I had my ex take my two daughters, 6 and 3, out of the country and out of my life for 1.5 years, then arrange for them never to see the letters I wrote. When I finally linked up they had grown up. They still have not recovered from that. That was back in the bad old 70s, and then came a new era and we men were allowed equal parenting access. I breathed a sigh of relief, but too soon it appears. If you destroy fathers, you destroy families, and the biggest threat to the sort of total control that the left aspires to is the family. Abolition of the common man is their motto. Think of the wonderful posibilities of having a whole generation of fatherless, enraged and violent boys. Then indeed we could have the permanent revolution that was the dream of so many of the old dictators. Hopefully the west will have birth controlled itself out of existence by then.

I second Pelican's request by asking how we stop parents breaking up?

Given that the rest of society can't see into a family's personal life, as a general rule, then we can safely assume that we can't stop some parents not wanting to stay living with each other.

So we must have rules and laws to help these broken families.
We must try to do so in an equitable manner, with all other things being equal.

We all know that the majority of Fathers are good men, and the majority of women in this country would want the best for their close male relatives at least.

So the few bitter men, who may or may not have good reason to be bitter, following a relationship breakdown and a battle in the Family Courts, are in the minority.

Let's not tar all separated/divorced men and women with the same brush...

Pelican and Suzeonline, if you read the report summary, it makes several recommendations on how we help people to stay together.

"Recommendation 1
That to further implement the National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children, and promote the emotional wellbeing of children and young people, the Federal Government should provide funding for a major new initiative to help strengthen relationships between couples and to support parent-child relationships. The funding, initially for a four year period, should be used:
a. To assist in the development of education materials and the training of educators to offer relationship education programs in each local area, in
workplaces and in universities.
b. To encourage the development of materials, and the provision of programs, for culturally and linguistically diverse communities, that are off ered in their languages and appropriate to their cultures.
c. To encourage Parents and Citizens’ Associations, community organisations such as Rotary or Lions Clubs, churches, other faith-based communities, Culturally and Linguistically Diverse organisations, gay and lesbian organisations and any other interested group to off er relationship education programs free of charge in their local community or in workplaces, or in universities, utilising trained volunteer educators, or educators paid on a sessional basis."

and

"Recommendation 2
Programs on couple relationships should be off ered both when people begin living together and when they are preparing for marriage. They should explore the benefits to the relationship of making the commitment of marriage, and address issues that arise for blended families and stepfamilies. They should also include material about
domestic violence."

and

"Recommendation 4
Programs on parent-child relationships should address the importance of a healthy relationship between the parents for the wellbeing of children."

and

"Recommendation 5
Programs on parent-child relationships should be developed for the following stages of parenthood, and should aim at involving both mothers and fathers:
• Preparing for childbirth.
• Starting primary school.
• Starting high school.
Programs on parent-child relationships should also be developed specifically for parents without partners who have the primary care of children, for stepfamilies, and for non-resident parents."

Seems pretty sensible to me.

It appears that Professor Parkinson is desperately trying to justify the need for fathers in our society, when a major societal trend is underway. The same paranoid and desperate pleas are apparent in the offerings by several male contributors to this thread as it is in the pleas of the Father's Rights groups. even in their titles. e.g. `Families Need Fathers'.
Most females are now economically independent of males, and are increasingly recognising that they do not need males permanently in their lives, nor do their children, especially if such males are inadequate, insecure, and violent individuals. The vast majority of such females raise their children successfully without male assistance. This must be very frightening for such males as they are no longer needed beyond the act of conception and having now lost the argument that females need them, are turning their attention to trying to make a persuasive argument that their children need them. This is not radical `feminism' as such males would claim, but simply a recognition of a social trend. There is nothing that Professor Parkinson or his band of male sympathisers can do about it. Male fear and paranoia rule, OK!.

Val Kyrie,

Well you display an equivalent level of "dumbness" to all the paranoid males who postulate that the majority of women follow rabid feminist theory.

What happens to your precious "societal trend" when the present teetering economic paradigm falls flat on its face? It's only the in blink of an eye that we're experiencing this "warped" paradigm - it's certainly not sustainable.

Poirot - It is not a `Theory' but the reality of what is happening, why otherwise would Prof Parkinson express his concern about it?. Prof Parkinson's report is wildly biased - where is the study and comments on the many thousands of children who are successfuly raised by single parents and go on to have successful careers?. e.g. Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd and many hundreds of thousands more. Patterns of female/male relationships are affected far less by economic events than by `Belief Systems' such as religious brainwashing in Patriarchalism, which Parkinson's views represent. I know these truths are very painful for you to recognise and acknowledge, but it is the present and future reality.
In the words of the Spice Girls, "You'd better shape up".. if you want to be needed.