(but way outweighed by the women who must pay all the bills from an inadequate 'allowance' with not a razoo for themselves,)Cotter.

Former Attorny General Philip Ruddock said that 'where an income was once supporting one family, that income (following separation) must now support two.

I know many of the women here are complaining about being subjected to DV.

However there is a solution and that is shared care, if care was shared, then the custodial parent would be more able to find paid employment.

To think that a person could maintain the same standard of living following separation is just 'pie in the sky' type of thinking. Even couples who have not separated can and do find it hard to make ends meet, such as paying bills etc. So it not anything unique to separated parents.

It may fail to register in the minds of some, but there a many different stories, some are truthful and factual others just follow a well worn script.

Not every separated dad is an abuser, but to use the abuse excuse is an easy card to play.

Basically all this arguing boils down to power and control and lastly money.

The welfare of the kids is just a side show, a false front arguement used to draw attention away from what is really going on.

A solution to DV is shared care?

In whose universe? Newsflash, separation, shared parenting DOES NOT STOP IT.

Cotter,

'you show your determination to avoid the reality of so many people's own existence and lack of power over it. '

I've already stated it was my reality, and I believe I , and many other kids, are still better off not being shunted off to strangers or being denied a relationship with one of their parents.

You have to weigh up the less than ideal environment against the alternative. Safety first is the easy way out. Expanding definitions of abuse rather than investigating whether it really is occurring seems to be the name of the game here.

'Saying 'you'd be happy if I killed myself' - probably a desperate call for sanity and comprehension.'

As is raising ones voice in the heat of an argument. So, if a man reacts angrily, it's abuse, if a woman plays passive aggressive games, it's a cry for help. If a man dominates through manipulation and threats it's abuse but if a woman does it it's 'a cry for help'. Punish men/help women, it's been going on for too long.

I've known women who admit they deliberately provoke men into anger to force them to communicate in more emotive terms. They need the reassurance the guy cares so they push as many buttons as they can. Then when he shouts or reacts angrily, he's an abusive brut?

'Avoiding the actual issue is actually an indicator of pathology of the mind'

That's what you're doing. Avoiding the issue that widening the definition of abuse leads to a lower burden of proof and conflates reasonably sane normal people under temporary stress with pathological abusers.

'they do not give damn about other people's opinion, unless it mirrors theirs.'

I'd say that sums up your attitude to just about every poster here. I think you just don't appreciate the trauma kids feel when being denied a relationship with their parents. It's all so simple to you isn't it. Just ship the kids off to a stranger regardless of the levels of so called 'abuse'.

ship the kids off to strangers? No, no that's not what I'm talking about. I'm actually talking about the children who are endangered and harmed by violent and abusive behaviour. The ones the enquiries have been about. The dawning knowledge that that DV is much more than a punch in the face (whether they deserved it or not) and the impact on the kids in the middle.

And only women 'provoke' men? Men may be angry but women are passive aggressiive? Now there's a great generalisation - women have no right to be angry (a legitimate human emotion) vs passive-aggressive (a personality issue).

As i said, and I don't mind being accurate at all, but then I just grew up in a violent home - what would I know about how hard it is to become homeless and fight my way back to some degree of 'whole' person. To care for my parent who was so harmed by DV that she never really recovered and died early. What of my father who cried 'It's not my fault' like a 14 year old.

Then there's my client who was bashed, beaten and murdered (eventually) so she shouldn't have left I guess. She should have stayed and kept her mouth shut because that's so healthy for their kids. and many more.

Thanks for the suggestion I'm pathological. Of course 30 years in the field has made me so sympathetic to people who cry 'but what about me'

So if you decide that you would have been better off if you hadn't been taken from your parents, that's possibly right for you. This isn't about losing a parent - this is about saying 'NO' to bad parents. If the child ends up with the other parent, perhaps that has at least something to do with parent's own behaviour instead of blaming someone else.

Yep Houel, the incredible amount of damage that is done by removing a child from the adults they are attached to is appalling. Once in care they are likely to suffer it many times along with a system that does not monitor how they are treated regularly.

These kids in care don’t do as well as their peers for many reasons. But if they took the monitoring they should be doing with foster parents and applied it to families they consider at risk a rather large industry could collapse.

At risk... not abusive (old school def).

As for shared care; better than care by neither.

James:”Not every separated dad is an abuser, but to use the abuse excuse is an easy card to play.”

That card is available to both genders.

It’s gonna be a mess when gay couples split and have to share care of adopted children. Who will the mens groups support?

Houel:“…widening the definition of abuse leads to a lower burden of proof and conflates reasonably sane normal people under temporary stress with pathological abusers.”

Well said.

Cotter I don’t think anyone here is advocating violent men get time with their children. I hope even the mens groups would never help a known and proven violent male near a child – I would certainly rather see them fatherless.

The worry is the broadening of the abuse definitions and what it will do to the stability of all children. We want to say NO to bad parents but don’t want to be saying NO to all parents labeled abusive in this new broad way

Cotter "this is about saying 'NO' to bad parents" except in your world and the world of those you side with it's only about saying 'NO' to bad male parents.

You are so blinded by your own journey that you refuse to see that the experience of many others has been different.

I'm able to agree that some men are utter a-holes who should never be allowed near other human beings. That some women have gone through hell when dealing with bullying male partners. Can you say the same about some women and the experiences their partners have had?

Again it's extremely clear when it comes substantiated child abuse that the genders are pretty much the same overall in their role in abuse. The factors that make a difference are things like substance abuse, poverty, stress etc not the nature and placement of the lumps. When confronted with that you drop back to DV but I'm guessing that you want to run with the version's of DV that have been subjected to feminist analysis (eg men have the power so DV is something they do).

I understand that substantiated abuse and fatal assault are not the whole story and that there are a range of behaviors leading up to that. The reality is that substantiated abuse and fatal assault stats should reflect the underlying patterns, they are the least subjective measures we have to tell what is actually happening at those lower levels.

Much of what you accuse others on this thread of doing seems to be exactly what you are doing.

You don't talk about the parts of the problem you want ignored - what protections do you think should be put in place while investigations are underway to avoid unproven allegations impacting on long term outcomes?

Just how will you differentiate between out of character behaviors during the stress of the end of a relationship and long term behaviors?

R0bert