Seeker, thanks for your comments.
I don’t know where single motherhood came into it. My point was attempting to mirror Timkins’ inability to recognise that a writer has a right (and a word limit to consider) to address a singular issue without having to branch into the spectrum of all possibly related topics. This is why I recommend Timkins writes his own piece to express these issues in more detail.
Timkins is *absolutely and perfectly entitled* to come to the defence of men and fathers wronged by the impact of feminazism, relationship breakdown and the family courts. Again, this is why he should be addressing these issues in separate pieces, published under his actual name so that other interested parties can engage with the breadth of his personal and/or professional experience.
It would be far more helpful for him to do so in a forum where everyone was talking about the same thing. It is obviously frustrating for him, and frustrating for all others attempting to participate in this forum, for the same issues to be relentlessly brought up, regardless of the issue. However, while he is perfectly entitled to advocate for men, it is unacceptable for him personally attack the writer – and Timkins demeans his very valid points by ‘serial posting’, and telling the writer his marriage will fail. (Continued below)

“Perhaps you need to be a man and a victim of it, to be able to detect it with such sensitivity, and despise it with such intensity.”

You’re perfectly right. I will never be in Timkins’ shoes, and I’m extremely grateful for that. But conversely, perhaps you need to be a young man or woman brainwashed by the media that you must be young, single, beautiful, childless, affluent, popular, drug-using, partying hard, commitment-free, travelled, with a successful career, with an exciting sex life, a string of partners, using and promoting all the ‘cool’ brands and socially engaged every night to be personally “fulfilled”, to understand the frustration with the promotion of negative stereotypes about commitment.

Because from my own experience (and obviously from the writer’s own experience too), this form of pressure is also a form of social abuse, and prevents many men and women from pursuing committed relationships.

From my own experience, I slavishly pursued and achieved all of the above because of social pressure telling me I would only be fulfilled by this. In other words, I had all the ingredients for fulfilment by pop culture standards. But it didn't create the final promise. And for many young people, it doesn't. When I became pregnant to my partner, unexpectedly, I found that no amount of fulfilment I’d ever experienced, came close to what I finally had.

Certainly my experience is not universal. Certainly many relationships end badly, and with disastrous consequences. Certainly this must be addressed as a matter of urgency.

But is this a reason to immediately halt all human interactions and cease the reproduction of children? Is it a reason to engage in relentless blame apportioning and vitriolic attacks? Or is it an opportunity to discuss where things are going wrong, and how we can start to fix it to ensure that another generation of men aren’t wronged in the same way?

Max
“Daniel is driving down the road its a sunny day life is good, he doesn't expect to be blindsided by that truck.” (??!!)
Perhaps you need to talk to someone. That’s just weird.

Tracy,
you make a major issue of wanting Timkins to publish under his own name. As I have previously mentioned I do not know his story but can think of a few reasons why he might not.
- Publication of detail relating to Family Law matters which allows
the identification of individuals has some legal restrictions.
If he posts here using his real name then by inference the
identity of an ex partner and kids can be determined by anyone
with an interest to do so.
There are some good reasons for those restrictions but it does
have a fairly serious impact on raising community awareness of
the realities of the situation.
- Timkins may not want his kids to be aware of some of the details
of what has happened between himself and their mother. Many of us
try hard to isolate kids from the conflict. How easy would it be
for someone who knows both Timkins and his kids to pass on the
contents of any post in which he is identified.
- Publishing in a way which lets him be identified may come to the
attention of the former partner and provoke further conflict.
Anger and bitterness contribute to the level of conflict in family
law issues.
- Timkins could find himself on the pointy end of a defamation
action. From my understanding a comment does not have to be false
to be regarded as defaming someone nor is it easy to prove
the truth about occurences from within a home situation.

It could be extremely foolish and possibly illegal for Timkins to allow himself to be identified in an article involving the kind of issues for which he is so keen to raise the profile.

Tracy, you sweetie

Do you believe in magicians who pluck things out of the air?

The author has thrown a series of un-substantiated, negative statements at young men without referring to any reliable research. Basically these comments were just plucked out of the air. A possible reason:- minimal research has been carried out on fathers to establish much fact, (eg from AIFS http://www.aifs.gov.au/institute/pubs/papers/smyth5.html ) I wonder why fathers haven’t been included in previous research into families?

I have read many articles similar to this. Perhaps the authors are used to writing in newspapers or magazines, (or being on the radio), where the public has minimal chance of objection?

Your comments about myself are also plucked out of the air, as you know nothing about me. But non-specific comments such as “you drown in your own bitterness”, show a reluctance to establish fact before making generalised negative remarks about males, (who are not allowed to do the same to women of course, or they will be labelled misogynistic or something).

In your posts, you have only said negative comments about me and other males. Perhaps you wish some type of harm or injury for me, other men, and young men also. I haven’t seen you make such negative comments about women?

Find the statistics that show fatherhood is all joy, both before AND after the divorce, as divorce is now statistically likely for fathers, and on average they have 12 yrs of marriage, including Daniel.

12 Yrs is not enough to raise children, so being a father after the divorce is now an important part of fatherhood. (NB. the statistics I have provided in previous posts are not my statistics, but come from the ASB or AIFS).

I would be interested to know more about what you regard as being “vital” or “need to be addressed”, but not fully elaborated on.

Or perhaps you think it impolite for a male to ask females questions, but instead they should “now” only accept whatever a female tells them to do or believe, “or else” (would this be a part of the problem?)

Hang on for a second here - both TracyA and Daniel - lets not start equating the choice to be unpartnered and childless with raw selfishness. I thought we had moved on from that world where only couples were happy and only children can lead to true fulfilment. Plenty of wonderful things in life can happen without children and fulfilling relationships come in many shapes and sizes.

And sure advertising works on the 'beautiful people' principle to sell a single life, but so does couple-dom. Magazines are just as full of perfect couples with perfect children making everyone not in a perfect relationship and childless feel like rubbish. You may have found being single unfulfilling, but that's not reason to treat single people as though they're a virus or scourge of society.

TracyA - "perhaps you need to be a young man or woman brainwashed by the media that you must be young, single, beautiful, childless, affluent, popular, drug-using, partying hard, commitment-free, travelled, with a successful career, with an exciting sex life, a string of partners, using and promoting all the ‘cool’ brands and socially engaged every night to be personally “fulfilled”,"

Removing the drugs, cool brands and string of partners, I hope everyone gets to have a little bit of this freedom somewhere in their life... that's what being young is all about! And then we just grow up. I would encourage my son or daughter to have fun and not commit too early throughout their youth.

Robert,
Timkins need not discuss his own relationship. He is comfortable writing about factual assertions and observations, so he can write about the experiences of many other men who are unfairly dealt with by family law. Unfortunately, he cannot do much more to raise the profile of the issues he is so passionate about by continuing to write anonymously. Mostly, reputable publications will only publish under a writer’s real name.

Timkins, darling.
God. What to do with my remaining 253 words? OK. Basically,
It’s called an *opinion* piece. You may not agree with the writer. That’s OK.

All I know of you are your views through numerous website posts. You make comments on the writers of these articles without knowing anything about their lives either. It goes both ways.
While on average, a marriage may only last 12 years, some couples are married for two days only, and others are married for 60 years. That skews the statistics somewhat, doesn’t it?
You ask my concerns: negative media images of men; men denied access from their children; dads left with little social support after divorce; too many children raised without adequate contact from fathers; popular culture telling young women to usurp men and vice versa. I have other issues, but I must move on.
Have a go at writing in the public arena. The issue really needs people advocating for better outcomes for men.
Just do me a favour: if someone’s having a nice life, don’t burst their bubble by telling them it’ll end in tears. Some relationships *do* flourish.

Audrey
Remind me where I inferred that single people were a ‘virus or a scourge of society’? Spend some time immersed in youth culture: a committed relationship is an *option* which is not frequently promoted for young people. And I disagree that popular youth culture is just as full of ‘perfect couples with perfect children’. While fulfilment is found in all manner of places, the point is that 'single and free' is promoted as the Holy Grail, when relationships are fundamental to our wellbeing as human beings.