To echo other posts here: shouldn't ALL parents focus on the best interests of their children?

But just as seriously, shouldn't parents be granted the opportunity to make some of the decisions about this themselves?

I also take issue with the assessment that women are using their children as 'status symbols' in the manner you describe. My parents were known to observe a similar viewpoint on seeing the explosion in the number of kids at cafes in Carlton and Fitzroy ("children are the new pets")...until my child became one of them. This ("chinos", as my son calls them) is what we do, it's part of our time together. Of course, my son hasn't been screened for his froth content recently....something else for me to worry about I suppose.

I heartily agree that children have the right to enjoy their young lives in a way that is free of neglect, abuse, indifference or spoiling. And I also agree with other post-ers that many parents REALLY don't know what they're getting themselves in for (we certainly didn't). Loving your kids might be a natural instinct, but parenting is much harder work.

Anyway, it seems to me that the way to solve the problem is not to hector the people doing their best to ensure that their children grow up happy and healthy, which is what an Op Ed like this achieves, because the parents you're talking to aren't listening, and those of us who are just notch our guilt levels up to "alarming" ("am I doing too much?" is now added to "am I not doing enough?")

Enaj “That's the trouble with the way we push men and women into such starkly different roles when they become parents.”

Oh enaj – I would observe – that has been going on for generations – it is nothing new.

What is “new” is women thinking that the world evolves around them and expecting their “parenting” role to be something which every employer and social institution should kow-tow to them for and defend their career aspirations.

Historically, women stayed at home and the men went to work. That was the practice which would have (seemingly” “worked” for successive generations.
In more recent times we have seen more women “choose” to work.
We have seen an expectation that jobs be held open for them
We have seen affirmative action pressuring women’s rights before the natural selection process of individual “merit”.

Women might want to work full time – that is their individual choice.

But to suggest “they are pushed” is to presume the practice of the past generations, who brought us into the world some how got it wrong.

There is no right or wrong.

No one is “pushed”

The “roles” were defined before we were born
Reinventing them to suit some “feminist political agenda” is what is being “pushed” and from a male perspective, I see no merit in it at all.

Seether “But just as seriously, shouldn't parents be granted the opportunity to make some of the decisions about this themselves?”

Absolutely agree – individuals are the best people to decide what their “life choices” should be, even their “bad” decisions will produce better outcomes for them than the “bad” decisions imposed by some remote bureaucrat or useless socialist agenda enforced by statute.

Even in the troublesome business of maintenance - I resolved with my "ex" the maintenance agreement and we did our absolute best to keep it out of the hands of the CSA - she knew she was better off that way and so was I.

Actually, Col Rouge, men at work and women at home is a relatively recent phenomenon.
In most pre-industrial communities, both men and women worked side by side in the fields, and older children and grandmothers minded the babies.
Even in industrial times, working class women worked for wages, they had to, to keep bread in their babies mouths. Sometimes they worked in factories, sometimes they were washerwomen and seamstresses, sometimes domestic servants and sometimes prostitutes. The recent, middle class ideal of dad in the workplace and mum in the home is peculiar and hasn't worked well for either gender. The minute women had a decent choice they voted with their feet and fled their homes for the workplace. We all like the sense of autonomy work and our own money give us, whatever our gender. And men as put upon wage slaves haven't looked particularly content either. Perhaps we would all be a great deal happier if mum worked more outside the home, and less in it and dad worked more inside the home and less outside it. You know, balanced things out a bit.
Our working hours are very much pushed onto us by the demands of the economy, technology and history, and they always have been. There is nothing natural about able bodied adult women staying home and raising kids, most economies cannot afford to leave them there, even hunters and gatherers sent women and kids out to work gathering.

Well said Enaj. It ignores economic reality to think that all women who work outside the home are exercising a "choice". For some it is a matter of economic survival, whether or not they maintain a home with a partner and/or father of their children (assuming they are a heterosexual couple).

And I'm not talking lattes, gymbaroo and plasma screen televisions, I'm talking whether the rent will be paid or the phone will be cut off.

Meanwhile the same parents who barely eke out a living because they prioritised staying home with their children (which is perfectly reasonable) are sure to be lambasted later in life for not having saved for their children to attend private schools and get "the best education possible".

I for one am not working outside the home to fulfill my feminist ideals...my partner and I cannot afford for me (who earns more money) not to work. Is this the result of an evil, feminist, socialist, affirmative action style conspiracy? Nope. It's just that he works in an industry that is poorly paid.

But I AM proud that my workplace values me enough to consider the ways in which I might be encouraged to return to work, by providing real-life, flexible, family-oriented options that do not interfere with the other workers in the workplace, or with productivity.

Judgement is everywhere you look, the minute you announce you are becoming a parent. No one can win this kind of debate because EVERYONE has an opinion about the best way for things to be done.

There is no one-size-fits-all, and if some one could write the manual for raising children that covered everything and everyone, my Mum reckons they'd make a fortune.

Seether,
I would agree that there is not one formula that would suit every child, but the article is on child custody and child support, and the system that is in place very much is a “one size fits all” system.

Nearly 90% of the time, the child resides with the mother, and the child support is paid by the father. The father is normally told that he can easily get 80/20 parenting time (i.e every second weekend and half the school holidays) but if he wants more, then he has to pay more. For verification of this, just contact a Family Law solicitor.

That is the norm, and it is very much a “one size fits all” parenting system that has been applied to divorced parents for decades, and by so doing, it is also being applied to children. This system is said to be in the “best interests of the child”, but it is highly debateable as to whether that is a convenient propaganda term, or a term that has been found to be scientifically correct.

If mothers want equality, they should work the same hours and earn the same income as fathers. They get 50 / 50 at divorce time, and the mothers do not get child support, nor do they get up to 80% of the property settlement. The mothers will also be required to work until requirement age, just like fathers.

That is equality between parents, but I wonder how many mothers would put their hands up for that system.

Timkins

My husband and his previous wife separated (around 90) and later divorced. He physically built the family home - he was left with an eskie. He worked two jobs for over ten years = 7 days per week. She got the house, car, credit card - you name it.

He stopped paying maintenance on the grounds that she gained the home and everything else. He has not had access to his children. She is still tyring to get back pay? After 15 years? Wow - a very clever woman. My husband has not seen or heard from his sons. It is very sad.