So you don't want women on building sites? If women thought builders would hire them they might apply but it is not an industry that is known to encourage women.

You have a very poor view of women vanna, worse than most of the extreme feminists hold about men and yet you choose to emulate that which you clearly despise. You might think that women contribute nothing to society and you obviously have little respect for the role of mothering - also not an easy job. In a free society you can hold any personal prejudices you like but you are so wrong about the contributions of women, I hardly know where to begin.

ppp
The reason why it has been women discussing issues of work-life balance is that women generally have to juggle child care responsibiities, work and care of the home. Women don't have someone at home supporting them while they are at work, unless there is a nanny or housekeeper. The reason why men spend time with their kids on the weekends is to spend time with their kids - simple. Most of them still work fulltime during the week and that is exactly my argument for greater flexibility.

Raising kids does not get a guernsey from any politicians these days. I chose to stay at home because we considered it important, There is not much support for families where there is one parent (still usually the mother) at home. But that's life.

The ideal is for men and women to benefit from work-life balance. There is nothing evil about those goals.

Even if some of you blokes got your way and lived in a men-only 'utopia', you would still have to find someone to look after the children and the men would be sharing work and child care duties. It doesn't matter who does the jobs - is my main point - as long as the jobs (home/work/parenting) get done.

I agree with Pelican that it would be a damn site easier to be a 'father of the future' and stay home with the kiddies full time
(an often thankless job!), while you are on an ex-premiers pension!
No financial problems to argue about with the wife there.

Vanka and partimeparent really do have some issues with women and mothers! Do you guys not know some nice women and/or mothers then?

I agree with one thing anyway, the now old-fashioned notion of feminism (sooo 70's!) has not always resulted in a very good deal for women these days.

Not only do many married women now work outside the home in often full time jobs (most men are unable to support families on one income these days), but they continue to do the lion's share of housework and childcare duties as well.
Yes, that's a good deal alright- for men!

The women who are single ,or divorced mothers, raising children alone are often considered welfare cheats and/or 'destroying' the lives of their ex-partners/fathers of their kids for various reasons.

Damned if we stay with the man, and damned if we don't.

Yeah, sometimes it's hard to be a woman...

Maybe we don't do the heavy dirty jobs involved in manual labouring Vanka, and get paid megabucks for that, but many women do work in jobs where they clean up faeces, vomit, urine and blood, and endure physical and mental strain caring for the sick and disabled in our society for a mere pittance of pay.

Vanka thinks we should 'know' about all the hard work done in building a shopping centre. When I walk around a shopping centre with my husband on the weekend, I will be sure and ask him that question...

Do you know and care about all the dirty, filthy dangerous work that goes on in health care facilities then Vanka?

No?

Well, I hope YOU think about that when next you need care at a hospital.

Pelican and suzeonline,
Well I do think it is time for fathers to take more control of families, as a part of Save The Children.

What is the current situation:

- Australia now has one of the lowest rates of breastfeeding in the world.
- Australians now have increasing rates of obesity, which is now directly linked to the type of food being feed to children.
- Australia now has one of the highest rates of youth suicide, which mainly concerns boys, but girls have increasing rates of binge drinking and smoking.
- The number of disadvantaged children seems to be increasing, and the Smith family organisation estimates the number of disadvantaged children in Australia at over 600,000 (with about 200,000 children born each year).
- The rate of divorce has hardly declined, putting large numbers of children through the trauma of family separation.
- Large numbers of sons and daughters are now growing up rarely seeing their father or knowing who their father is.
- Children are now leaving the primary and secondary school systems, hardly knowing maths or science, and in some cases, hardly able to read or write English.

Can’t get much worse, and it is incredible that all this has occurred over a period of 20-30 years.

Mothers and feminists have been in control of families over that 20-30 year period.

vanna
That list is very negative and for those that fall in those categories it is very sad, however those issues are not gender issues, they are social issues.

Marriage breakdown is not a gender issue it is a relationship issue. Men are also capable of doing bad things, relationship breakdown takes two and it is easy to blame the other party without taking the blinkers off and having some self-awareness about one's own contribution to marriage breakdown. Recognising mistakes is the first step to change and improvement.

Men sometimes abandon their families, men sometimes have affairs, men sometimes don't want to see their kids because it inteferes with their freedoms, men are sometimes violent, some men are single parents, some men are drug/alcohol abusers.

If you can't see that there will never be a solution. Blaming one section of society for 'everything' is not only using false assumptions but failing to see the big picture. But I suspect at this stage you will continue with your outlook until one day you might sit up and take a broader look without a personal agenda.

Well said Pelican, and much more restrained than I would have been :)
But you are right.

There is absolutely no point in blaming one gender over another for all societies woes.

I think many men and women work quite well, both together and apart, in stuffing up their own lives, and that of their children.

Vanna, you need to think again

Pelican and suzanonline,

“The data suggest that more than one-third of Australian children do not see their fathers, while 17% have day-only contact. The levels of contact are a source of dissatisfaction for both mothers and fathers. Although the majority of resident mothers expressed satisfaction with the contact arrangements, 41% reported that they would like to see more father–child contact taking place,while only 5% thought that there was too much contact. By contrast, almost three quarters (74%) of non-resident fathers wanted more contact with their children.”

www.aifs.gov.au/conferences/aifs8/parkinson.pdf

Of course this is not gender related.

And that is why the author has chosen to write about fathers and families, and not mothers and families.

Or, maybe the author did not want to write about the true nature of motherhood in the country.

The true nature of motherhood in the country is similar to a state of disaster.