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.

I'm not saying that most women don't want their XP to be involved - but I do assert that there are a hell of a lot of cases where PWCs deliberately keep access within certain bands to retain a certain level of maintenance. It's a fact, whether you like to hear it or not. There are forums absolutely full of NRPs who are banging their heads against a brick wall on this

Fact is, a hell of a lot of women think that the most significant thing an NRP can offer is money. And most PWCs don't want an NRP to have access above or beyound the usual every other weekend scenario, despite what the NRP wants.

And the fact that you don't want to acknowledge any of this and instead stick to 'majority' discussions, just leads me to think that you want a general bitch about NRPs.

Government are responsible for the original report that Gingerbread cite on their website truck - as you know because we have already had this debate.

Can't see anything on the FnF website about government endorsement. Nothing like Theresa May's endorsement of Gingerbread with the 'lose the labels' campaign. But I will stand corrected if you can show me.

OTOH FnF allude to the fact that government recognises the concerns of non-resident parents, but that doesn't mention FnF specifically.

If a decent man is being denied contact with his children then good for him for trying to do something about it. I admire him for it and wish him the best of luck. Sadly, I think he is a outnumbered by the number of men who just don't seem to care.

The majority discussion is of vital importance. Until we sort the problem facing the majority of children of separated parents we cannot hope to achieve anything.

Resident parents who use their child to their own ends certainly need tackling. But this affects far fewer children than those who suffer because the NRP is not contributing anything. If you address the minority situation first, all you do is create a breeding ground for the selfish or downright abusive to get their own way - as a result of which children will suffer most. However, if you tackle the majority problem first, you create a situation where not only is the welfare of the majority of children improved, you also create an environment where the excuses of the selfish/abusive resident parent can be seen through much more easily.

So if somene's predicament is not in the majority, it's not worth talking about

fwiw I too agree that any parent who is not involved in their child's life is despicable. But I refuse to see the wisdom or point in using the 'majority/statistics' argument to stigmatise a whole group of people. What purpose does this serve. ok statistics may say x, y or z, but what purpose does it serve to say this without taking some real action? All I can see on here is a whole group of people spouting about statistics

But sunshine the stigmatising that gave rise to this whole discussion was not about 'tackling' anything. I didn't hear anything which suggested any real action (unless I missed something)

Indeed SaF. The clue is in the word absent

And yes allnew sadly you are right. There is nothing in David Cameron's rhetoric to suggest any sort of positive action whatsoever. It is all just talk with no substance.

And where did I say that anything was not worth talking about?

I specifically made the point that the minority issues do need tackling. I went on to show how that would be most effective if the majority issue was tackled first.

LOL. Silver linings and all that...

"otherwise contribute to their own children's lives. " - and if an NRP can only contribute to the extent that he or she is 'allowed' within the very limited timescales set by a court, then their contribution is by definition to be very limited indeed in time terms. The speech, to my recollection, very specifically referred to some types of involvement that many NRPs find it difficult to achieve

Ys ma'am.

sunshine our posts at 7 and 8 mins past respectively were x-posts, so my comment at that time was not in response to your most recent post

Dione - so sad for your DS but Skype really is a godsend and does make a difference, I promise. We are in Australia (and have been since August 2009) and my Dad is in the UK but DS (3.7) knows who he is and recognises him because we use Skype regularly. They have a very good relationship, despite the distance, and the 3 times we have been back to the UK so far have been lovely for them to cement that relationship. So it can work better than you possibly are thinking it will; can't help re. the "Disney dad" situation though.

I agree as a nation we need to address majority issues first.

Secondly we need a survey, a very big one. Is it that there are 9 cases of mothers wanting an absent father to look after the children to 1 where a mother denies contact? Or is it vice versa? Once we know then we can work on the biggest issue first. If fathers think mother deny lots of contact and rarely do mothers want more but the father won't help out and those fathers are wrong to think that then we need those statistics published.

As someone said above ofte it is about how can you hurt someone. As my ex doesn't have to pay the only way he could make things harder for me as someone who works full time is never to help with the children. if I were a housewife who wanted my babies about me 24/7 the way he could hurt would be cutting off m oney and wanting the chidlren to live with him. If I were a housewife who hated an errant father the she might (although I never would) cut off contact.

The fact resident parents in most cases get more money the fewer nights the children spend with the other parent does not exactly encourage lots of contact. child benefit and tax credits shoudl be split too where contact is about 50/50and I don't think that's currently possbile and isn't very fair on those men who have children virtually 50.50

I think whatever the figure for NRPs not paying maintenance, it's too many. Yes, there are PWCs who prevent access, keep it to a minimum, refuse to work etc etc, none of the scenarios are fair.

But it doesn't take anything away from the fact that there are still way too many NRPs who shirk their responsibilities. And it's about time a fuss was made about that.