Really? we think that "that organisation" are representative of fathers in general? really?

But sAf, 50/50 parenting would tie the father just as much as the mother. My ds can't leave this area because he has a ds with a local girl. He would love 50/50 but she won't agree. It may end up in court because she's not being reliable re contact.

Perhaps we need to develop foolproof contraception, or that 'something in the water'

as for unplanned pregnancies a woman would have to choose what to do re: abort or keep but also choose whether she wanted to tell the man she was pregnant and put him on the birth certificate or move away and have the child on her own.

i'm not saying this is ideal but that if it came to the extreme of having a man's child meaning loss of right to choose where you live and automatic 50/50 division of residency then logically more women would avoid getting themselves into that situation.

Most definitely sAf.

there are fab websites out there for getting pregnant - men who are happy to just be donors and have no contact, people who want to find a co parent, couples and single women looking for donors (because they want to avoid the expense of clinics or because they'd rather use someone who will remain anonymous or because they want to use someone who'll be willing to meet the resulting child and have some degree of contact with them so that they know all of their family history etc), lesbian couples looking for sperm donors etc etc etc.

it is really surprising what kind of people are on these sites offering to donate sperm. i know of one guy who is a very successful scientist who has fathered 5 children by donating to lesbian and single women trying to conceive and he is of the kind who doesn't want to play a role of father in the child's life but is happy to be contacted by them at any point to answer questions, satisfy curiosity etc.

it is in law now that a clinic does not have to take into account whether there will be a father in the picture when providing a woman with fertility treatment.

loads of options if it came to it. and if they push so far down this father's rights road that a woman loses any control over a life after having a child those options will be taken up more and more imo because it will cease to be worth risking one's entire future on having a child with a man. much safer to have your children independently and foster romantic relationships aside from that arrangement if you are heterosexual.

I feel really sickened that the contact order that my ExH obtained, which he had intention ever of sticking to, has caused huge emotional harm to my DCs. My DD especially is very upset that he has done this, and that he chooses to prove an entitlement over me whilst choosing not to see her when he should/could.

In that sense, the family courts need an upgrade...

Can I not type F4J, then? Is it taboo or summat?

My own favoured method, when in a fascistic mood because of some horrible child abuse case, is to put "somethong in the water" and only provide the antidote when a couple can "prove" they'd be fit parents

There's a great feminist science fiction book called 'Benefits' which takes exactly that idea and runs with it.

OK, I like the sound of a parent contract. How do we suddenly prevent all the unplanned pregnancies?

(My own favoured method, when in a fascistic mood because of some horrible child abuse case, is to put "somethong in the water" and only provide the antidote when a couple can "prove" they'd be fit parents, not sure how we achieve that though! )

sperm donors, one night stands/short-term relationships, or even parent contracts where you find a father in much the same way you'd interview for a job vacancy and come to an agreement about the amount of time involved/maintenance payable (if any)/rules for future moves, etc. TBH given that nearly half of all children end up with their parents separating, the last option might actually provide a more consistent level of involvement and can be just as beneficial if both parents are enthusiastic about it.

How are women to have dc without men? Everyone use anonymous donors? Artificial sperm?

Exactly SaF, and they can exercise that contact as frequently or infrequently as they choose, but heaven forbid the mother say "enough" because she'll find herself in breach of a court order that lasts until the children are teenagers mothers need the option to take court orders back to court and have them overturned if the father isn't taking up his contact.

And on top of that, any tiny thing done by the father is seen as "better than nothing", "a start", "better than some fathers". Someone said this to me on a thread about my XP who moved 400 miles away and speaks to the children once a week on the phone, he hasn't seen them now for 11 months. I am "bitter" but the level of contact he has is "a start". He was a major part of their lives until I had the temerity to end our relationship, it is NOT a start to phone them once a week FFS, it is shameful.

i think if we got to a stage like this where having a child with a man meant that if you broke up you'd be forced to have a 50/50 residency arrangement and forced to live in the same town as him regardless of life changes, career needs, needing your families support (re: you live on the other side of the country with the love of your life and have a child with him and then he fucks off and leaves you for another woman and you're not allowed to move home to have the support of your family of origin and old friends and where there are better career options for you etc but have to stay living round the corner from him and his new girlfriend for the next 18yrs) then women would wake up and start having their children differently eg. as single women rather than the old nuclear family model.

it would simply be too dangerous and risky a business for them to have a child in a relationship. by a different route of alleged equality we'd end up back 50 years in a scenario where having a man's child meant him controlling the rest of your life.

intelligent women who valued their ability to have some control over their lives would have their children on their own in their early 30's when they had financial security and seek romantic fulfillment and sexuality etc as a thing separate from parenting. is that really what men would want?

apart from which the courts can't force contact.

they never say a father 'must' see his children for those weekends and nightlies. it's a right that they can exercise IF they wish. many men don't want to see their children at all, many more are perfectly happy with the 2 wkds a month because they are free to do whatever they like the rest of the time and not have their lives inconvenienced by actually being a parent.

you couldn't have 50/50 as a standard when we don't even have ANY contact from the nrp as obligatory.

there is a long way to go before that would be viable and i too am prone to agree that it isn't in the interests of the children - i actually don't think it's in the interest of parents either who would have no freedom to move and be forced to live very locally to each other forevermore regardless of whether they could afford or in fact one could afford to move to a better area where their child could go to a good school but the other can't/won't. etc.

I can understand why, given recent events, Sophie's was deleted, but not the one before it.

I agree with sunshine on 50/50. It is not ideal in many circumstances, and to have any arrangement as "default" is unhelpful. 50/50 (or any similar large split) relies on both parents not being, as SGB puts it, arseholes. In a lot of situations at least one person is. Large splits of time rely on good communication between the two parents - if they're in court they clearly can't communicate with each other and 50/50 stands very little chance if working particularly smoothly.

I would add that had my parents split up, I would have hated 50/50 as a child, and that is with two excellent and equal parents who are able to communicate with each other very well (probably why they haven't split up!) I really don't understand why some people can't recognise that some children would not cope well with such an arrangement. Even as an adult I would hate to have "two homes" and to have to constantly move between them - so why would I expect my children to do it?

I read the posts that were deleted above and struggle to understand why they broke Talk Guidelines.

As someone who grew up being shifted between two flats on a one week here, one week there basis (from eleven until thirteen, at which point my father decided buggering off to the other side of the world with his girlfriend for a year was a reasonable concept , didn't see my mum behaving like that). It was not a good thing and has probably contributed in a small way to my mental health issues that I am still dealing with.
I, for one, think, in the case of parents splitting up and divorcing,the most important people to consider are the children and what is best for them.

As I've said before, it's perfectly possible to have a lovely, amiable, fully-functioning co-parent relationship with your DC's other parent without needing to involve the courts. All that's required is for neither of you to be an arsehole.

Xenia - I would expect most MNers to support children and not abusive, violent men who threaten to shoot people who disagree with them.

''The way to manage this is to have the courts continue to issue residency arrangements that reflect the status quo before the split but put a lot more pressure on men and women to share parenting equally before then so that reflecting the status quo does actually mean awarding 50/50.''

Yes exactly. Equal parenting begins at the birth of a child, not a few weeks after the breakdown of a relationship when you realise how much money you'll be forking out in child support.

''living off male earnings post divorce'', do you really think £40 a week is enough to 'live off? That's the average amount of child support paid, in case you didn't know.

Also, by the time a child is in school, there are more single mums in work than there are married mums. I'm not really keen on the way you're spouting all this anti-single mum rhetoric tbh. Single mums do a fab job, and they deserve respect support, not to be the target of malicious and untrue statements.

''women mind children and men work which is about 50 years out of date''

heh, tell that to men then, women still do the vast bulk of childcare and housework. If anyone is going to give up work or shift to part-time hours following the birth of a child, it's going to be the mother. It doesn't seem to me that men as a whole even consider sacrificing their careers to stay home and bring up children.

you suggested I endorse DV!!!

If MNHQ ran a new policy of deleting everything anyone took offense to, there would be nothing left to read.

Posts don't get deleted because someone finds them offensive. They get deleted if they break talk guidelines

eh?

think just the one set of rules as in the talk guidelines - which mnhq have confirmed weren't broken.

there's plenty of stuff on here i find offensive - doesn't mean it should be deleted.