Yet the CSA has chased and chased me to pay my ex-wife, to whom I have a "debt" because she chose not to work for 6 years whilst she went back to uni for her 3rd undergrad degree (in social work). She lives in housing commission accommodation, received every possible benefit payment, did cash work and as much p/t work as she could without affecting her handouts, took me to court on several occasions to try to get increased custody and hence more child support from me (all funded by legal aid). In her best year she had a taxable income of just $14,000 (mostly Newstart allowance) and a gross income of over $31,000, plus the cheap rent.

At present, her income is nearly $80,000, but she still lives in that Housing Commission house, rent capped at $250 a week, nice new security screens paid for by the taxpayer, a new bathroom ditto and I understand she's just successfully applied to have a new high fence put up because she's worried about the chooks getting attacked (and the people next door got one, so she feels entitled).

I reckon that she's received at least $250,000 in government benefits and handouts while my kids have been growing up. That's the real reason for child support.

Through all of this, my children have never missed out on a thing, except for the joy of being able to live in an intact family, which both of them have missed very much. The constant conflict hasn't helped.

I'm very sorry that your grandkids weren't as lucky. Perhaps if their parents had not had to fight over money the situation would have been better for all?

Pelican:"You talk about a gravy train as though men have never benefitted or been advantaged by the boys club gravy train, "

Of course they did. I went to a top private school because my parents were hopeful that I'd benefit from the networking opportunities that were presented.

If that was wrong, which I'm not entirely sure it is, being a matter of private choices, why is the OSW's massive fundimng of women's groups to promote networking not also wrong? The answer of course, is that it IS wrong. It is not the State's role in a democracy to promote the creation of elites or to pay for their self-promotion. It can't be justified on any ethical grounds that I can think of - anyone else care to have a go?

I'm very glad to see you've come around to the view that such Fabian Feminist policies are not justified. I wondered how long you could continue to ignore the blindingly obvious.

It's interesting that even a fair-minded person such as yourself ahs a great deal of difficulty breaking the sororal solidarity that has become such a feature of gender discourse. I'm not denigrating you when I say the conditioning has been tremendously effective.

I've said before that before my marriage broke down, I'd have said I support feminist principles. I'd have said that as an egalitarian I was all for it. having been brought up against the hard edge of the feminist bandwagon, I'm now far less accommodating. Even so, it took at least 5 years before I was prepared to say "something's rotten". The conditioning is very strong.

antiseptic,
Sorry I couldnt have expressed myself well
The dads did pay..one about $25 a week and the other organised a trust through the family business so that he paid the minimum possible
There was never any argument about paying only a resentment by the children of their fathers lack of support and lack of participation in their lives.....and they were very cognisant of the fact that at 16 the money stopped
You seeem to have managed a nice balance and attended to your kids needs............ you reap rewards from those actions.
As grandparent we reaped the rewards because we did the things that met the kids needs physically, emotionally and financially

whistler
Enjoyed your piece....expressed eloquently and certainly not boring
Added some realism to the blog..needs to be said ad nausem

'men are responsible for attitudes women hold about men'

Really? So women are responsible for attitudes men hold towards women. Interesting. Where is MTR!

GAJ,

I think you misread me I didn't accuse you of lying. I think you're taking me too seriously regardless. I always here this 'women's place' and women being put 'in their place', but men were just as much constricted to a place.

Why do women have this defensive reflex as if gender roles were derogatory to women. Men were put 'in their place' at the birth of their own children, and it continued from that point on. Why this over emotive sob story about restrictions for women into men's 'place' when men had similar restrictions into women's 'place'. The grass is just always greener isn't it. You women act as if mens traditional place was a lush green 100 hectare paddock and womens was a 3 x 3 metre mud pit.

Thank god women are in the workforce now and are getting a taste of how wonderful liberating the stress of providing for a family and having no autonomy and being nice to people you hate and missing out on time with their kids all day is.

The gender roles pre feminism are always put up as this terrible deal where women got shafted and men had secret meetings and designed the organisation of society to suit themselves, selfishly taking all the fun jobs and spending the spoils on themselves. Its just such a one-sided view of history. It denies women had any input and hence responsibility for shaping the 'societal expectations', and conflates the privileged position of a few powerful men with the rest of the men in society.

It's even got to the point that not only do men in the time of patriarchy have to apologise for their gender and conforming to the social order of the time, men brought up in a totally different world constantly get an ear bashing about 'not so long ago' as if they had something to do with a culture that is totally foreign to them.

Holly "Really? So women are responsible for attitudes men hold towards women. Interesting. Where is MTR!"

You just don't get it. Women are week and feeble, unable to hold any real role in life without special support and certainly not responsible for anything. If they had no impact on societal values despite the clear role they had in raising children then clearly they can't be held responsible for anything else. Men and men alone have shaped society and bear responsibility for everything bad.

On the other hand those who actually think well of women might have some trouble with some of that thinking if they stop and consider the implications of it. It's far more paternalistic and denigrating of women than than what most of the anti-feminists can muster.

R0bert

Thanks GAJ, ad nauseam is my specialty.