RObert, you mentioned that you did single parenting for a few years, I am curious to know whether you felt the brunt of stimga etc as much as single "mothers"? It's is such a common sterotype that a single parent is a mother..just wondering, having been there your self, what your views on this were??

And rehctub,

Sounds like you agree with policy and that without such policies then you believe sole parents will stay on welfare until they retire..just wondering why you have this opinion? and what do you think about the barriers in place to sole parents from doing higher education in order to better themseleves and obtain better employment poistions? Do you think its fair to assume that ALL sole parents stay on welfare and only find jobs when such policies force them to or that just because someone is a sole parent then they have no desire to work? Thats a pretty big judgement to make, dont you think??

The government seems to forget that when people are studying they are setting themselves up for the future (in terms of work). I have had friends who are "unemployed" and have had to fill in their looking for work centrelink forms despite being enrolled in full time study. I know there is Austudy but I'm not sure exactly how that works, I think there is some kind of limit on it.

I can only imagine how it feels when you are single parenting and studying full-time and you are forced to look for work or risk losing your payment.

I am on a disability pension due to chronic illness and when I consider that in the future I might have my payment cut it makes me feel pretty worried.

young_mum87, I worked all through that so never had that part of the stigma. Could not have afforded not to.

I did get a sense with one school where I was treated as less than a full parent. A bit like a woman looking to buy a car and the salesman wanting to speak to her husband.

A different school and a shift in how many dads were doing drop offs and pick ups etc and that changed over time. I did get a sense of stigma where most playmates mums insisted on plays being at their place, never spoken directly but I got the impression that men were not trusted with kids. Not everyone but enough to be a little reminder of thensuspicion that men ar treated with around children. Having said that I think there are some parents who are like that regardless of the gender of the other parent.

Now I get the invisble, you don't matter bit where it does not matter how unjust the CSA formula is I'm risking being labelled as a dead beat dad for objecting to the amount I'm being stung with that and finding that no one in government cares less about fairness in that system. Strangly enough my ex does not seem to risk any stigma as a dead beat mum for choosing not to contribute while our son was in my care.

R0bert