its your fault when she cant bear the sight of you. Slag her off to the kids, and forget seeing the kids. When you show the mother disrespect, or make her out to be inadequate, or act in any menacing manner towards her, you are confusing the child and making normal family life totally impossible.

"Children are growing up with multiple step fathers yet being denied access to their own dads" so now women are slappers too.

"Children, however, only fall out with their best friends but never Mummy, Daddy, Grandma and Grandpa." This from Peirce Brosnan. This statement is thoughtlessly naive at best.

The figures on the site only give one side of the story, for example "In 2001 50% of the 55,030 contact orders made were broken." and “40% of all fathers lose contact with children within 2 years.” - how many contacts were broken by dads themselves f4j dont say.


I am so fed up of the manipulation of the truth. Family Laws DO need changing - because they are bad for us all. Equal pay and Equal prospects for women would enable more women to hand over the parenting reins if they so wish. Treating the mother with some RESPECT would in most cases cancel the need for the courts and would make life easier for everyone. Yes, some women are still going to be bitches - but they are a minority, just like dads who abandon their kids are a minority. Dont lose sight of that and stereotype us all. Dont blame feminists for these stupid rules, which were, after all, made up by MEN to keep women in their place, at home. Oh yeh, and if you really want to tell everyone you are fighting for the rights of the 'family' how about calling yourselves FAMILIES for Justice and addressing the inequalities towards the females too? Fathers have come in late to the battle that women have been waging for years, and now you're blaming US! Good to see you off your arses, but we arent your enemy. Stop alienating us.

" ...how many contacts were broken by dads themselves f4j dont say.


I am so fed up of the manipulation of the truth. Family Laws DO need changing - because they are bad for us all. Equal pay and Equal prospects for women would enable more women to hand over the parenting reins if they so wish. Treating the mother with some RESPECT would in most cases cancel the need for the courts and would make life easier for everyone."

- from random

Hey, ever tried to keep an arrangement with someone who is determined to obstruct you? Maybe you made a pre-arranged phone call that met with an engaged tone and were subsequently accused of failing to call and consequently lost contact?

Equal pay has no bearing on how a woman will treat her child's father. It's a psychological game not the result of some external constraint. What of the 'new men' who, espoused to career women, care for the children while the mother works only to find themselves ousted from the kids' lives because SHE loses all RESPECT for him?

It is a man's duty in life to supply the needs of selfish women and the children they view as posessions.

Gosh! I'm just so angry and bitter - almost like someone who has had their children forcibly removed from their life.

do me a favour. im supposed to feel sorry for you?

"ever tried to keep an arrangement with someone who is determined to obstruct you?", yes. i could apply this to abusive relationships - same question back at ya. every day hundreds of women in the uk try to keep their family together in the face of 'obstruction' and violence from their partner. read the question back to yourself, think about these women and what they endure, and it reads slightly differently now doesnt it?
the same question in a split - when a woman is struggling to raise a family and raise money and find work and keep a job and maybe just maybe finding some spare time to spend with her children - and here comes the ex with demands and complaints and whining and criticisms - who exactly is doing the obstructing??? ever tried to keep an arrangement with a dad who never turns up, who is always late, who never offers a hand when theyre criticising the 'state of the house', who wants to know EXACTLY what you spend your child support on without ever wondering just how much it costs to feed clothe and entertain a child, who makes a comment about EVERY time you hire a babysitter just so you can have some time off, who calls you names when you find a new partner, who makes you feel inadequate at any opportunity (whilst of course having a minimum of responsibilities themselves), who wants the kids every weekend which just happens to be the ONLY time you get to spend with them too.

NOTE TO FATHERS - getting the kids up and to school, back from school, fed, their homework done and helped with, into the bath, and to bed IS NOT QUALITY TIME, it is WORK, albeit more enjoyable than most other jobs. Those weekends you insist on, are the ONLY time in the week where mothers get to take their kids out and relax with them, and even then there is washing ironing housework to be done. You want to share everything, then fine, you help with cleaning up the mess your kids make, etc, and you take one weekend in every two - now not only is that FAIR but it is also the way that the majority of non resident parents do it. Yes its not the same as living with them, but thats the downside of split relationships - you cant carve a child in half or make them live in two places and go to two schools.
The child has to live with one of the two parents - what is wrong with the mother having this entitlement? I want to hear your claims - mothers create the child in their womb, we carry the child for months through sickness and pain, we bring the child into the world with more sickness and pain , maybe we even breastfeed for months too, you fathers say this is 'invalid' and you want 50% of dads to get 'residency'. well what is your more valid claim over the child?? I havent heard a single reason yet, if you dont count the whinging "s'not fair"s. So what is FAIR??? This is not an ideal world, we're not all in relationships that will be happy forever. When relationships split, one parent is going to have to live elsewhere from the child. Why should the resident parent be the father??

All the suggestions so far seem to be that the parent with the best finances/economic status should have the child. Why?? And how fair would that system be - in an unequal world where women earn so much less, the parent in the best economic circumstances is more often going to be a man. What is fair about that? What happens to mothers and women then?? Are we to spend our lives being your whores and your punchbags, to be discarded when you're bored and deprived of our own children?? Is that all we're good for? You say "It is a man's duty in life to supply the needs of selfish women and the children they view as posessions." I say "It is the womans duty in life to supply the needs of the selfish man and be Viewed as a possession." Time to change the record mate.

I can't believe what I am reading - rampant shameless espousing of injustice and inequality.

Since she (is it?) sees nothing wrong with :

"The child has to live with one of the two parents - what is wrong with the mother having this entitlement?"

She must surely be equally happy with :

"Every boss has to be of one sex or the other - what is wrong with the men having this entitlement?"

"Every convict has to be of one ethnic group or the other - what is wrong with the black people having this entitlement?"

"The government has to be formed by one party or another - what is wrong with party A always having this entitlement?"

"Those who become rich have to be educated at some type of school - what is wrong with the public school boys having this entitlement?"

"Somebody has to be homeless and starving - what is wrong with the mentally ill having this entitlement?"

Such a view is little short of criminal idiocy.

nice one freddie - youve just managed to make yourself look really stoopid. LOL

so come on then - we cannot split children in half. we cannot make them live in two houses, go to two schools, have two lives. if thats what you want then you cannot claim its for the good of the child. the only person to benefit will be daddy, to the detriment of the childs mental and emotional health.

heres a womans claim to residency:
the woman concieves the child
the woman feeds and carries the child, through sickness and pain
the woman gives birth to the child, through sickness and pain
the woman feeds the child from her own breast and her own milk for months


im still waiting - whats your claim? What does the father do that is more than this?

....a serious discussion of this very important topic we would need to examine:

1. Initial emotional links :
The evolutionary basis of the innate biological two-way bond between parent and child. What "bonding triggers" may be needed to bring it into full force. Differences between the sexes, if any. From experience I find that a father fully present and involved in the birth feels just as strongly as the mother, and the child will bond to each equally. It is well known that for the mother pregnancy and birth alone are not sufficient - post birth days are critical, and so too for the father.

2. Developed emotional links:
Many fathers are cut off from their children after several years of close involvement, often just as close emotionally as the mother. The psychological anguish for both father and child can be intense. A young child will interpret it as abandonment, whatever may be said to the contrary. A father will suffer grief, anger and frustration in excess of what could be caused by any other event. Remember that the average father would (like the average mother) literally DIE to save their child's life. To sever a bond of such significance is a total violation of the rights of parent and child. To many parents their children and their welfare are the only, or at least most, really significant purpose in their life.

3. Psychological damage from separation :
There is overwhelming evidence of the deleterious effect in later life of the loss of either loved parent at an early age (below about 11). See the work of John Bowlby and all those who followed after. Potential severe damage to the ability to trust, and to be intimate.

4. Social deprivation from absence of one parent:
All the usual stuff about the need for role models to be intimately present. Relation to young male crime etc.

5. Extreme difficulty of providing a father substitute :
The difficulties of step-relationships are well documented both academically and anecdotally. I personally have seen both sides. As myself the hated stepfather who can do no right. And having to watch my own children struggle through years of deteriorating enmity towards and from their mother's new partner. Culminating in my daughter's attempted suicide. It's not really that surprising. There is no biological bond.

6. "I bore it in my womb therefore I own it" soon pales into relative insignificance.
By the time a child is two or three, the amount of time, trouble and concern which both its parents have gladly lavished upon it, and the financial and hedonistic opportunities they have given up for it, far outweigh any initial inequality in inconvenience arising from its carriage in the mother's womb. Many (but not all) fathers have by this point made at least an equal investment emotionally, energetically and financially. And remember that due to a biological protection mechanism many mothers simply cannot remember painful details of the birth (until the moment their next labour begins !!)

7. Physically bearing a child is no selfless sacrifice:
Evidence the huge distress of the childless, and the huge effort to help. No-one can claim that they have "purchased" a child by undergoing pregnancy and labour, if being deprived of the opportunity to do so is understood by us all as a terrible loss.

8. Grown children still want to recover their father:
Even fifty years later, something inside them still needs this. Can you watch reunions, even on the Trisha show, without a tear in your own eye ?

9. So what exactly is lost by a child losing contact with either parent ?
How many people are there in you life who would lay down their own life to protect yours, who are tied to you by an unbreakable bond of concern ? More than two or three and you're very lucky. To tear one forcibly from a childs life is to deprive it of a resource of unestimable value. What if the parent with "ownership" dies ?

I conclude that the residence of a child of apart-parents should be decided on all the facts in each individual case, in its own long and short term interest.
That there should be no bias or presumption in favour of either sex.
That, except in exceptional circumstance (applying equally to either sex), the courts should go to great lengths to ensure continuing substantial contact with the non-resident parent, and should punish any obstruction by the resident parent with extreme sanctions, including if necessary the ultimate transfer of the children to whichever parent can be trusted to be more co-operative in this most vital respect.
A separated parent must accept that in the interest of its children, he/she may have to accept a limitation on where they can live, to be near enough to the other. The court might need to rule on acceptable geographic limits.

random says " we cannot make them live in two houses"

Actually, we can.

My 12 yr old daughter's best friend does exactly this.
One week with Mummy. One week with Daddy.
Two houses. Two bedrooms. She insists they rank exactly equally as her home.
One school, accessible from both.

My daughter (and other girls) goes regularly to stay overnight. Sometimes one house, sometimes the other.
Two different regimes, both loved, both safe, both home.
Two intelligent parents, who make sure there is no playing one off against the other for advantage. Even though they are both hurting, and each has confessed they find communicating painful. They use text messages as much as possible, to keep emotion out of it.

This is the real meaning of caring for your child. Putting her first.

I'm not saying this will work for every child, but it will for some, might perhaps for many.

Apparently there are two other girls with a similar arrangement in their class.

My daughter is envious.

I think this will increase.

You see something wrong, or impossible, about this, random ?

This page just really does demonstrate the ranting of men who have taken up a 'crusade' for their own egotism. This is no good for the children whatsoever. I am really fed up with the media misrepresenting the so- called bad situation of fathers. If fathers weren't violent, aggressive & controlling towards women they might always have had more trust. Every woman I know, including myself would gladly grant access if the father were a stable reliable caring person, who is a positive influence on the child. Instead, like me, they are terrified that the fathers main motives are to terrorise & control the woman, and manipulate & undermine the child. A friend of mine freely granted access to a violent father & now she has a brain damaged child who will never progress beyond a mental age of 6. Nice.
Its not easy coping on your own, but its a hell of alot easier than coping with a nasty ex who is hell-bent on getting his 'rights'. Anyone can fill a pram but sorry, not everyone can be a father, or a mother come to that, but it seems these men are being glorified for no good reason.
Maybe the bitter guy who has had his children forcibly removed from him should think long & hard on why this was the case....is is it possibly something he (gasp!) did wrong?!!! Surely not!
It seems to me there are alot of men on here moaning about the misfortunes they brought on themselves, and can they really fulfill what they say? Maybe if more men thought about the consequences of their actions & decided against these actions they wouldn't need 'F4J'??
However, if the man really is a good influence & a loving father, supportive of the mother then that is fantastic & again no need for fathers 4 Justice. Get real.