The focus on children being abused whilst important, ignores that fact that the vast majority are not abused.

There a multiple of factors that tend to get lost when people wholely and solely focus on the abuse of children.

Even in an intact household children will go through periods of disliking a parent, for many reason.

Children in an intact household will also play one parent against another at times, sometimes parents throught their own actions encourage this sort of behaviour.

Casting fathers in a bad light, creates a huge prejudice consciously or unconsciously.

There has been more that 40 years of focusing on domestic violence, yet we appear to be further away from being able to deal effectively this issue

Oh, I see Elspeth and Barbara and the rest have found themselves anew self-promotion vehicle, no doubt paid for with a generous grant from the taxpayer.

If you're going to ride on a bandwagon, you may as well demand it's comfortable, eh?

As for the article, nothing to see but a mish-mash of anecdota and emotional claptrap. not a substantive fact in sight. If this is what passes for expert testimony then goawd help the children.

I recommend the author to my thread on professorial integrity.

A sense of dejavu anybody.

Another article dismissing the Howard reforms on the basis that sometimes they don't work without any evidence of how scrapping them will actually improve child safety and once again with no-mention of the profiling going into DV legislation designed to nominate males as the guilty party.

The proponents of scrapping the shared care changes don't seem interested in any analysis of the drop in substantiated child abuse which has occurred during the period those changes have been in place.

They will point out that PAS is technically not a syndrome while pretend that parents are unable to impact on the attitudes of children.

They don't seem to want to talk about the impacts on children on increasing the opportunity for adversaial behaviour in family law.

They don't seem to want to talk about any safeguards to prevent abuse via false claims.

The onus on those wanting to dismantle the shared care reforms is to demonstrate that what they propose will work better most of the time than what is there now. So far they have completely failed to do so.

R0bert

Well put Robert.

Not a statistic in sight in the article, which was obviously done so as to appeal to the emotions rather than the senses.

One statistic blatantly missing is the amount of child abuse occuring in single parent families, which is not mentioned by the author.

Must not step on any feminist toes.

The Shared Parenting Act was a good thing in that it acknowledges the raising of children as a joint parental responsibility even if those two parents are living apart. This should be the beginning point even if circumstances eventually lead to different arrangements. There is no one size fits all and children are invdividuals with different needs.

For example depending on age of children breastfeeding might be a factor, distance and work responsibilities (travel, shiftwork) and finances. Or it may come down to an amicable agreement between the two parents that sees one parent with higher custodial care for various reasons.

To say that the new arrangements lead to children being put into the care of an abuser is just as wrong as assuming that a mother's parental rights are greater than a father's (ignoring the fact the mother or her new partner may be the abuser).

However, given all that, accusations of abuse should be considered as paramount. Children should have much more say in providing evidence to Judges in private with an impartial custodian (social worker) present.

Those that accuse some parents (mainly mothers) of fabricating claims of abuse and 'coaching' children please try and be evenhanded on this issue. It is too important to become just another angry gender attack.

The gender approach is flawed on both sides. For every possibility of a false claim of abuse there is equal possibility of a false claim of 'coaching'. One would hardly expect a mother or father accused of abuse to admit it in a judicial setting particularly if they seek access or partial custody of their children.

The major goal should be preventing children from being in abusive situations - as difficult as that might be to ascertain with conflicting evidence.

Pelican I agree with the points that you are making.
Having said that it's been quite clear that the goal of these changes is to dismantle the shared care provisions.

Did you have a look at the article last week on the inclusion of comments about males and DV into some state DV legislation and the push to put into a broader range of legislation?

Put into context with the focus on DV made by a number of supporters of the proposed changes it alters the dynamics significantly.

There should be mechanisms to investigate claims of abuse but there should also be mechanisms to avoid any long term harm from false claims (eg stopping people from using false claims to establish patterns of care which impact on future residency or hindering access to funds needed to get legal representation etc).

There should be some detailed analysis of the changes to patterns of substantiated abuse and child fatalities across Australia over recent years before any rollback of the shared care reforms are made.

The shared care changes were not perfect and if some of the annecdotal claims are correct there should be refinements made.

I don't think that is the agenda behind what's happening here.

R0bert

In any society that professes to value children, practices, beliefs and attitudes that destroy and kill children, are unacceptable.

So, many people of our earth, decry the beliefs in certain areas that lead some to rape babies,thinking this criminal act a protection against the HIV virus.

With increased acceptance in many countries of ideas like alienation and false allegations, there has been an increase in the murders of women and children. Australia, when it imposed a law of shared parenting, wielded a very blunt instrument which had the effect of increasing woman and child murders and escalated unnecessary misery and suffering.

Statistics place between 90-98% of divorces worldwide, as settling all questions of divorce with little discord. The 2-10%, which are inappropriately termed "high conflict", cannot be protective of children or the adults concerned, by the use of ideas,theories,opinions attitudes or values such as greed.

These cases need to be carefully examined by educated individuals who have as a sole consideration, the safety of all concerned.

I not only hope that the proposed amendments are accepted; I wish,pray,plead and implore the government of Australia to demonstrate their sense so that other countries may follow suit.The destructive and reprehensible actions of some are not confined to Australia.

Perhaps the amendments could be called the Darcy Freeman Laws. Thank you Mr.Pragnell for this article.

from a Canadian

The issues involved with the blanket 50% shared custody arrangement do not just involve worries about abuse or negligence of children, although this is certainly the most important consideration.

To my mind, one of the most important sentences in this article is as follows:

"Too little attention has been given in the existing Family Law and by the Courts in establishing whether a parent has an existing "meaningful relationship" with a child and whether a parent has actively engaged in the child's emotional, physical, social, and educational development prior to the parental separation which are the core elements of good parenting, and merely the participation of an adult in the conception of a child has been accepted and upheld by Courts as qualifying an adult as a "parent"."

Correct me if I am wrong, but I couldn't find the word FATHER used detrimentally in the whole article.

It talks about PARENTS, and is written by a guy who is a Specialist Adviser on Child Protection and Children’s Rights to the National Council for Children Post Separation.

I would imagine this guy is fairly well educated on the subject, and I am sure the government, social workers and family courts are far more likely to listen to someone like him than any of the bitter, selfish, militant parent groups out there.

We should not be forcing children to split their time 50% between warring parent's households unless it is in their best interests to do so.

suzie,

Great quote. I love how financial support doesn't count. So men who are responsible and work hard to support their families are penalised because of their lack of 'emotional' connection with their children.

I guess men who are on the dole but at are at least at home should retain custody because of their continued 'emotional' connection?

Cold North Wind care to provide some official statistics to back up "Australia, when it imposed a law of shared parenting, wielded a very blunt instrument which had the effect of increasing woman and child murders and escalated unnecessary misery and suffering."

There has been a 4% drop in substantiated child abuse in Australia during pretty much the same period.

I've struggled to find recent clear data on trends in intimate partner homocide but one report from 2003 http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/tandi/241-260/tandi255/view%20paper.aspx
said "Over the 13-year period covered by this analysis there were 77 intimate partner homicides, on average, each year. The majority involved males killing female intimate partners (75 per cent). Females comprised only 20 per cent of offenders of intimate partner homicide, confirming prior research that males are more likely than females to kill their intimate partner (Johnson & Hotton 2003; Silverman & Kennedy 1993; Silverman & Mukherjee 1987; Websdale 1999)."

In 2006-07 there were 65 intimate partner Homocides in Australia with 44 male offenders and 21 female offenders. http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/homicide/victim-offender.aspx
http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/homicide/victim-offender.aspx

Some coverage of fatal assault of children at http://www.community.nsw.gov.au/docswr/_assets/main/documents/accan/presentations/1s3e-1.pdf

It's difficult to find any national trend data on the Fatal Assault of children however in the NSW data there has been if anything a drop in the number of fatal assaults of children.

It's also clear that most fatal assaults have other factors involved, a criminal history, substance abuse, employment status all factor heavily as contributors.

Suzie "but I couldn't find the word FATHER used detrimentally in the whole article", the piece is written against a backdrop of other factors which do make this a gender issue. Those most vocally supporting the changes tend to have long histories of support for gendered outcomes of family law. The changes being made to DV legislation and proposed for the family law act to nominate male's as the likely perpetrators of DV will prejudice and claim's of DV from the start.

R0bert

RObert, I do understand that there are very nasty women out there who are intent on 'punishing' the fathers of their children, for various reasons. I know of some myself.

What I don't believe is that there is some great feminist conspiracy to punish all fathers for the crimes of the few.

Surely there are enough bright men (fathers)out there who work in family law, or social work or as specialist advisors etc such as the writer of this article, who would work towards ensuring men are treated fairly in the child custody situations?

There are mainly men in Government too who enact the laws
for the family courts and centrelink etc.

Are you sure that some of the men's groups who violently oppose some of these laws are not just doing it out of spite towards their ex-partners, just like they accuse the women of doing?

At the end of the day, it is the children's welfare that is at stake, and I am hopeful that most of the people working in the family court system can tell who is lying to them by now.

Suzie "Are you sure that some of the men's groups who violently oppose some of these laws are not just doing it out of spite towards their ex-partners, just like they accuse the women of doing?"

I could almost guarantee that there will be some men and some groups doing that. Not violent that I know of.

I don't tend to think of this as a great feminist conspiracy. Feminists do seem to lead the charge in creating a false impression of DV and I suspect that most feminists never dig deep enough to see what's happening there. I think a lot of feminists toe the line to stick up for other women.

Try out vanna's challenge to find positive comments about men (or masculinity) by identified feminists employed by Australian University's and have a think about the role their research plays on public policy.

Support from men seems to be a mixture of those with poor views of "other" men and men with relatively traditional views on gender (men who have put career's ahead of family) who are unlikely to get those of us who have not taken that path and from those who like most women have never dug deep to look at the issues.

It's not just about revenge, the financial stakes of child residency can be massive at the time of property settlement. Both gender are impacted by that but there seems little interest in finding a way to take that out of the picture, there most be better options that winner takes almost all.

It also involves choices about how children are raised.

Found a great quote today '"For the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest -- but the myth -- persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."

JFK Yale University graduating class speech (June 11, 1962)'

R0bert

Suze

I find it interesting how these people can imply things without saying them. The article never actually said that men tend to abuse kids. They did say that the Howard government's changes, which lead to more kids spending more time with their natural fathers, put kids at risk. This claim has been refuted effectively by Robert here and elsewhere. Furthermore, Anti has argued several times that spending some time with both parents is a major protective influence on kids.

As for family courts treating kids like possessions, they have always had a say in who gets the kids and still do. No-one accuses mothers who naturally want to spend time with their kids of treating them like possessions.

I see the logic of assessing the relationship that both parents have with their kids before seperation. However, many fathers hide from a crap marriage by spending much of their time at work. It is quite plausible that many would want to reassess their life and spend more time with the kids after the break-up.

"Surely there are enough bright men (fathers)out there who work in family law, or social work or as specialist advisors etc such as the writer of this article, who would work towards ensuring men are treated fairly in the child custody situations?"
What makes you think they didn't?

Research (do not love that word) shows that girls in separated families, enter puberty earlier, and begin sexual activity at an earlier age, than girls in an intact family.

So ae we really interested in better outcomes for children is it all a bit hot air.

The is a problem in that as children grow older, their needs change and as such parenting tactics change as well.

Even in an intact family there can be disputes over parenting style, so how do we deal with this when families have separated.

For those that are interested in the welfare of children, it appears that the greatest threat to children when very young is childhood diseases, then when they are older it becomes accidents in the house such as tripping, falling, burns etc, then when older it becomes traffic accidents and suicides.

Throughout, their greatest risk of poverty and neglect comes when living in single parent families.

However I have never once heard a feminist mention any of these things, and it does appear that their concentration on abuse is just another attempt at alienation of the genders, and eventual denigration of fathers and males in general.

Thanks RObert and Benk, I really do see where you are coming from, and for many warring families there is often at least one parent trying to fool the family courts for their own benefit.

Luckily, the vast majority of separating couples seem able to amicably work out the child custody arrangements for the benefit of all the family, or at least as good as it can be in such awful circumstances.

We may never all agree on this subject because we are all coloured by our own personal experiences, of course.
As a child of divorced parents where it was truly AWFUL for us kids at the time, you will understand where I am coming from?

RObert <"Try out vanna's challenge to find positive comments about men (or masculinity) by identified feminists employed by Australian University's and have a think about the role their research plays on public policy. "

Why oh why do you guys want to hear something 'positive' from university feminists about men? What does it matter what they think?
Why does EVERY discussion from Vanka about anything also include the same question? That subject is really very tedious

<Why oh why do you guys want to hear something 'positive' from university feminists about men? What does it matter what they think?>
Posted by suzeonline, Friday, 3 December 2010 1:09:15 AM

http://www.fact.on.ca/news/news0301/wt030108.htm
<Social work literature is biased against heterosexual males, leading to "unfair and untrue" stereotypes about men and hampering social workers' ability to counsel men, an Alabama professor has concluded after reviewing articles in two social work journals from the last decade.

Out of hundreds of articles, book reviews and published ads, only "a fraction — about 25" — were about men, Jordan I. Kosberg wrote in an article titled "Heterosexual Males: A Group Forgotten by the Profession of Social Work."

Of the studies Mr. Kosberg found about men, half were about homosexuals and most of the rest were about men categorized as abusers, absent fathers, AIDS victims, prisoners or homeless.>

So Feminists argue about negative stereotyping of women, and Suzie asks why is it important for feminists to say something positive about men instead of negatively stereotyping men. Somehow this just doesn't compute.

A popular propaganda technique, particularly in times of war, is to negatively stereotype the 'enemy', accuse the enemy of being rapists, murdering women and children, of not being human or the enemy wants to enslave your country.

And typically the defenders take the high moral ground and portray themselves as rescuers, saviours, righteous, just.

Sound familar.

Someone asked if I cared to "back up" my statements. No. All one has to do, is be aware of the news, at a very grassroots level.

The death or mangling of even ONE child's life, as the result, however unintended, of a mis-interpreted or poorly designed law- is unacceptable in any society which thinks itself evolved. A mother who warned of ongoing abuse, and who had to follow the law and who now sits holding the lifeless body of her child; astonishly, has no use or interest in "stats" and voluminous verbalizations.

A mother who lost custody to her and her children's abuser, and who holds the sobbing body of her raped girl- child in her arms - knowing that, as before, no-one will believe her or her child; regards the proselytizers of theories that did this- as- unhuman/criminal. Even other living creatures -at least other mammals, do not destroy their young like this.

Suzanonline,
There have only been two surveys regards parent satisfaction of custody arrangement after seperation.

One found 70% of men were not satisfied, and the other found 75% of men were not satisfied. Interestingly, one found about 40% of mothers wanted the father to have more contact with their children (while 75% of the fathers in the same survey wanted more contact with their children).

The belief that "the vast majority of separating couples seem able to amicably work out the child custody arrangements for the benefit of all the family" is based on no research, and is a feminist muyh or feminist lie.

Cold North Wind,
You didn't mention the mother who jumped off the same bridge carrying a child. Both were killed.

You probably knew about this but didn't mention it.

Sexual abuse of children by the father is very minimal, and constitutes one of the least likly forms of abuse. Child neglect is the most common form of abuse, and occurs most often in single parent families.

Vanna, of course men aren't satisfied with the lack of contact they have with their kids after a separation. In most cases neither parent is with the kids as often as they used to be. No one is satisfied after a separation, least of all the kids!

Amazingly, most parents want their children to be happy. Most kids want to see BOTH their parents as often as possible, and preferably want all the family living together in one house.

When that isn't possible, everyone has to make compromises for the sake of the children. The trouble begins when one or both parents put revenge or their own selfish needs before the children's needs.

All the statistics, parents groups and university feminists are never going to change any of those facts.

Separation; Why have self determined separation. There should be a much more analys of a separation request.
The family unit is meant to be a whole.
To take a kids mother or father away from them surely there should be more scrutinization. That is child abuse. You determine the kids religion before birth, yet you take one or more parents away from them after birth. It is a lifetime commitment. Kids are treated as disposable. That is child abuse.
Kids facing a life of bastardry. That is child abuse.
You need to work out what constitutes child abuse before you can discuss such a thing.

Coldnorthwind

It is easy to express sadness at the murder of a child, such as Darcey Freeman, who you mentioned. It is impossible to design a legal system that guarantees no such incidents will occur. For example, no-one predicted that Darcy Freeman's father was a risk to his kids and it certainly isn't true that family court ignored evidence that he should be kept away from them. See http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/06/2484688.htm for more details.

Many people are agitating for the current system to change for their own selfish reasons and pretending that they care only about the children. Be a little bit suspicious.

Suze

Thank-you for trying to understand the concerns of Robert and myself.

Coldnorthwind

<A grandmother from Virginia has been arrested and charged with the murder of her two-year-old granddaughter after she threw her down several stories at a shopping mall.>

You wrote an emotive post, yet things happened that are not always predictable.

James et al. I refer to cases that were predicted by a non abusing parent, backed up by hospital and police reports.All ignored by the use of - a theory instead of evidence. The shared parenting imposition augmented the chances of abusers of all stripes, to gain custody of hapless victims.I repeat, in my opinion, the article by Mr.Pragnall , illustrated some excellent points that obviously could bear repeatiing -

Cold North Wind,

The greatest levels of abuse are occuring in single parent familes with the mother as the single parent.

I wonder what would happen if a father thought that his children were being abused, but she had custody.

Would he have to spend years in the courts and spend all his money to get custody of the children.

That was the system prior to the reforms, and perhaps the Family Court and family law solicitors miss those good old days.

Cold North Wind

Name one case where allegations of abuse were initially ignored, only to be shown to be true.

benk it's quite possible that there will cases where allegations have been made and not taken seriously enough which should have been taken seriously.

That's always going to be a risk unless the system is doctored so heavily that it becomes unworkable due to an over reaction to every allegation.

It's my view that shared care reduces the overall risk in two fronts.
- It keeps a second adult closely involved in the children's lives
- It provides a break for parents and I think that the lack of respite is a significant factor in the over representation of single parent households in substantiated abuse claims.

Most of the fear mongering is based on the mostly unspoken assumption that fathers are abusers and mothers are not.

Given Cold North Wind's blatant willingness to make up false claims about the overall impacts of the changes it's somewhat hard to see any further value in trying to reason with her or him.

R0ber

Robert,
Your mentioning of respite breaks is interesting.

In many government systems, it is recommended that a carer has a respite break every second weekend, and I think payment to a full time carer is paid this way.

Now a father can easily get contact with his children every 2nd weekend, and this system hasn't happened by chance (eg it isn't every 3 weeks or once a month)

The father is not viewed as a parent who is important in the upbringing of the child, the father is viewed as a convienent person to provide a respite break for the mother every second weekend.

As well as that, the father provides money to the mother, but has no say in how that money is spent.

This is viwed as acceptable by those who actually have very little interest in children, and if they did, they would be much more interested in such things as childhood diseases, accidents in the home, traffic acidents etc that have much more risk to the child than their father.

Have you ever wondered why they accept the father as having contact with his children every second weekend, but not more than every second weekend?

where concern that shared care might not be in the child's best interests, if what Pragnell says is being reported anecdotally (often, occassionally?) about ICLs,who have not seen and not represented the child is true, well, that's one area that might need reviewing. why have one if they dont do their job?

Isn't PAS dead? I heard its author, Gardner saying 'If a child says his father has sexually abused him, the mother's job is to say 'Dont you ever say that about your father again. She should punish the child. If the mother believes the child, she should be removed from the child, and jailed if necessary'. He made this a gender issue, not a safety issue.

Next, the syndrome of parental alienation, where the mother was deluded, believing the child was sexually abused by the father: judged mentally ill,unlikely to promote a relationship with the father so must be punished by being excluded from the child's life.
One-sided, gendered and unsafe.

Next, the false allegations wave. Mother coached the children to believe they had been abused to keep dad away. The women called 'false denials' but that fell on deaf ears as Perjury has disappeared. The court simply does not believe natural fathers abuse their own, and if they do, well that's a family thing and not as great a problem as bad as having no relationship with father.

I'm asking why these issues are all about the 'bad motive' of women, and not the actual behaviour of people, especially where that behaviour, if ever tested in court, would surely be 'criminal'

I dont understand why men blythly say 'watch out for step fathers and boyfriends, but we're OK? This is so gendered. I don't understand why the jails are so filled with violent offenders (mainly men) that we now routinely give minimum sentences for murder.

I reckon marriages would work better if people didn't make it intolerable to stay.

jackson:"I'm asking why these issues are all about the 'bad motive' of women, and not the actual behaviour of people, especially where that behaviour, if ever tested in court, would surely be 'criminal'"

Because the vast majority of men do not do any of those things, yet a very much larger number of women make the claim that they do, especially in the context of a family court matter.

The problem is that the law is very easily misused. The misuse is heavily gendered - very few fathers make allegations about mothers. It is my contention that this is because at every step of the process the woman is exposed to propaganda about "violence" and "abuse" and is encouraged to make things up. when combined with the natural anger and vindictiveness that people feel during this time, it is a recipe for disaster.

Can you tell me why you think a woman going through a divorce should be given carte blanche to make things up about her ex in an effort to seek advantage though the Court?

Your own post makes it clear that you are of the view that if a man is accused he must be guilty. If a man says "she turned the kids against me", you assume that means he's a paedophile. If he says "she started it by throwing something at me", you assume that means she must have been defending herself.

The move to remove the burden of proof in DV is going to lead to yet more children being deprive of loving fathers by mothers with an axe to grind. It will lead to more suicides. It will lead to more filicide.

But all that's OK as long as Mum has a stick to use in court, eh?

Antiseptic,
I would agree fully with what you have said.

Also noted that there were few complaints about fathers when they were seeing the children every second weekend.

It was only when fathers wanted to see their children more than 2 days out of 14 that the shouts of "abuse" began to be heard.

When the fathers wanted more contact than 2 days out of 14, then the feminist propaganda machine was rolled out and the denigration and vilification of fathers began.

Two reasons for this.
1/ If the father had custody of the children for more than 2 days out of 14, it could affect her child support payments.

2/ It has long been a part of Marxist/feminist belef that fathers are superflous and are only good for paying money to the mother, or acting as an unpaid babysitter when the mother wants a break.

You know 40 % of kids don't have the correct father. Another reason to throw the system out and start again.
A commissioned look into childrens safety, abuse, needs to happen with recommendations to be supplied.

Do you guys really believe there are no false claims of 'coaching' children in custody proceedings? That it is possible an abuser may lie about his/her partner's coaching of their children.

You are talking in broad generalisations about a minority of false claims made by mothers of abuse as though this is the norm and represents the majority.

I know you don't really believe that every claim of abuse is false and that there are no men abusing kids or their wives out there in the real world. How would you deal with these tragic situations. Ridiculing the claims of abuse or diminishing them as false only makes the situation worse for children.

False claims are abhorrent if it means more kids will be left with an abusive parent, but lets not get carried away with the false perception that all women lie about these really important issues.

If your view of women is that tainted I think we have reached an impasse as far as discussion about any rational win-win situations in regards to custody arrangements.

For some of you, your attitudes towards women are no different than those rabid man-hating feminists you complain about - but I don't think you will ever see it and thus the cycle of victimisation and hatred continues.

579 if you are referring to the outcomes of paternity testing which I thought was about 25% remember that is based on figures for those who were suspicious enough about the paternity of children to have the test's done. I've not seen any evidence that real figure is anywhere near that.

Suzie "Why oh why do you guys want to hear something 'positive' from university feminists about men? What does it matter what they think?"
I suspect that a lot of feminists don't realise how overwhelmingly negative about men professional feminists are. My attempt to give vanna an answer surprised me because I had expected some balance but what I found was a lot of writing about men and masculinity and almost all of it negative except in the case of men deemed to be acting in a more feminine manner. The closest I could get was a piece on the Shed movement. It matters because those are the people doing the research used by policy makers to set policy around a lot of important issues.

My suggestion was prompted by your comment "What I don't believe is that there is some great feminist conspiracy to punish all fathers for the crimes of the few." As I said I don't see it that way but there is a lot of self regulating group think which dominates "gender studies". Look for accounts of the treatment of those within the field who have tried to questions some of the assumptions.

R0bert

Well said Pelican, and I agree wholeheartedly with you.
I have often said we are flogging a dead horse with the attitudes of some of the guys on this forum.

While you or I may sometimes see where they are coming from, and feel some empathy with how they must feel, having been hurt by some women in their lives, the empathy is rarely reciprocated.

RObert, you may well not find 'praise' of men or fathers in published university papers by female university researchers or lecturers, but I doubt they are all feminists, or that they all publish publicly available papers.

I am sure there are also male university lecturers who don't feel the need to publicly 'praise' women or mothers too! Does that make them all terrible misogynists? Of course not.

What of the male university lecturers who write papers denigrating men and/or aspects of domestic violence or fatherhood in general today? Are you guys going to start spitting at them too? No?

The vast majority of women in our society are not senior female university lecturers or researchers, and yet some male posters on this site seem to want to lump us all into the one rabid-feminist-box!

At the end of the day, we still have far more male politicians and law-makers in Australia than female. Surely these guys would have not agreed to these 'feminist university women' calling the shots on decisions involving family courts etc?

Or are they all secret feminists too?

Whoa up there Jacksun! you made a suggestion but that sort of thing goes straight to the keeper on this site. Yep, get the ICL's to do their job. While you're at it, get the FRW's,court counsellors, lawyers,barristers, magistrates, judicial registras and judges to do their jobs according to the law which says' DV? no go. The changes will better define it, and about time I say, so the neanderthal-thinkers on this list can see that despite being challenged in their entrenched views (she made me do it), (and that only women mess things up, lie, cheat, leave, falsely accuse etc), eventually we might at least stop arguing about what's abusive and what isn't.

You'd notice when you spoke about the absurdity of PAS, you were immediately accused of calling blokes paedophiles. you didn't, you actually spoke of a child reporting and a mother's natural inclination to go 'OOWAH, that's not right, that's awful, I must protect my child. Who shall I tell? Police? Docs? my doctor? or hey, I should just ignore and we can both keep daddy happy. And you are right about Gardner. On this list though, mum's lying and trying to cause a break up, stop daddy from access. Go figure.

From where I sit, it's a good enough dad ,all it takes is he says he loves his kids but does zip all of nothing to demonstrate same, will get access, even with dangerous behaviours. Decent Women are not winning, despite the alleged feminist plot. And of course I mean white women in this country, not ones from backgrounds that put women in their rightful place. We are talking about less than 5% of cases, but here on OLO, the minority rules. Must denigrate only women here.

Pelican:"Do you guys really believe there are no false claims of 'coaching' children in custody proceedings? "

No, who has suggested that? Do you really believe that a freshly-separated woman would not lie about her ex out of anger? Shakespeare got it right: "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned". I doubt the human female has changed significantly since shakespeare's time, despite all the "social construction" of the past 40 years.

Pelican:"You are talking in broad generalisations about a minority of false claims made by mothers of abuse as though this is the norm and represents the majority. "

It represents a significant minority which is far larger than the number of fathers who abuse their children. One of the basic principles of law is that it is abhorrent to punish the innocent. Jury trials were invented and whole libraries of legal thought have been devoted to the subject. The proposed changes make the punishment of innocents a certain consequence.

The reason this is so is because the laws basically create two classes of persons - the child and the adult. Furthermore, they conflate the rights of the child with the rights of the mother, by a highly unbalanced and discriminatory preamble. A mother can make a false allegation and because the rights of the child have primacy by definition, then the precautionary principle demands that the law should override the rights of the father to be properly heard in his own defence.

This is a bad proposed law, make no mistake.

Suzeonline:"What of the male university lecturers who write papers denigrating men and/or aspects of domestic violence or fatherhood in general today?"

On the whole, the only ones who do that are the likes of the discredited Michaee Flood, who has tried to build a career in the Feminist sheltered workshop that passes for Sociology today. Sadly, despite the evidence, it appears his genitalia is of the wrong shape.

Here's an idea, why don't you see if you can duplicate R0bert's research? Nah, that'd require thinking, much better to just go and read one of Flood's fairt stories...

Glad to see that some here read Dr. Flood's fairt stories. Whatever a fairt is.Many commenting seem only to read - "how to avoid commenting on an article and push your own agenda" type tracts.

Cold North wind:"Whatever a fairt is"

Oh, clever you, you picked a spelling error. That should be enough for a new paper, eh? Make sure you credit MS spell-checker.

On reflection, no it's too close to a real fact, you'd have been better ignring it altogether, in true Canadian gender research style. You'll be kicked out of the grrrls club if you're not careful.

"Once upon a time, a fairy princess lived in a great high tower, with lots of other fairy princesses and no men at all...."

I read the article as suggesting children are listened to and that to date the courts have ignored or failed to ask what the children’s feelings were in regard to custody.

This also seems a common theme here through other departments and institutions that deal with child protection.

The parental rights are the focus with maybe the intention that this has some trickledown effect to any children in question.

Children forced to spend time with a parent who has abused them, even with supervision, return confused, anxious and displaying behaviors that seem to indicate that being in the abusers presence is similar to extending a situation for them where they are powerless and afraid.

Other children have forgotten, forgiven or grown older/bigger and are willing and wanting to reconnect.

Pelican

I don't know about other blokes, but my main concern is that family court proceedings have an adverserial nature, that pits the two parties against each other. Add to that the high stakes involved (people's kids and financial security) and the feelings that accompany a seperation and you create an atmosphere where people have a strong incentive to tell various types of lies. I believe that most people are selective about what they say, rather than outright liars. Most parents have a few anecdotes that make their ex look bad, even when their ex is normally a decent parent.

Rather than attempting to pull apart the web of half-truths, lies and genuine concerns, it might be more productive to change the environment, so people haver less incentive to lie. Child support is excessive and getting the kids shouldn't mean getting the house.

Jewely

Taken at face value the original article was about changing the system to value the protection of kids more. In reality, it is a part of a campain to unravel a system that has done nothing to endanger kids (see Robert's posts for more detail). The campain is about promoting the interests of mothers, not kids.

Jewely:"a situation for them where they are powerless and afraid. "

Kids spend a great deal of time in situations that make them feel powerless and afraid, from school to the doctor's surgery and many places between. That is not sufficient reason to allow them to avoid those places. In the absence of evidentiary substantiation, the default position must be equally-shared care. Children deserve it, fathers deserve it, even mothers deserve it if only they could get past the monetary gain to be had if they can convince a court their ex is violent.

Benk:”The campaign is about promoting the interests of mothers, not kids.”

I didn’t see that. Or I’m not sure how it would pan out that way unless the child did have their say and stated they did not want to see their father or were scared of their father but I didn’t pick up on any reference about gender. I saw it as promoting the interests of the kids. I am going to head back and read it though and find R0berts post..

Anti:”Kids spend a great deal of time in situations that make them feel powerless and afraid, from school to the doctor's surgery and many places between. That is not sufficient reason to allow them to avoid those places. In the absence of evidentiary substantiation, the default position must be equally-shared care. Children deserve it, fathers deserve it, even mothers deserve it if only they could get past the monetary gain to be had if they can convince a court their ex is violent.

I should have been clearer. Children being forced to see parents that HAVE abused them is further abuse on a child who does not want to see their abuser.

Children being afraid is not where we should set the bar is it? Adult victims often do not want to be forced into the company of their attacker, why would we do it to a child?

In any system that makes the welfare of the child a priority isn’t the first consideration the child and the wishes of the child? I think in general children’s opinions are rather undervalued. Child being generally from 0 – 18 years old.

Anti:”Children deserve it, fathers deserve it, even mothers deserve it if only they could get past the monetary gain to be had if they can convince a court their ex is violent.”

Hahaha. Nice one throwing that in their Anti.

Jewely, like everything there has to be balance. It's only in the last few months my son has reached the point that he has decided that he would rather live with me than with his mother. His preference's were not in his own best interests, they were a result of a preference not to have boundaries enforced and some differences in personalities and the way homes are run.

I can see benefit in improving the way allegations of abuse (and DV are handled) but I'm not seeing anything from those pushing these changes to suggest that they want to do so in a fair manner. There have been pre-ambles in some state legislation relating to DV nominating men as the most likely perpetrators and a push to put that into the family law act. There has been no willingness to discuss safeguards against false claims or removal of incentives to make false claims.

It's been promoted in terms of dismantling the shared care changes brought in based on the idea that children are being placed at risk. Possibly true but no more than under maternal bias or a system where a non-male parent making an allegation of abuse or DV might be able to use those claims to establish patterns of post separation residency.

It's difficult to find current national official stats on fatal assault of children or intimate partners. The stuff I have seen suggests rates are slightly lower than they were before the changes were bought in and there was no evidence of a jump in either. The rates of substantiated child abuse have dropped 4% over a similar period and the proportion of substantiated abuse in single parent male lead households has not climbed despite more kids living in those households.

I put some of the material at
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=11307#191415

and an earlier series of posts starting at
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=11234#189898

R0bert

Hey R0bert I am unsure if I was directed to this post of yours or not.

R0bert:”They will point out that PAS is technically not a syndrome while pretend that parents are unable to impact on the attitudes of children.”

PAS isn’t really anything is it? Sounds catchy but as a “syndrome” doesn’t it imply it is on some mass scale?

R0bert:”They don't seem to want to talk about the impacts on children on increasing the opportunity for adversaial behaviour in family law.”

Weird thing about most children is… if they love a parent they start to resent anyone speaking negatively about them.

Families breaking up is such a huge horror for so many children, usually both parents are not who they usually are. You suggested awhile ago a bit more distance in time for emotions to settle or any accusations to be swiftly investigated, which made sense.

R0bert:”They don't seem to want to talk about any safeguards to prevent abuse via false claims.”

False claims in court are perjury? Or there is a process to deal with them already? I have no idea… blah, will go try find out.

Dane:”Great quote. I love how financial support doesn't count. So men who are responsible and work hard to support their families are penalised because of their lack of 'emotional' connection with their children.
I guess men who are on the dole but at are at least at home should retain custody because of their continued 'emotional' connection?

Funny one Dane but children through a lot of history in our society children were just rapt when dad came through the door. They bragged about their dads and would absolutely make it clear how much of an emotional connection existed. It isn’t always quantity that creates connections and many children found it shameful if both parents were home - out of work.


R0bert just spotted your new post...

I remember my parents saying (never eventuated) that they were going to divorce and who did I want to live with. Not being afraid of either of them my only thoughts were along the lines of dad would be more fun but I didn’t think he knew how to use the washing machine or cook a meal so my vote went the way of my mother.

But if a child is genuinely afraid I don’t think their clothes or food would be foremost in their thoughts.

False claims are probably 50% of community service hotline calls. Reading about the Swedish thing and Assange on the Crikey site this bit was interesting:

“But then neither Arden nor Wilén complained to the police but rather “sought advice”, a technique in Sweden enabling citizens to avoid just punishment for making false complaints.”

So the Swedish have some kind of filtering process. Not sure if it worked in that particular case though.

What exactly is a “male lead” household? Would a solo mother’s house be a “female lead”? But it is sounding hopeful for the children although 4% sounds like a very small number. Stats I usually read as small lies accompanied by bigger lies.

Mostly what I gather from them is that step mothers are the safest parents.
Poor people kill more often than rich.
0-4 year olds are easier to kill.
So we can conclude that all children at birth should be removed from parents and handed to a non-relative wealthy female until 4 years old.

Jewely "False claims in court are perjury? Or there is a process to deal with them already? I have no idea… blah, will go try find out."

From what I've read they are rarely if ever treated that way even when proven to be deliberately false in family law.

It also get's a lot more difficult when you think about how hard it can be to tell the difference between lack of evidence and a deliberate false claim. Just as I don't want to see accused parents having their lives ripped to pieces on the basis of false claims I'd not like to see concerned parents unable to make claims if the proof was not overwhelming.

Where it's clear that the claim is deliberately false then there should be consequences, where a claim is unproven we need to avoid rewarding the accuser and punishing the accused (or visa versa).

There is no one size fit's all answer but there are things we could do to reduce the motivation and risks around false accusations. A number of them have been raised during these discussions.

R0bert

Jewely "Would a solo mother’s house be a “female lead”? But it is sounding hopeful for the children although 4% sounds like a very small number"

Yes to the first. The household type is not necessarily saying who was the abuser but it's about as close as I can find in that type of stat.

4% is not gigantic but it's a lot better than an increased rate which is what those wanting to undo shared care are implying or in some cases claiming.

I've not found any better breakdowns of the data, the drop is not necessarily related to shared care (maybe the NT intervention is working better than expected) but it is significant that the proportion of substantiated abuse in male lead households has not risen overall (down in some states, up elsewhere) despite more kid's living in those households.

I'd like to see more analysis of the before and after data before any changes are made.

I suspect whatever we do the system will never be perfect, that wealthy relative might just be a nutter. I do think that there needs to be really good cause to dismantle any changes which have coincided with a drop in substantiated abuse.

R0bert

Jewely

No, the author didn't directly say that fathers were a threat to kids. Instead, they said that changes that meant more kids spending more time with their dads had put kids at risk. Isn't it interesting how some people can imply something in a way that allows then to deny having said it?

There is no debate about keeping kids away from people who have been revolting parents. The debate is about claims that aren't backed up with evidence or seem to be overstating the seriousness of an incident. These claims occur in a context where people have strong incentives to lie.

Regarding penalties for lying, the court uses the best interests of the children as the most important test. Once mum has made the allegations she will normally get the kids. If the allegations prove to be untrue, she cannot be punished, because it will disadvantage the kids. Best interests of the kids means the best interests of the parent with most custody.

In relation to the wants of the kids, surely you have met some kids who miss parents who have done a crap job of parenting. Giving autonomy to kids is nice to a point, but sometimes adults need to be the adult.

Benk,

There has only been a 4% increase in shared parenting, and it is questionable as to why the opposition and fuss.

I think the answer lies in the fact that there were few or no complaints when fathers were only seeing their children every second weekend.

That system was completely acceptable to feminists and their hangers-on, because fathers could not be parents to their children when they were only seeing their children every second weekend.

I just found an interesting piece on Shared Care

http://www.ag.gov.au/www/agd/rwpattach.nsf/VAP/%289A5D88DBA63D32A661E6369859739356%29~Shared+Care+Parenting+Arrangements+since+the+2006+Family+Law+Reforms-+Final+version+16.6.2010.PDF/$file/Shared+Care+Parenting+Arrangements+since+the+2006+Family+Law+Reforms-+Final+version+16.6.2010.PDF

The Conclusion section
"Overall, this research paints a positive picture of shared care in terms both of parental satisfaction and children‘s wellbeing. However, it remains only a relatively small minority of parents who can share the care of the children and fewer still manage to sustain it for a substantial period of time. Much of the success of shared care derives from factors other than the care arrangement itself, and in particular, higher levels of cooperation and joint decision-making and a lower incidence of reported violence or safety concerns. There are nonetheless, some parents who share care who do not have a cooperative relationship, and some children whose experience of shared care is not positive. There is no reason to suggest that shared care is intrinsically better or worse than the more common pattern of primary maternal care, except for the fact that it is one form of care with which both parents are satisfied, and this may be a factor in reducing conflict over post-separation parenting arrangements."

I've not read it all yet and it's clear that there are difficulties with court ordered shared care because of the levels of conflict involved.

My own view is that the legislative context does set expectations for those who make decisions without the courts. I the courts rarely agree to shared care then it's much harder to get a partner who is not keen on it to agree to it.

R0bert

Jacksun dear, don't waste ur time here, it's a bunch of sad, sad ppl who thinks that sitting behind a computer instead of spending time with children, that's who you are getting ur advice from. they dun care, can't even spell ur user name correctly.

dey think they are making a change.

our chidren already hv it good, a lot better then a decade ago, and they are more aware and smarter then us, so if you try anything funny with them it will end up haunting u for the rest of your lives. they are going to be our future leaders, with a lot better ideas on how to change this. we will not be around, when they carry on our legacy. whatever happens to a child, it was meant to be. if you care enough, adopt one suffering child, and make a difference. show him/her love and care, and that, is spending time wisely.

Jewely:"PAS isn’t really anything is it? Sounds catchy but as a “syndrome” doesn’t it imply it is on some mass scale?"

A "syndrome" implies a pattern of symtomatic indicators. PAS is a "syndrome" because those perpetrating it show a common pattern of behaviours. It does not imply "some mass scale".

Jewely:"Weird thing about most children is… if they love a parent they start to resent anyone speaking negatively about them"

Oh dear, nice way to poison the well Jewely. The fact is that PAS is a problem when maternal gatekeeping prevents the father from seeing his children. If a child is excited and expectant about seeing their loving father only to be told time after time "dad rang, he couldn't be bothered coming to see you", while not knowing that dad had been told by mum that if he came she'd call the police and say he'd been violent? How long do you reckon it would take before the kid started "hating" dad"?

PAS works by stopping the child seeing their father, blaming the father for being neglectful, vilifying the father to the child and denigrating the father's love for the child. That sort of conditioning works very well on adults. What makes you think a child is so much better at fighting it?

Robert,
If the verdict is that we go back to the 80:20 formula, then there would ve a very good case for men to not have any children.

We live in a society with a culture of divorce and separation, and a culture of male and father vilification.

It is very much a feminist culture, and if a man wants to be paying for children he rarely sees and has no say in their upbringing, he has children.

After googling around it seems lying in Family Court is common R0bert and nothing much done about it. I’m just seeing even more reasons for courts to start talking to kids.

Benk:” No, the author didn't directly say that fathers were a threat to kids. Instead, they said that changes that meant more kids spending more time with their dads had put kids at risk. Isn't it interesting how some people can imply something in a way that allows then to deny having said it?”

I do it all the time. I can’t find any line that says that though or that hints at it. I swear I nearly know the article off by heart now.

Benk:”In relation to the wants of the kids, surely you have met some kids who miss parents who have done a crap job of parenting.

I’m a bit jaded though you have to go a long way to convince me it was a crap job. The children even desperately miss some very abusive parents – by my definition. That’s why I have a hard time with the PAS thing. Children really do love and miss their parents and are often even more jaded than I am. Other children are clearly afraid yet the parent’s rights seem to have over ruled the child’s emotional health being a priority.

Benk:”Giving autonomy to kids is nice to a point, but sometimes adults need to be the adult.”

I think stats showed we’ve failed.

R0bert:”I suspect whatever we do the system will never be perfect, that wealthy relative might just be a nutter. I do think that there needs to be really good cause to dismantle any changes which have coincided with a drop in substantiated abuse.”

Oh I forgot that bit – Benk I take back the stat comment or am at least going to twist it a bit - R0bert more kids happened to have come into foster care during that 4% drop – 16k now in care in NSW. Maybe both parents started losing so that type of abuse notification dropped.

Anti:”PAS works by stopping the child seeing their father, blaming the father for being neglectful, vilifying the father to the child and denigrating the father's love for the child. That sort of conditioning works very well on adults. What makes you think a child is so much better at fighting it?”

PAS don’t work at all. Even with parents that did abuse them. We know this stuff Anti – children protecting a pedophile not because of the bad bits but because of the good. So for a parent who hasn’t done any bad stuff the brainwashing would have to be incredible to convince a child to not love their parent and enjoy every moment with them.

Children will also forgive an abusive parent and want to reconnect and that should be allowed to happen too. Some don’t or aren’t ready or may never be… no one knows because custody is forced on children without their input or consideration of how they feel.

Mum might say “dad can’t be bothered seeing you”. That doesn’t translate in a child’s mind. They feel sorry for themselves and question themselves, they do not hate their dad. Children in reality start blaming themselves if someone doesn’t want to see them, not the grown up. Mum and dad are splitting up and they immediately decide it was their entire fault in some way.

Don’t accuse me of trying to poison things, that is unfair. I haven’t picked an adult male or female side here and I am not trying to say a child should spend more time with one than the other. I am trying to point out that maybe PAS in reality is horribly flawed.

We should question it because it is affecting children and portraying them in what I believe is a false way about how they process information handed to them by adults. I might be explaining it wrong… I want us to look at it because if we have it wrong it will affect how we correct it with the children.

vanna says; We live in a culture of divorce and separation. There is the problem. Instead of fixing all these issues about children. All you have to do is fix the perceived culture.
Marriage comes to easy, shacking up should be illegal.
How can married couples separate if there was a true relationship to start with.
People that shack up are just plain insecure.
Marriage runs very close to financial responsibility. If you have both you don't have divorce.
The culture today is borrow as muck money as you can and don't worry about interest rates or paying back the money, this problem will look after itself. Build a mansion on a very large block.
When the bank takes its money the first payments are to pay interest only.
When things get to much and you decide to sell, then you find out you have got no equity in the house at all. you have been paying rent for the past 8 years
So the bank takes the house and your on the skids , the only thing left to do is get a divorce.

Jewlery,
The ultimate PAS system was the system whereby the father paid money to the mother, and saw the children every second weekend.

That system trained the children to think that their father was not a parent.

It was a system that was enforced on many men who were never charged with any offence, and in many ways it was the ultimate feminist system.

I’m a bit lost now Vanna.

My understanding was it is the men using PAS in court to claim any allegation against them is false, not the women. The women are saying they are told to not make any allegations because PAS will turn around and bite them and the man will get more access.

Or you are saying it is the women trying to alienate children so women are guilty of PA so they can profit through child support?

I think it all needs to go away and if a few judges would stop and talk to the children they’d probably understand that children do not process negative comments in the way PAS implies they do.

A parent that HAS been abusive is still often forgiven by a child and those chances to reconnect should be attempted within obvious safety boundaries. Some children don’t and I wouldn’t want to see them pushed to aka Parental Inclusion…?

But I think the article was saying we should start asking our little stars of the custody battle what they want.

Jewely it's my understanding that women are more likely to do the false or exaggerated claims of abuse than men, public perceptions about child abuse, DV etc make it somewhat of a lost cause for men.

I suspect that men are more likely to do the big ticket spends, the great fun time parent thing if they want to try and differentiate themselves from mum.

You have a lot more confidence in the ability of young children to deal with difficult decisions than I do.

Criticism does not have to be direct, it can be a matter of taking advantage of any incidents where the child is already upset with the other parent, it can be a series of staged opportunities for the child to "overhear" conversations not aimed at them, it can be theatrics when the child is around to see how badly mummy has been hurt by daddy. I've been on the end of a few calls when I knew my son was present at the other end where the hysterics did not make any sense. One tactic I've been on the receiving end many times was the pushy emotive phone call just before I was due to pick my son up from after school care so that I'd arrive fresh from an upsetting experience. There are a lot of ways of manipulating situations and people to sway impressions.

R0bert

Yep I find women are natural exaggerators. Variety of reasons really including naturally inclined to panic. Not always a bad thing.

And yes men do usually pull out a few more stops if mum has the child 12 out of 14 days. But again variety of reasons for it including naturally inclined to be competitive. Not always a bad thing.

I don’t think it is confidence in children; in fact they damage themselves more with how they direct the negative inwards rather than direct it at a parent. That would be Personal Alienation Syndrome? I would not ask them for a decision more gage where their feelings are about both parents

Cause reality is R0bert if a kid has been brainwashed and is afraid of a parent then we shouldn’t force access until that fear is first addressed, even if false it is an abusive situation to put the child in given their beliefs at the time.

R0bert you gotta stop answering those calls dude. Did your kid fall for it? He probably knew you were okay and that mum got a bit weird sometimes and kept wondering what he was doing wrong. Getting older he probably decided he was okay and you were both weird - as teens are inclined to do.

What we are seeing from each side is Men are abusers and Women are Liars. It isn’t doing the children much good. And given the shouts are just getting louder maybe it is time for a different approach

Jewelery,

There was one little study (about 100 people) conducted many years ago by a Prof Parkinson, who was in charge of the Family Law Council (a bogus feminist organisation made up mainly by academics) that asked the children what they wanted, and the majority wanted to spend more time with their father, and the majority of fathers also wanted to spend more time with their children.

However, I discount the allogations of abuse as being a normal part of the DV or abuse card that is waved around.

Many feminists don't have children or want children killed in abortion clinics, or have no interest in what are the real dangers to children, which are being in the womb of an unmarried mother (likely to be killed in an abortion clinic), childhood diseases, accidents in the home, traffic accidents and suicide. Fathers are a very minor risk to children, and satistics verify this.

I think the real issue has more to do with having fathers removed as a parent so as to leave the mother as the only parent.

That is what is wanted.

Well done Robert. Jewely had almost changed my mind until your last post.

Jewely the stuff with the calls was years ago when my ex was trying to get a change in residency. It's all pretty good now, she married a great bloke and seems to be mostly in a good place. He possibly does a better job at diverting the excesses than I managed.

If discussions with kids were done deeply enough to get to some why's as well as the up front feelings and done impartially it would help a lot. My own experiences with the system suggest neither would be likely. I'd like a way for kid's wants to matter more without it opening things up to become a popularity contest between parents.

As previously stated a lot of the tensions between adults could be reduced by removing the winner takes all aspect of child residency. Property settlements are heavily based around residency and it's also clear that over time the residency arrangements can and should be able to change. The stakes are too big for both parents the way it's done at the moment.

vanna I've not seen any evidence that many feminists want abortion, what they want is the freedom for women to get one if they think they need it. I don't want my teeth full of fillings but if I have a hole in a tooth I do want the freedom to get a filling. I know teeth and fetuses are not the same thing but I think the example works in context.

benk it's a messy business and nothing I saw in family law suggested that those involved act professionally enough or impartially enough to give me any confidence that they would dig through the tricks parents use to get to a genuine best interests decision.

R0bert

"What we are seeing from each side is Men are abusers and Women are Liars. It isn’t doing the children much good. And given the shouts are just getting louder maybe it is time for a different approach."

Jewely
That is probably the most accurate assessment of these sorts of debates hence the impasse I referred to earlier. There is no point in simply hashing out worn-out anti-gender garbage. There are valid points on both sides in regard to the child abuse issues and the question we should be addressing is how to avoid wherever possible children being exposed to abuse whether it is via the mother or the father.

Somewhere along the way that purpose gets lost in these debates.

So much talk and blaming about a theory. Meanwhile real children suffer and are killed- because of a dis-credited theory.Some culture we live in.

Blame shifting is what it is about. Discuss anything but the root cause.
It goes to show you that this sort of discussion will NEVER find a solution. Only curtain things are talked about, and other things are not mentioned. Very selective.

579:”Blame shifting is what it is about. Discuss anything but the root cause.
It goes to show you that this sort of discussion will NEVER find a solution. Only curtain things are talked about, and other things are not mentioned. Very selective.”

Was that an example 579? Do you ever say anything? Mostly I see you dash in and out of threads inserting a couple of throwaway lines and generally not adding anything to any discussion.

CNW:”So much talk and blaming about a theory. Meanwhile real children suffer and are killed- because of a dis-credited theory. Some culture we live in.”

True, they are out there and they are suffering horribly but to be fair these suffering children are not in the homes of those commenting here (or I hope not) so the focus of conversation is likely to drift. I am extremely concerned about children here and know that in other threads I am inclined to slant the conversation towards children because of it.

But this thread, I am sure it is actually about children.

I do really appreciate R0berts comments and he has the ability to get me thinking and considering different opinions and certainly the male perspective. Custody issues between parents aren’t something I think about a lot and the more I read about family court the clearer it becomes that both parents are suffering within the current process along with their children.

Sorry I lost you there Benk. :P

I agree Pelican, “…we should be addressing is how to avoid wherever possible children being exposed to abuse whether it is via the mother or the father.”

No idea how you get the female and male groups to somehow truce so we can get on with it

All you are doing is talking around in circles.
The title says; Towards better outcomes for children.
You have not addressed the problem.
before you can address the problem, you must admit there is one.
And once you admit there is a problem, you will know how to fix it.

579:”All you are doing is talking around in circles.
The title says; Towards better outcomes for children.”

That is what we have been talking about the last couple of pages, PA and its uses and if it is real because it does affect outcomes in court regarding children.

And your opinion on PAS? Do you believe children commonly translate negative input of a parent into a belief that the parent is bad, the one saying it is bad or they themselves are at fault? Because that will directly impact on how the court should be viewing this syndrome and whether or not they need to address it at the childs level.

The article is suggesting the children are part of the decision making process in court. If they can be alienated it could well be pointless.

579:”You have not addressed the problem.
before you can address the problem, you must admit there is one.
And once you admit there is a problem, you will know how to fix it.”

So the problem has been admitted and addressed on several levels but I hardly grasp your link between once there is an admission that the problem exists that a solution appears.

This isn’t first day of drug rehab.

Jewely thanks for your earlier comment. It's appreciated.

Ignoring the PA discussion for the time being one of the things that sticks out in a lot of the material on child abuse, fatal assault of children etc is that the demographic factors are large.

Something that often seemed to be skipped in the rush to make these issues more universal. Child abuse, fatal assault of children, child sexual abuse, fatal assault of a partner etc do happen in homes across all demographics but the risk factors are much higher in some demographics.

- a criminal history
- substance abuse
- poverty
- aboriginality (I think because of the previous items)
- stress (not a demographic but people under stress are far more likely to take extreme actions than those in a better place).

I don't know that there are any easy answers to working with that but trying to understand the risk factors has got to help.

R0bert

Jewely,

google "Maternal gatekeeping"

Me thinks problems get exacerbated. On one hand the definition of DV gets expanded, and now includes all sorts of behaviours and there is a strong denial of the complicity of female behaviour in this issue.

After the definition gets expanded, the fall back position resorted too is physical violence. I know for a fact that alcohol and other drugs can and do play a large part in this.

Add the additional stress of a relationship breakup which is bad enough to deal with, when there aren't any children, and once children are involved, the family court and a vexatious ex and there is a recipe for big trouble.

I went and looked up the gatekeeper thing in wiki to get a quick rundown. Never heard of it before but it is what I would call a control freak.

With my ex I felt I exhibited a lot of the things described - and realized years later with new partner that I wasn’t that person at all... in fact almost dangerously the complete opposite.

A judge suggested to me once that after living with someone a long time that perhaps we have to take responsibility for parts of who they are. Blind leading the blind far as I could see, we had started living together at 15 and 16 and split in our not quite mid 20’s.

Is this Gatekeeping thing usually considered maternal – Wiki says “typically the mother”.

If one is a gatekeeper that does seem to mean the other adult was just fine with it and that makes them a victim or just rather passive and submissive? Did the feminists make it up to make traditional mums look bad or the men make it up to make it look like the men are bullied?

I don’t like it and I’d like to know which label making group created it.

The abuse definitions expanding are huge, Australia should be worried but these things just seem to slide by without much fuss. I don’t believe they are about custody battles between parents though, I think they are about a rapidly expanding foster care market.

Yep you’re very right James, throw a whole lot of labels at people, add fear of losing children and all the emotions accompanying a break up and things are going to get messy.

R0bert:” I don't know that there are any easy answers to working with that but trying to understand the risk factors has got to help.”

I think my first suggestion now is remove labels from court vocabulary. And stats, they are an indicator of what might be happening out there but when one woman and one man are standing in court those same stats and labels seem to damage everyone

Jewely "when one woman and one man are standing in court those same stats and labels seem to damage everyone"

I wish we could get rid of them when it comes to dealing with individuals but the reality is we all judge according to what we already think we know. Some make a great effort to try and get past that but many don't.

You had a look at some of the material I put up on child abuse and saw how rarely stepmum's are the guilty party (based on one of your earlier comments).

Have you noticed that none of those supporting these changes have in any way corrected or challenged Chiara's claims at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=11331#191920 regarding the involvement of step mum's in child abuse?

The foundation stone of what they are pushing for is the lie that child abuse is mostly something men do, they are rarely as blunt about it as Chiara but it's always there as a subtext. Adding in the DV thing up's the anti on this because they the gender warriors already control public perceptions on that issue.

The piece James referenced earlier in the thread on the failings of a gendered approach to family violence is a good intro to the way that particular game is played.

Given the role claims of DV are been used to support these changes the piece James referenced is relevant to this discussion as well http://domestic-violence.martinsewell.com/DuttonCorvo2006.pdf

R0bert

I’m going to read the pdf on domestic violence, glanced at it and will probably take me a bit of time.

Tell the truth I didn’t want to upset Chiara, obviously some traumatic stuff going on back in their world. So where we are talking about larger groups of truths and lies there is a very individual eye witness account happening that makes all the stats lies where Chiara is from.

Like the 0 – 4 year olds being the top fatalities. This means they got hit hard enough to die I suspect where a 5 – 18 year old survived the same beating. Fatality as the end result is misleading.

One stat that did surprise me was that 40 – 44 year old men are more likely to commit suicide. Up until Benk or Vanna mentioned it I had thought it was teenage boys leading male suicides. But it has been used here in relation to custody battles and I don’t see that connection.

R0bert:”The foundation stone of what they are pushing for is the lie that child abuse is mostly something men do, they are rarely as blunt about it as Chiara but it's always there as a subtext. Adding in the DV thing up's the anti on this because they the gender warriors already control public perceptions on that issue.”

It’s all a bit foul really. The men are pushing hard and I see them using some quite nasty language and tactics on a lot of articles I have read. What they want to achieve might be right and correct but the techniques appear to me along the lines of blowing out someone else’s candle to make their own shine brighter. I see the women doing it too.

I can’t tell if it is escalating, I haven’t been watching long enough.

But either way, all I see is the gender warriors using children in this battle rather than really looking for better outcomes for them.

This must make it a National Domestic Argument; Articles and surveys being thrown instead of crockery and door slamming.

Jewely a quick browse of your latest post, I admire your honestly about the maternal gatekeeping.

As to maternal gatekeeping, it perhaps has always been an issue, but never identified, because of the nature of gender roles in the past. Dads went to work and mums ran the house and kids.

But as soon as gender roles change a previous hidden problem arises.

James:” But as soon as gender roles change a previous hidden problem arises.”

I can only imagine how devastating it would be for a man who has worked hard to support wife and kids to be told later he lacked an emotional connection with his children or be accused of any kind of misdeed when he thought he was doing the right thing.

The woman at home doing the domestic stuff would probably be just as hurt to be told what she thought was her job was really her being a manipulative gatekeeper.

The traditional roles changed and new labels emerged, men and women are being told how bad they are and what group they belong to. I’m sort of starting to understand why benk keeps mentioning universities but that seems to be so a label can be pinned to someone.

Were they problems or have they been created to suit certain agendas? Do I need to go sit and have a chat to my grandparents and let them know who they have really are according to todays stats and the resulting character assignations… I meant to write assassinations and my spell checker gave me that word, it kinda works too

Jewely, I think it was Erin Pizzey, but it could have been someone else who wrote that universities were producing social workers, who were political activists.

Books that are worthwhile reading "Who Stole Feminism", Heterophobia and Professing Feminism.

It sounds like you are on the right track.