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 should say the risk of relationship breakdown

But the arrangement of finances/who works is very relevant indeed upon separation. I work solely with people who have 'careers' rather than jobs. And it is still the women who prefer to be the one who goes part time or gives up work after having children. They openly admit this is the case - and the fact that they have a 'career' rather than a job, as you put it, gives them the financial freedom to make this choice.

If you have a career (as opposed to a job) and you give it up in order to care for your family, you are personally financially no better off than someone in a minimum wage job that gives up work to care for their children. £0 income is £0 income, whatever your qualifications/skills/experience.

However, you probably have a darn sight more education that will enable you to (a) contribute significantly more to running of your household and the upbringing of your children (b) negotiate a fair deal with your partner. And you will in all probability have equity and savings of your own.

Bonsoir the point is that the person in that scenario has the choice. So all this talk about sacrifice and inequality is not relevant to such cases

It is also quite insulting to say that having an "good" education = (a) contributes significantly more to running of your household and the upbringing of your children (b) allows you to negotiate a fair deal with your partner. Millions of women have done this successfully for millenia without degrees etc. I agree about having money of your own....

Yes it's an odd assumption that if you have a degree or whatever then your DH will 'give' you more of his income, as opposed to if you left school with no GCSE's.

All the WAGS seem to do ok, and I doubt many of them gave up 'careers'

Hi everyone. Just popped back to this thread and it seems to have gone off on a bit of a tangent. But I like tangents.

Despite this being a thread about separated parents, I think the 'second earner' tag is something that women need to think about and discuss. It's all well and good Xenia saying that women should all marry men who earn less than them, which is one solution, but it's not a very realistic one in our current cultural and economic climate. Because women are at the bottom of the pile in terms of income, there will be a shortage of men 'below' them. Also, there is plenty of research out there that shows that people overwhelmingly choose to marry people in a similar socio-economic vein as themselves. If like is marrying like, because of the gender pay gap a woman is statistically way more likely to marry a man who earns more than she does, even if they're in the same field. The only way marrying 'beneath' you (at least in terms of finance - this conjures up terrible images of rampant snobbery otherwise) can take off is if we achieve a pendulum swing in the workplace with women taking more top jobs than men and having a gender pay gap in their favour. In other words, a gender reversal of the current state. I don't particularly want that. I don't want women's position to be based on subjugation of men, I simply want equality.

I think the only way forward that will benefit married women who are second earners, SAHMs and single parents is recognition that caring for and raising a child is important and equates to a significant economic value even if it is not measurable in cash terms.

How we achieve that is something else of course.

D'you know, I keep having visions of the girl from Pulp's "common people".

I've never thought of " 'avin' a bit o' ruff" as striking a blow for equality.

Sometimes, mumsnet is fucking bonkers.

But SaF don't you know you are abnormal if you are single

I think the number of single-person households are increasing year on year though aren't they, are certainly the number of single parents are. I wonder how long it would take before 'critical mass' is reached, where more people are single than in a relationship. That would have major repercussions.

LOL at HerBex - I will never be able to listen to that song the same way now.

allnewtaketwo - you see, I don't think the person in that scenario has as many choices as you might think. If you want to replace yourself at home with someone decent to care for your child, who is fully taxed and insured, and you pay a cleaner, the costs of working, as I pointed out earlier, are so high that even the highly qualified think twice about it. TBH, I don't know many people who don't cut corners on the quality of childcare in order to make a decent profit from going to work and they are often working very hard indeed (long hours/international travel).

Portofino - the correlation between child outcomes and the level of education of mothers is very well established in practically all economies.

I don't agree Bonsoir. I am one of these so-called 'career' people. However I chose to go part time. I have not 'replaced myself at home'. DS goes to nursery. I do not have a cleaner etc. I don't cut any corners on the quality of chidcare, and I make quite a large profit from going to work.

You are lucky if you can do a career job part-time. That's a choice that not many people have.

I have always worked FT. I was the main wage earner when dd was born, though DH has slightly overtaken me in the last couple of years. We paid for "quality" childcare for 2 years (cost about 20% of our joint income). Nowadays dd is at school and we have a cleaner. Allowing for that, and afterschool/holiday cover, that costs about 3000 euros per year. I spend more than that on going on holiday.

I KNOW how lucky I am.

Yes I'm lucky - but also I chose my career and chose to join my current company knowing that they were flexible and that the hours were ok

Like HerBex said earlier, most people (male and female) don't have careers, they have jobs. Most people (male and female) can request flexible working to a degree, but that isn't going to equate to being able to pick and choose their hours.

Most people (male and female) are not higher rate tax payers, so saying all women need to make better career choices when at school/college/uni/taking their first job is a very ineffective solution to women achieving more equality in the workplace. There simply aren't that many top jobs to go round full stop. If every 16-year-old girl alive today did this and became a lawyer/doctor/banker (whatever) in the future all that would happen is that salaries in that sector would decrease, meaning they would be no better off than any woman working today in an ordinary job on an ordinary salary. The nature of capitalism requires the top earners of our society (male or female) to be a minority.

Having children is not something that is going to stop happening. It is the driving force behind the continuation of our species. It's not a lifestyle choice in the same was choosing to give up a car.

Someone - usually a woman - has to care for and rear these children to independence. This is a issue that affects the whole of society, since the vast majority of us are parents, yet the cost is borne disproportionately by female parents.

Many many women wish to care for their children themselves, while others have no choice but to do that themselves because childcare costs are prohibitive to anyone on an average salary or less.

We have to recognise that our society fundamentally requires childbearing and rearing to continue as much as it does economic growth. One cannot exist without the other. Yet one is held in much higher regard than the other, in a way that disproportionately favours men.

I fucking hate this jealousy culture.

" I want everything I want and I want what they have as well but I'm not prepared to do fuck all to make it happen, he fucked me so he owes me a living"

They owe and are owed a right to participate in the upkeep and raising of the child (ren). Thats it. If you take any of those rights away then how can you not expect similar in return ?

Or of course I could always have refused to have had sex unless he wore a condom, because believe it or not its my choice as well.

luvvinlife I'm not quite sure what your strange rant is about, this is not about jealousy it's about justice. The thread is about men who don't pay maintenance. Just to point out, most people have children with men who have agreed to have children with them and have them on the basis that the person they have the children with, is going to be an equal parent.

"I want everything I want and I want what they have as well but I'm not prepared to do fuck all to make it happen, he fucked me so he owes me a living

Can I rephrase to: "I want to have a child that doesn't curtail my job or my social life, but I can't be bothered to get up in the night, give up lie-ins, change nappies and clean up vomit, or take a day of work, so I'll leave all that up to the missus but I reserve the right to act all hurt and upset when she leaves and will express my hurt by refusing to pay for said child."

This isn't about women, although it should be, it's about children and father's who fail to step up. I would like to see more money given to women who give up careers or career progression too....afterall I've had four dcs and if I'd worked the four years I've missed out on should be compensated if my marriage breaks down.

Bollocks...its about children having the right to be brought up by responsible parents.

or take a day of work, so I'll leave all that up to the missus

Oh ok, I should have kicked DH out of bed at 3am in the morning to see to DS and expected him to go and work 10 hours a day without the opportunity for a catnap during the day.

Even better, he could have taken loads of odd days off at short notice so we either had no real holidays together or he got the boot...but hey...its ok 'cause I got to have my equal rights.

See, that response is typical of having no idea about what shared responsibility entails. Moronic.

You shouldn't have done anything that isn't right for your family luvvin.

However, if you and your DP/ DH split up, whichever one of you doesn't get care and control of your children, should pay the other maintenance because that is a child's right.