In my time as a single parent (father) I would hear women at kinder advising each other how they best could out of a marriage to be financial better off. In one case, the woman was making clear that she didn’t at all had any problems but just that the financial side was the issue. So, she was instructed how to manipulate the court system to split from her husband and have a property settlement that he is left with the debts and then she is better off.
As such, I am well aware of the rot that goes on, where women are couched by others how to get financial better.
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Then there is this millionaire who always screamed poor, and pays himself next to nothing as an income because he spends up big on business account, and so avoided paying child support.
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Child support actually became a financial bonanza, so to say, to the Federal Government, as now they ended up having to pay a lot less out to single parents, in many cases.
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With one child I managed a total of $300.00 child support to be paid over 15 years, against that I had to spend about every month hundreds of dollars to provide this child on access.
With 4 of my other children there was never any child support.
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When I became a single parent I purchased a house in the country (paid half of it then in cash) and over the years, other then paying the interest, I did not pay much off the original loan, but at least we had a roof above our heads we called our own.
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Despite the hardship we had, at least I managed with a mere $300.00 ever received in child support! I then ask why is it that when it comes to a non-custodian father they have to pay so much every week?
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I view child support should be abolished all together and rather that it be replaced with a form of taxation over the general community as ordinary tax is

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as to make sure that a non-custodian parent who may have been divorced by no fault on his own, is not made to suffer while the guilty party can use it to his/her advantage to rake in child support as some personal spending funds.
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As the Framers of the Constitution made clear the Federal Government could not make slaves out of children. Well, that is basically what it did using the child support system.
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Divorce should be made very unattractive as to protect the rights of the children.
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I accept that if there are genuine reasons to divorce then it generally is better to do so, but to divorce willy nilly and generally then the husband is denied proper contract while ta stranger may have all the time and ability to be with the children merely because of being the boyfriend of the wife, I view is an unacceptable situation.
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Men are far too often denied custody because the judges take the position that they were working and so were not the primary caregiver. What a nonsense, as generally men have no choice but to earn the crust for the family and as such rather then being recognised for their effort to provide for the family then it is being used against them. Their real ability to care for their children under estimated by pre-conceived idea’s rather then that where a father pursues custody than this alone ought to make clear that he desires to care for his children.
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No woman is born being a competent mother, indeed some never can become competent at all. Why then demand from men that somehow they have to prove it all without first being given the opportunity?
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We need to averhaul the entire system to make it fairer to all, not just the mother, or the father, or the children but for all in totality.

De-Fathered and Marginalised - The F4E Blog

I am looking for a recently separated father to write a daily blog (4 to 5 paragraphs per day) for the soon to be released Fathers4Equality Single-Father Blog, on his efforts and experiences at trying to continue to play an active and constructive fatherly role for his children's benefit, post separation.

Implicit in these daily descriptions would of course include the obstacles faced by the father in trying to achieve this goal. The true identity of the father or those mentioned in the blog will be concealed for obvious reasons.

I am ideally looking for someone who can write in an honest, compelling and sympathetic manner, without resorting to hate rhetoric, and without portraying the mother or the institutions of family law in this country in an overly simplistic, one dimensional manner.

It would also be ideal for the father to be using, or in some way be exposed to some of the arms of the family law industry, including counselling centres, family relationship centres, the Police, the Child Support Agency, DoCS, family law legal practitioners and the court system, and providing an observational insight into how these entities function in terms of their fairness and treatment of this father, and in how they have responded to the government's directive for equal parenting emphasis and fairer treatment for non-custodial fathers.

Please note that I am hopeful that this blog will be read primarily by non-single fathers, and the intent would be to challenge the current pervasive views of some politicians and the media that separated fathers are in general failures, and incompetent, angry and violent dead-beat dads who are less worthy and less capable of being a parent than mothers are. This is obviously not the case, but this is a stigma that all single-fathers are faced with, whether the politicians, media, police or other related institutions care to admit it or not.

If you wish to volunteer for this role, please submit a test blog entry for one day's events in the following feedback form.

http://www.fathers4equality-australia.org/equalparenting/f4efeedback.nsf/feedback

Ash Patil
President:Fathers4Equality

Ash, good luck with that. Overcoming those kind of perceptions is a long slow road.

On a positive note as a single dad with prime care I've been amazed at how supportive and encouraging women generally are to my role. Most seem amazed that I'm doing it being used to the model of dads not bothering with their kids.

R0bert