RetroPastiche: "I know at least 6 other people at uni who've been disadvantaged by their ex's behaviour"

After my ex decided that the marriage wsn't pying her enough, she got a divorce and surprise, went back to uni for her third degree, all the while complaining bitterly that I wasn't "supporting" her. Well, guess what, I had already been going to uni when the marriage broke down, but as a "non-custodial parent" I was no longer able to afford to attend after the CSA decided that I wasn't "earning to capacity" and had to be assessed as earning much more "in the best interests of the child", of course...

All the while, "poor Mum", who had been working before the separation, just like me, goes on the pension and gets an additional payment because she's at Uni, as well as a housing commission house. The real kicker? Now she's qualified and is earning a significant wage, she wants the CSA to go away because "she just wants to get ahead" and the CSA might decide she has to pay me. Funny when the boot's on the other foot, isn't it?

As for the kids, I have them half the time and that would never have happened if I had allowed her to simply use me as a cash cow. Frankly, I don't see that you have much to complain about. I bet your ex hasn't been a student supported by the taxpayer for the past several years, just a poor bastard pursued from pillar to post with no chance of ever rebuilding his life if he complies with the unreasonable demands that the CSA put on him. Get over it, recognise you came out on top in the deal, as all women do and stop whinging.

Antiseptic has just confirmed what every girl should be taught. It is what I teach my daughter. Never become financially dependent on a man. You can only have children when you are financially independent in your own right.

Women can only have children when they, themselves, can afford it. Men can whenever the mood strikes and then whinge when they have to bear the consequences.

It is NOT a choice for a woman to be a 'stay-at-home' mother. Mothering alone is not a choice for women.

There are too few men who are capable of separating their issues and anger/hurt with the woman from their children.

Yvonne: "whinge when they have to bear the consequences"

you obviously didn't read what i wrote. the only whinging in my case has been from the ex, who chose to leave the father of her children for financial reasons and has tried her best to avoid the consequences of her own actions by passing them on to me. I, OTOH, tried to "do the right thing" and found that "doing the right thing" simply leads to more and greater demands, so said "it's your bed, you made it, lie in it". Since the possibility of further funding from me has been removed, her actions have been far more reasonable, including coming to sensible care arrangements (50:50) for the children when she had already taken me to Court several times in attempts to reduce my custody, solely for financial reasons.
Who has "the best interests of the child" in mind, Yvonne; the person who wants to be a parent to them together with the other one, or the person who will use every taxpayer-funded means at her disposal to prevent the children having anything to do with the other one?

Yvonne:” Some of the vile comments made by men, who are fathers of children, should remember that once upon a time they freely entered into a sexual relationship with the mother of THEIR child. It is not the child's fault that you stuffed up.”

Of course not. But this type of feminist bile fails to acknowledge not only that mothers can and DO stuff up, and thus disadvantage their own children through no fault of the child, or their other parent, but that they are in fact often encouraged to do so.

The moral hazard of our actions is clearly evident, and it starts at high school - Time wrote that Gloucester High "has done perhaps too good a job of embracing young mothers", providing them with on-site childcare and healthcare facilities.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/unusual-tales/seventeen-schoolgirls-pregnant-after-making-pact/2008/06/20/1213770867478.html

Retro-Pastiche and Yvonne both showed their concern regarding children's welfare which, however badly it does so, CSA was established in order to protect. I have yet to hear Antiseptic or the other most vehement deriders of women show concern for their offspring.

Antiseptics entire views on the deficiencies, power balance, shortcomings, violence, cupidity and lack of parenting skills of the entire female sex are couched in terms of his own experiences as are those of of quite a few bitter "ex"es.

I have maintained throughout that the system is not just flawed but fails to do that which it is set up to do. The fact that people like Antiseptic are unwilling, in their personal hurt and bitterness, even to admit this but must continue to try to present a case in which all women are lumped together and all men ditto illustrates an unwillingness to be objective that impedes any chance of arriving at fair outcomes for children. This is a totally unrealistic world view - I would even go so far as to say that such a reductive theory is an indicator of immaturity.

On any of these threads I challenge you guys (as I and others have done innumerable times) to find any statement by the persons you are disagreeing with (i.e. not by some nebulous "feminist group" or "system" or collective "all women")which posits that no women are ever to blame while all men are?

So seventeen troubled teenagers in some obscure American town behaved irresponsibly? How does this advance your case? Many more than 17 fathers in South Africa kill their entire families in one given year. What case does this advance?

Thousands of children in Australia are growing up in disadvantaged homes due to an inadequate and malfunctioning CSA agency. THAT is the point.

Well said Romany.

Antiseptic, whether your wife left the father of her children just for financial reasons, which if true suggests that you made a poor choice for the mother of your children, but probably is only half of the truth, is of no consequence to your children.

Seeker, I know that many feminists, myself included, have never denied that women stuff up, there is ample evidence of this. I'd be the first one to agree that just because a person has a uterus doesn't necessarily make that person a good parent.

I have personal experience of this with my 'second son'.

This really is not about who stuffs up more or less as a parent.

The constant anti-feminist rant when this comes up I think is more an issue of men being enraged that women are not all saintly madonnas willing to put up with any kind of behaviour from their men for the sake of their children.

Those days are long over fellas.