So men feel isolated, fearful, lost, confused etc, etc, etc.

Is this true is it?. Almost no research has been undertaken into men or fathers in Australia to make this general judgement (see…http://www.aifs.gov.au/institute/pubs/papers/smyth5.html), and if there is a feeling of being isolated or fearful, a man just has to become a non-custodial father and they will get to learn all about it quickly enough.

So there is little to be relied upon in this article. Just another unsubstantiated, male maligning article that shows little research before hand.

Do women feel isolated, fearful, lost, confused etc, etc, etc? If women’s media is any indication, I would definitely think so.

Dear Mark,

I appreciate your beautifully reflective response.

Your call to stop and draw a collective breath is an appropriate one. I am interested in men, as a gender, contemplating who they are and where they are going. It is needed. Not because women demand it, but because it is men’s best interest.

Men, young and old, do need to celebrate and value who we are. Just as you point out – “As I see it, the only real choice left for men is to acknowledge our fabulous black-and-white reasoning.”

Men need to celebrate their strength, but be wary of its ability to produce violence. Men need to acknowledge their business success, but not to the detriment of the wide range of other success men and women can have in a life. Men need to acknowledge, as you have, that they are different to women – but ensure that it doesn’t impact on human relationships based on equality.

Black-and-white reasoning doesn’t mean that men cannot grow and develop their role to work in greater partnership with women and children.

And, I would agree that my divisional tactics are not the best approach – but it is just another part of the fabulous black-and-white reasoning with which my testosterone has blessed me.

As a young father, men who deride my decision to be a dad, claim my marriage will end in divorce and label me naïve frustrate me. I am as naïve as the next man. The one thing I don’t wish to do is denounce their experience.

I have no doubt there are many men who have suffered great pain in their pursuit of strong relationships with women and children. In many cases unjustly and unfairly due to a range of cultural and systematic reasons. The experience is real. It is awful. And I wish the best for those men.

But, theirs is not the only experience and I hope someone who has suffered in this way would actually understand and encourage those who have found happiness – instead of wishing upon them the pain they endure.

(Continued next comment)

I will continue to shield the up and coming generation from that attitude and promote committing to a relationship and children as a positive and worthwhile life choice.

I believe that the responsibilities that were once regarded as only the domain of men are actually the responsibility of the whole community. I see family as a core building block to functional and vibrant communities. Men are an integral part of that – but no more important than any other participant. Many men will participate as fathers: but also as single men, as employees, as grandfathers, as neighbours, as friends, as shop keepers, as Rotarians, as coaches or event organisers.

The unhealthy reliance on the family unit only occurs in a society that isolates not just men – but everyone. That sits us down in front of the TV to watch reality shows and keeps us within the walls of our houses – too fearful to go out. Causing us to ignore the reality of the events, meetings and activities going on in our own community – events run and organised by women, men and children.

As for the answers to the big questions: they are different for all of us at different times in our lives.

The best we can do is keep the conversations going

…thanks for engaging in a constructive way.

D.

The research does demonstrate that men who are actively involved in their children's lives pre separation are more likely to continue to be involved in their children's lives post separation. Shared parenting also is more often an outcome for couples who split amicably, and forcing this outcome by law reform only compromises those cases that are the least likely to be suitable candidates for shared parenting in the first place. Therefore, non-custodial fathers should reflect on their involvement and behaviour as fathers before the divorce or separation and reflect on the questions of how manhood is not expressed or recieved favourably where violence and control is the expression of masculinity.

Daniel Donahoo,
“As a young father, men who deride my decision to be a dad, claim my marriage will end in divorce and label me naïve frustrate me. I am as naïve as the next man. The one thing I don’t wish to do is denounce their experience.”

Is this true is it?

Prove it.

You had an article in the press making many maligning unsubstantiated remarks about young men , and then lambasting them to get married

What was pointed out to you were some facts about marriage such as :-

• A third of all babies born today may expect divorce in their lifetime, and a quarter will never marry, if current habits persist. Marriage rates have hit a 100-year low and divorces are at a 20-year high.

• On average, couples separated after 8.3 years of marriage and got divorced about 3.5 years later.

http://www.spinneypress.com.au/183_book_desc.html

Of those parents who are non-custodial (IE fathers mostly) 76 % will see their children less than weekly, and 26 % will see their children once a year or less
http://www.aifs.gov.au/institute/info/charts/contact/f2f/frequency-abs.html

These were the type of statistics and facts that that were pointed out to you, and now you try and interpret this as being an attempt to undermine your marriage.

You have intentionally attempted to misinterpret what was said to you, and in your two articles on males, you made 54 negative statements about males, without one positive statement. You also attempt to portray yourself as being some type of expert on men and marriage.

I don’t think so.

I would think you still have not understood. If you want some involvement in marriage, divorce, family law, young men, older men, fathers etc, then read up on some facts first. Anecdotal evidence is not good enough to make generalized statements about men or fathers. That belongs in a feminist camp.

The comment by Timkins "Anecdotal evidence is not good enough to make generalized statements about men or fathers. That belongs in a feminist camp." is quite unfair. Obviously he has not read the research himself.

"So, if the Part VII reforms were not a legislative response to an identified problem or to research data about what is in the best interests of children,[48] where did they come from? I suggest that they were a response to the anecdotes constantly recounted to politicians; the stories of aggrieved non-custodial fathers who told (and continue to tell) bitter tales of gender bias against them by the legal system, and particularly by the Family Court. The fathers’ rights groups have been remarkably successful in capturing the attention of the politicians. This motivation for the reforms is obvious from the Government’s Second Reading speech,[49] and from the contemporaneous Parliamentary Debates where there are numerous references to the hope that a shared parenting law would alleviate the distress of non-custodial parents, the majority of whom are fathers.[50] The fathers’ groups persistently claim that the Court is ‘biased’ against them.[51] But their claims had (and have) no empirical support: the literature and the available studies show that the Family Court makes orders (in contested cases) in favour of fathers at twice the rate of those made by consent.[52] The fathers’ anecdotes that so captured the attention of the politicians (and I should emphasise that this is a non-party political issue: the legislation was introduced by the previous Labor Government) invoked the discourses of ‘victimhood’ and ‘formal equality’[53] in much the same way as happened in the lead up to the Children Act 1989 reforms in the United Kingdom.[54]"
Law Reform by Frozen Chook, Graycar, Melbourne University Law Review 29, 2000, p.6