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.

That's true. I don't think they used to worry about in the way we do now. My dad for example was exceptionally selfish and shit. When it was Father's Day last weekend he put loads of "aren't dads absolute heros" posts on FB. I ignored it.

Mary Corporate...... hmmm, left MN a while ago. Was that following a thread about maintenance, you sound awfully familiar?

Portofino - you are very wrong if you think that mothers have always happily worked outside the home in the United Kingdom. The cult of the stay at home mother is a long British tradition that most families aspired to (though, of course, many families could not afford).

WRT staying at home with your child, I'm a full time carer for our DS. Doesn't make me a SAHM, it makes me his fulltime, round the clock, 24/7, 365 carer.

I get paid a whole £54 per week. If I went into caring in a professional capacity, I'd earn more for those hours, not much more I grant you but still.....

I'm also registered as disabled myself and have huge molbility issues. I am unable to work and yet I have no choice but to care for DS in the way that I do.

If I were to put him into full time residential care, (I don't meen give him up, or a children's home) we'd have to pay hundreds of pounds for the same sort of care I give him.

SAHM, who choose to be, because they are in a position to do so, often get the shitty end of the stick, but I don't.

There's no difference really, I could do a job where I lie down all day, not that I know of any.......... but you know what I mean.

I really do think that if you can and you want to be a SAHM, then do it. I went back to work when DD was 2 months' old because I had to for financial reasons, ie to live! Only part-time but still. I missed out on her first steps, first words, first everything really. Those are things I can never get back.

I think that people need to be more open minded WRT SAHM and working parents. Everyone has their own reasons for doing what they do.

I didn't say they necessarily worked outside the home. Many had jobs working from home. I didn't say happily either. Much as now it was a financial necessity. My point is that it is only relatively recently that women or men make a choice to stay home purely to spend quality time with their children. Of course for a long time, many women were forced to give up their job when they got married, or had their first child.

No - I promise you, the cult of motherhood (with mothers devoted to their children and not working for money) is strongly rooted in English history!

Other countries have different histories, however.

Yes but surely this must have been a minority interest Bonsoir, the vast majority of people simply couldn't afford for able bodied people in the family over the age of about 10, not to work. Do you have any book recommendations about this subject?

I have done my family tree back 500 years. I can totally assure you that it was not the case for most families. The rich ones had nurses/nannies of course. Women did laundry/made gloves/ran small housings/inns etc They were charwomen, seamstresses, factory workers. They tended to have BIG families too. Childcare would have been a much more community based activity with the older children helping with the younger ones etc and granparents, neighbours etc doing their part.

In this century, yes the middle classes would probably have run a home, most likely with some domestic help and probably did have more time for their children. The working classes would have huge amounts of domestic labour - can you imagine having 7 kids, no supermarkets, no washing machine, no hoover, no bathroom? I can pretty much guarantee they weren't all doing arts and crafts with their toddlers.

I am glad that things have moved on. Women do have more choices. As SAF said we tend to care and worry about our kids more these days. And the world is a much more complicated place.

There's a great chapter in "My Naughty Little Sister" where all the kids go to the river to paddle/fish and take the toddler with them. She, of course, falls in the river and gets soaking wet. Then another time they go off to the fair and lose her, and she gets brought home by a nice policeman! Oh and she wanders off on Dad's watch and is found asleep at the local green grocers......Can you imagine these scenarios today? Someone would have called SS by now!

Quite

My ex

Absent for 9 years

Maintenance non

Other children he as 6

Income benefits

BUT HE'S A SCAPEGOAT

Men aren't an enemy as most of them choose to be with and spend time with their children. Men and women in all cultures have always worked. Work used to be homebased as we tilled the soil once we settled down to agriculture and women worked as much in that as men. Even in industrialisation most women worked - factories, millions as live in servants etc. and women stil do and want to work except now we are allowed to own property and are allowed to become surgeons, prime ministers, soldiers and the like so our choices are better. Most children used to die by the age of 5 sadly in the UK. anyway we are here were we are now and most men and women want to work and have families.

The issue of fathers (and some mothers) disappearing and neither paying nor doing childcare has always been with us. Thankfully most parents aren't like that.

Men who abandon their children and do not provide financial support for them are the real enemy.

The rest are fine, decent people. Nobody is criticising men who accept their responsibilities.

I think they should be thrown in jail (unless they're mentally ill) and made to do jobs for wages and all their money get divided between ALL the children EQUALLY, whether they are living with him or not!

Well those who start a second family whilst not being able to afford the first then are allowed to pay the first family less and indeed if the father chooses to stay home with the new babies whilst his rich new wife works he then doesn't have pay more than a nominal sum to the first family . Such is the system but it's hard to make a system work properly.

"Well those who start a second family whilst not being able to afford the first then are allowed to pay the first family less"

Well simple maths would dictate that any parent who has subsequent children spends less on the first (including obviously a PWC who goes on to have more)

Indeed but often in a marriage people stop at 2 because that's all they can afford and then later one moves on casts the first family aside, does not pay them but has more children with someone else.

Or in a number of cases I know, the PWC goes on to have more children with someone else, gives up their job and so first children really do get a lot less spent on them, despite payments from the NRP remaining the same. So in effect PWC moving on with new family, not contributing at all towards their own first family

"Not contributing at all"?

I hardly think so.

Well fathers are considered to be not contributing at all if no money is paid (which I agree with - that is inexcusable). So I'm not sure why it's ok for a PWC not to contribute financially because of subsequent children

Um hello? The PWC is caring for the children. You don't stop caring for your older children, because you've had a baby. And see further up the thread for the financial value of caring for children, we've already had this discussion on this thread.

You can care for late teen children and still have a job though . The job-giving up that I'm referring to was specifically due to new, young, children. The elder teens would be much better 'cared for' with some extra money coming into the household than a stressed mum at home running around after 4 new young ones with not enough money.