Congratulations Daniel on a fine and sensitive article. Having children is incredibly rewarding but like anything worthwhile, it is also very hard. Until very recently, fathers weren't given much encouragement to participate in their kids lives. They were expected to bring home the bacon and not much more. My husband was one of the very first of the new wave. When one of our daughters cried, he got up and brought her in to me to feed, he changed nappies, did the washing, nurtured, comforted, sang to and played with them. To this day (18 years later) if they feel sick, they tell Daddy, they know he'll be much more sympathetic. (I tend to say get a bucket and go back to bed!) His view was that as I had compromised my career to be a mother (he did not have to, to be a father), the least he could do was take up the slack. He was continuously taunted and mocked by many of the men he worked with at the time. The fact that he did his own ironing was a source of much raucous (if not very witty) humour. He was called "Mother of the Year" not with admiration, but with scorn. This abuse came (sorry Timkins) exclusively from other men. Women thought he was fabulous and that I was incredibly lucky, as I am.
The relationship he has with our daughters today is a tribute to the stubborn effort he put in then. A lot of older style fathers seemed to think they were entitled to all the fun but none of the hard work. Relationships simply don't work that way.

enaj, I'll be surprised if you get much complaint from Timkins. Guys who want the "little woman at home where she belongs" are no friend to those of us who want to maintain an active role as dads in our kids lives post divorce.

A big part of our concern is the hurt to our children and ourselves when that kind of involvement in our kids lives is taken away because the mum wants to live somewhere else or because she gets more welfare and C$A payments by having them most of the time or she wants all the say about how they are raised (and maybe sometimes vindictivness but I don't think that is a significant part of my ex's motivations).

We do know that there are cases where that is not what happens and some mums are left with the kids by an uncaring father and other cases where sanity rules and both parents continue with meaningful roles in their kids lives.

I liked Daniel's article as well. I do wish I had the skills to write more effectively about the other side of paternity. I do still hold to the idea that "it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" and am trying to find ways to mix that with helping build understanding about the costs (not just financial) when it goes wrong. Not an easy task.

Enjay
The man you have described is not much different to many men, and I don’t believe he was laughed at by other men. In many ways it is women who are pushing men into the work place and away from children. Numerous studies have routinely shown that women expect men to be the main breadwinner, and they want the man to earn as much money as possible, which normally equates to more work hours.

On the child contact front, only 40% of custodial mothers (and there are 100,000’s of them) want the father to have more contact with his children, while 75% of those fathers only see their children every second weekend or less.

Women are gradually doing themselves out of a job. Many women have caesareans, and many women do not even breast feed. The only difference now is the womb, and the development of the artificial womb is not that far away. It is already being developed for animals, and that technology can be easily transferred for humans.

With the male pill and the artificial womb, it will give men much more choice. They can spend their money on women, or spend their money on such things as boats, and boats are probably less expensive and much less of a headache. If a man wants to be a father, he can choose to have a child with a woman, or through the artificial womb.

But then there will probably be articles on how men must “change their ways” and have children with women and not the artificial womb. However if women don’t start and change their attitudes, I think those articles will be falling on deaf ears for many men.

I don't know any mothers who HAVEN'T breast fed their children including myself.

No one wants a caesarian unless its life or death - the current inquiry involves too many doctors performing them rather than women requesting them.

My ex never contributed a single cent towards my children.

My current partner adores my kids and I am so happy they have a father figure now and the same goes for my friends who are mothers also - watching men enjoy their kids is a joy.

If I say I feel sorry for you Timkins, I'll no doubt receive sarcasm in return, but I do pity you, you really have a chip a mile high on this topic. I really hope you find a wonderful woman to love you. However, I fear you have alienated yourself from that possibility.

I am so glad that Sylvia Else…. wrote her response.." If we want young men to be willing to father children, we need to reduce the risks they take in the process."

My initial read of Daniel Donahoo article left me in a sate of incredulous despair, particularly when I read that he works in government family policy - I thought … "with this sort of head-in-the-sand-advocate what chance does Fatherhood have in Australia".

I have spent many hours recently counselling disenfranchised dads that have child contact denied them - 8 years legal battles in one case against all forms of false allegations. I received a forum email from a 'second wife', who under similar legal battles has been accused of sexual abuse purely for the strategic advantage in the court. She declared that she "had enough" an was going to commit suicide - have had no more emails from her since -she had disappeared from the net.

80% of divorce is by women
Over 5 men kill themselves per day.
Over 3 of these per day are related to divorce and forced separation from children…
CSA suicide figures, Deadbeat Dad witch hunts, gender bias advocacy research, etc. etc. etc…

Daniel Donahoo needs to familiarise himself with the policies that are criminalizing fatherhood worldwide. At least start with a study of Dr. Stephen Baskerville professor a political science at Howard University - http://www.stephenbaskerville.net/

Young men are not afraid of commitment- they are afraid of the obvious life threatening dangers that fatherhood in a gender-biased society brings. They are given few safe options.

I believe that given the current anti-father laws and social and welfare policies, it is my moral duty to teach my boy about the great dangers of fathering a child.

My son is a keen surfer. If I spot sharks in the water I also tell him not to go in. This is what a Father does for their children - PROTECT!.

And for the record I have recently married again and plan to have another child…

I mentioned that I have recently married again and plan to have another child.

Many men are warned not to marry, … and certainly not to seed a child!

I advocate Fatherhood and the family, but I cannot belittle such advice.
Even a cursory knowledge of statistics related to forced separation, male suicide and the suffering of both Fathers and their 'stolen generation' of children, gives this warning a ring of common sense.

But this is what we are dealing with - a conflict between the political and social forces that drive fatherlessness and the age-old joyful experience of parenthood and family security.

An article by Stephen Baskerville's exposes the USA state of Massachusetts child seizure policies - a state run 'child protection' regime that places a bounty on the head of every child seized.

"Financial incentives and quotas created by the Adoption and Safe Families Act in 1997, … have resulted in a "child protection racket" rife with "baby stealing and baby selling," ... "I am appalled by how many times this pattern is repeated."

These cases typify "the new Orwellian [judicial] system, which has no protection for certain categories of unfavored perpetrators of 'crimes' against the state, such as parents," ... "It is a system skewed by political agendas, not truth...where government [is] intruding into family autonomy, paternal authority, child raising, and even minor family conflicts."

In the last few years we have witnessed an international rising of Fatherhood support… one that disseminates, via the Internet, research and opinion previously suppressed or misrepresented.

So I too offer a voice of encouragement to young men to consider their commitment to fatherhood.

I believe that, if we men avoid marriage then we have lost ground against the attack on the family. I have to lead my new wife into a future where we must navigate the very real and present danger of policies geared towards social engineering.

I have to lead my son as well.
Sharks in the water!