Absent fathers to be made into scape goats

[ivykaty44]

absent fathers

as a single mother who has lived without maintenence for periods of time and at times struggled to make ends meet I still think it is awful to suggest making a group of people stigmatised.

there are good NoneResidentParents and there are useless NRP, it isn't just absent fathers but sometimes absent mothers. What sort of country do we live in thuogh where we would want to stigmatise a whole group of people.

Better to keep the CSA free and make it work rather than the clerical mess it is at the moment.

Come on, I didn't have anyone nearby, just a plain old childminder. But I've built up a good support network now, we all help eachother out if our children are sick or whatever, it's what you make of it.

I think Nanying or childminding is a fine profession. It's skilled, monitored, regulated, targetted, brings home the bacon.. what's not to like? Wouldn't do it for free though.

No woman should have to do it for free.

But it's hilarious that you think it's a great thing if done by someone who has no long term emotional, social or biological investment in a child but is doing it because s/he is paid, but worthless if it's done by those awful people, mothers.

You really have swallowed a patriarchal set of values, haven't you?

And no childminder/ nany would do it free. Why? Because it is of value and hard work.

Apart from the fact its paid by a private employer it not really that different to a SAHM in terms of the atcual work of getting children ready, cooking, cleaning, ironing, travelling etc etc

I say this as someone who and lived out nannied when I first graduated and I dont see it that different as raising my own dc apart from obviously not being under someone elses style of parenting.

People have no qualms placing a value on chilcare professions and rightly so, so if it happens to be your own dc's why is this worthless?

As someone who works and does everything a SAHM I can see both sides of the coin clearly and see each type of work as just as valuble and demanding as the other, and am as equally as proud so despise the SAHM work is worthless attitude.

So you seem to think Herb!

In the interest of not going around and around in circles I feel that the people who are of most value in life are those who physically bring money in to the home to A, provide for their children and B, to give themselves as much financial indpendance as any of us can in this climate so as to not have to rely on another person to do this for them.

In my utopia these people would always be the women, because I think women have suffered long enough and I genuinely beleive they have more to offer. At the moment these people are mainly men. This has to change.

Ideally, paternity leave would be extended, the pay gap would disappear and companies would be more flexible in terms of both parents being able to take parental leave.

However, as it is not in the interest of MPs and heads of corporations (men) for this to happen, we need to kick up a huge stick and refuse to allow this to continue where we can.

Come on, I didn't have anyone nearby, just a plain old childminder. But I've built up a good support network now, we all help each other out if our children are sick or whatever, it's what you make of it.

So these will be people who are available to help you out then. Isn't that exactly what I just said?

Well yes, but I have created a network, surely anyone could do that?

I mean I didnt have my parents or friends or relitives etc

Oh my god mary, I seriously seriously hope your version of utopia is never realised. and

Yet another person who seems to know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Too busy chasing the £££s to know the difference I presume.

Right. So someone who doesn't physically bring money into the home, is not as valuable as someone who does?

So when women are on maternity leave, getting four hours sleep a night and breastfeeding 12 hours a day, they should accept the fact that they're no longer as valuable as their husbands who are physically bringing in money should they?

God you sound like one of those many abusive husbands who populate mumsnet threads. The sort so many single mothers leave in the end...

A person's value is equated to their salary?

And women who are unable to work because their disabled children need 24 hour care are less valuable than those of us who do paid work are they?

And women who give up paid work in middle age to care for parents with alzheimers?

Gosh.

Oh don't forget children HerBex. Under mary's model children, the elderly and the disabled are all worthless because they don't earn anything.

Note the 'where we can' at the end and the several references I have made to carers throughout before you get your knickers in a twist.

A person who is able to earn 's value is equated to whether or not they actually bother to do so, yes.

I think we can sensibly assume that I'm not referring to women who have just given birth...

I had an abusive husband, I can assure you I am not one.

He would have preferred me to stay at home and raise the kids whilst he earned.

Where they can is where we have the argument

You keep insisting that they can, when you chose to for your children

Not everyone has the same attitudes, outlook, or circumstances as you.

Where you think they can, may not be where they think they can.

You don't appear to have enough empathy to be able to cope with the fact that some mothers will make a different judgement about how and when they can work, than you do and that that does not mean they or you are making the wrong choice, it just means that you are different and that different choices will be the right ones for you and your families.

I didnt say men should take on childcare roles. I think professionals should, they could be men or women.

Where they can as in, where there is not actual reason that they can't.

How is it the right choice for your family when it leaves you open to financial insecurity?

An don't get me started on breastfeeding. Yawn.

"A person who is able to earn 's value is equated to whether or not they actually bother to do so" - Who determines who is able to earn? Who is deserving to have value outside of their personal income generation and who isn't?

Either people have value outside of their income generation or they don't. Splitting hairs between the able and the unable only brings judgement on whether or not the unable are really unable and automatically gives a lower value and place in society.

The idea that any person's value is based on their paycheck is revolting to me. A person's inner value is surely intrinsic and not based on something so petty, that can be lost so quickly (see the redundancies all around us). It's a very sad mindset.

Being self employed is hardly security.

"Add message | Report | Message poster herbietea Sun 19-Jun-11 12:53:13

I get really pissed off at the term "runaway father". DH didn't runaway, his Ex did, taking their son with her. DH came home from work one night, when his DS was 10months old, to find the house completely stripped off furniture and his Ex and child gone!

He paid maintenance every month without fail for DSS. When DSS was 4 his Ex met another man, it upset him for DH to ring or see DSS so his EX went to a solicitor (on Legal Aid) and lied through her teeth about DH. We tried to fight it, but we had no money to pay solicitor bills so had to accept the situation. DSS is now 20 and he is back in DH's life, but it really upsets me at the way he was used. Why aren't these women stigmatised?"

I know I'm late to this bun fight thread but I'd like to second herbetea's post above. This is exactly what happened to my step father. His XW cleaned him out in every sense of the word and took their daughter with her.

She was, an still is a vile and twisted woman, who had affair, after affair, after affair. And yet, my DSF had to pay for a child he NEVER saw for years until the court awarded him a set amount of access.

I didn't know him at the time, when she left, but I saw what it did to him over the years, fighting to see his daughter, his flesh and blood.

Did she get hung, drawn, and quartered? Did she bollocks.

This all boils down to bloody labels, yet again. Grouping the sheep in the same pen...... tared with the same brush etc........

Oh well breastfeeding is something men can't do Mary, so it obviously has no value whatsoever.

Maybe we should bring back Whet nurses HerBex - outsource that too as a paid activity?

Shame Mary can't quite work out that some jobs don't pay enough to pay for professional childcare. Like professional child carers for example....

What about the voluntary sector? All those jobs could be deemed worthless since they pay no wages. And if everyone is in full-time paid work, who is going to do them? Shall we shut down charities, sure start centres, women's aid, coast guard services, libraries, firemen...

Certainly women (and a few men) wrongly deny contact and plenty leech off each other.

On the subject of the value of particular services most couples work in the UK and also do al ot of childcare. The few where one stays at home those service can be valued. They are worth about £45k a year I think if the other person dies - nanny, cleaning costs etc. which is why on a divorce you should be paid the valueo f the services you provide NOT a percentage of the other earner's wealth when you never earned it nor gave up any meaningful career to let them.