Wisdommiskey,

"I wonder; if there was a simpler way to prevent much of the unnecessary harm done to children while we wait for intervention through the back-logged mediation process or from the often inconsistent, ineffective child protection safety-net, would we change our approach before spending millions re-reinventing the family law wheel once more?"

There is no jury system. The family court is completely corrupt.

The family court is an example of what happens to a legal system when there is no jury.

Also the idea of "lets move on" leads to "lets go no where"

A number of studies have found the majority of people a no happier after the divorce than before. This is something feminists don't often mention.

James H

This is a push by feminists to change the current family law system back to the old system, based on a father who threw a child off the bridge. What none of these feminists have mentioned, is that a mother carrying a child jumped off the very same bridge that year.

The distortion of information is a major factor in the distortion of a society

I must ask all the fathers on this article - how much of the actual day to day care of the child did you do before divorce? You should answer this honestly.

Now how would you feel if you were say 7 years old, you had friends where you lived, and all of a sudden your parents split and you were forced to have two homes. Unless the two parents separating can be cordial, polite and think of the children first and ONLY, shared parenting (50/50 time split) does not work. Try starting at www.thelizlibrary.org and work your way out from there.

This bad situation is increased when you have one partner who believes abuse is happening at the other parent's house. This is increased when you have a partner who was abusive during the marriage and uses abuse as a card (because that happens much more frequently than women falsely using dv as a divorce card). Studies have shown (again these are readily available online) that men are more likely to engage in malicious, false accusations of abuse than women are.

So ask yourself, are you saying the mother is abusing because you do not like how she parents? Or is it because you are angry that she gets child support? How much did you really do when you were still one family unit? Do not count working outside the home - only count doctor visits, school functions, extra curricular activities? Honestly what did you do when you were still one family unit. And then if you can HONESTLY answer that you did the vast majority of child care and child centered activities and you never abusedyour former spouse in any way, then you should have more time sharing. But that should not be at the child's detriment.

Two homes do not make a child twice as happy. That makes him or her twice as miserable.

<This is a push by feminists to change the current family law system back to the old system, based on a father who threw a child off the bridge. What none of these feminists have mentioned, is that a mother carrying a child jumped off the very same bridge that year.

The distortion of information is a major factor in the distortion of a society
Posted by vanna, Monday, 20 September 2010 7:25:25 AM>

Firstly, the media pays heaps of attention to what that father did, but the mother is almost invisible in the media.

Secondly, hundreds of thousands of children each year are safely returned to the custodal parent without any risk to their wellbeing or safety.

I should also mention that the lawyer was female.

You will find this to be the exact opposite. What news stories have been published about Freeman?

Look to the States and see the rampant father killing ex/wife/girlfriend/children stories. Go to http://dastardlydads.blogspot.com and you will find news stories daily and the blogger responsible for the articles posted does not have enough time to keep up with all the "dastardly dads" out there. But let me ask you this. Do you know who Casey Anthony is? How about Caylee Anthony? Yeah I bet you know who those two are. What about Andrea Yates? Or Lorena Bobbitt? Or even better Susan Smith?

Now do you know who Andrew Copland is? Or how about Paul Wyllie? No bells? Going to have to google those names?

Now you see that high profile murder/abuse cases are typically female. The fathers who do these horrendous acts are rarely profiled in this fashion. One way to show this is the Caylee and Hayleigh stories - both out of Florida. Caylee lived with mom, Hayleigh lived with dad. Both are more than likely deceased (Hayleighs remains have yet to be found), but Caylee's mother has received thousands of time the news time that Hayleigh's dad has receieved. Hayleigh's dad has received even less press time than his underage girlfriend/wife/ex-wife.

Another case in point - Bruce Pardo - he shot up a relative's home killing at least 8 while dressed as Santa during the holidays. Have we heard any more about him? Or even Darren Mack out of Nevada. he killed his wife downstairs while his daughter was upstairs and he had shared custody with his soon to be ex-wife. He even attempted to kill the judge in his case.

You can even look more recently to Wyatt in California. The mother begged to have supervised visits for dad - judge refused and now 9 month old Wyatt and his father are dead at father's hands.

Where is the justice for children in this?

I think we shouldn't be blaming anyone but rather demonstrating a better way- People don't want to be judged for their mistakes and weaknesses. Rather in love we should point people to the best way- raising children as a community with the fmaily unit as the foundation.

What would it look like if there were many healthy fathers and mothers who decided to father and mother an entire community?

What would it look like if we dropped all our rights/ wrongs blamegame and devoted ourselves to moving forward in love?

Both men and women were created by God to be powerful people working together in humility to love and support their children. When one is taken away or there are powerplays it doesnt work.

Well done, Mr Thompson. I hope that you and Andrew and his mum can finally get some peace in your relationships. It's a tragedy for all concerned, especially Andrew, who obviously found the whole thing very distressing and is no doubt confused.

AbuseVictims, no one has suggested that some fathers don't go off the rails, but you demonstrate very clearly that some mothers can too. How many blogs dedicated to the vilification of fathers have you set up anyway? according the the blog you so proudly referenced, there are at least 6 others you lay claim to. Thanks for showing just how obsessed some mothers can be.

This is an Australian site, in case you hadn't noticed, which seems likely, given your obsession. what did you do, start trawling the net for forums to spam with your man-hatred as soon as you heard that Mr Thompson had been successful in rescuing his son? My recommendation is to keep taking the meds and try to stay calm.

To the rest of you, shame on you. This father is a true hero to his son and the mother, mentally ill or not, has behaved abominably.

The real tragedy is the failure of the Family Court to prevent this from occurring. If a father falls a bit behind in child support he can be slapped with a Departure Prohibition Order issued by a lowly bureaucrat, no judge even involved, so why can't Courts do this as a matter of routine in contested custody matters?