Cammeron on absent fathers

[LegoStuckinMyhoover]

"In an article for the Sunday Telegraph to mark Father's Day, he said it "simply isn't acceptable" for mothers to be left to bring up children on their own.

Cameron indicated his determination to introduce tax breaks for married couples ? a Tory general election pledge that appeared to have been dropped by the coalition in the face of Liberal Democrat opposition.

"I want us to recognise marriage in the tax system so as a country we show we value commitment," he wrote.

Before the election, Nick Clegg described Tory proposals to introduce a tax cut of at least £150 for married couples as "patronising drivel that belong in the Edwardian age"."

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jun/19/runaway-dads-drink-drivers-cameron

So, they take money from the sick, disabled, children, single parents, the poor, the middle earners-child benefit, tax credits, the schools, the NHS, etc, etc because of ''the deficit'', but happily want tax breaks for married couples?

We all know tax breaks will not make people stay together so, maybe someone run through the math here? Someone tell me this isn't all about ideology.

well, I agree with the sentiments of this article - men should be involved in bringing up their children..

We should have more draconian punishments for dads who dont pay. Apparently in Canada they get their passports and drivers licences taken off them.

He's right - children need a father, and one that's around 24/7.

Not literally 24/7 - that's not what I meant.
I meant a father who is married to the mother and cares about his family and their future - my dh works 70 hours a week and can go days without seeing his children - but they know he's at work and they know they have a secure family unit.
To add; married couples should get tax breaks - marriage is the best model for a successful society and research proves this. Not that I need it researched - it's common sense and obvious.

How exactly is Cameron proposing to shame these runaway fathers- tax breaks for married couples and more hv. Watch out we don't get crushed what with all those feckless Dads running for hills.
He says "There?s nothing we can do in Whitehall to force fathers to get involved." So all the talk of shaming them and making it like drunk driving but as far as I could see in the article he is planning to do fuck all squared. Unless he could get some volunteers from his Big Society to set up some stocks in every town across the country.
If he really thought it was a problem they should have had some decent proposals to give the mothers left coping some hope.

Primalscream, what do you propose should happen when a marriage breaks down?

I really don't think the vast majority of society sees abandoning your kids with no money as acceptable at all. It is not a new thing, there never was a golden age where all men took responsibility for their children, in fact in the past it was much easier to disappear.
Unfortunately the people that do abandon their kids aren't likely to feel any more shame if we all shout boo hiss at them. There needs to be some sort of concrete proposals as to how to make them take responsibility and the subsequent penalties if they don't.
The CSA was set up so that single parents could try and get financial redress- if it isn't working and by all accounts it isn't then more needs to be done- and not tax breaks for married couples and hv - I can't imagine 2 more useless weapons in the war against absent fathers. It's like trying to scare off a bear while holding a pack of sausages.

And then there's this article in The Guardian - so the services that are there to help these single parents and their kids are being eroded. I really do despair...

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jun/18/david-cameron-guru-big-society

It rings hollow when he makes life harder for the single mothers he says are doing a great job. That thing with children's allowance and the way single parents earning over a certain amount would lose money but women earning less but married to a high earner wouldn't lose any of theres, it wasn't fair,.

It is so easy for fathers to dodge paying maintenance. They just move on and either emigrate, or become 'self-employed'. SAFE in the knowledge that their x can't afford a court case.

I agree that isn't acceptable for fathers to just swan off. But a £150 tax break and making the CSA a chargeable service are not going to fix that. Ridiculous.

I don't think there are going to be many men or women who will stay in an unhappy marriage, or get married under duress, for £150 extra a year (or £2.88 a week). Absent fathers and unmarried couples are completely different issues IMO. As half of a happily unmarried couple, considering the cost of getting married these days how long would it be before we started making a profit after the big day?

Concentrate on making things better for single parents, not trying to persuade couples to get married by chucking them enough pocket money for the Sunday papers every week - now there's a bright idea.

If my x is reading this news story he will be thinking that it doesn't apply to him. It applies to 'scumbags'. He doesn't realise that being a scumbag is a mindset.

I wonder if DC has any comprehension of how easy it is to ignore a court order to pay maintenance. I would like to see men who defy court orders to pay maintenance charged and sentenced.

How many fathers out there don't pay a penny maintenance? HOW many of them have been punished in any real sense?

I agree with it wholeheartedly. Good for him for saying so.

My ex-husband refused to let us stay in the marital home unless I paid him over 150 thousand pounds and paid the mortgage. Therefore we had to leave and now he never sees the children because we are 400 miles away where I could get accommodation with a job.

The ones that David Cameron is talking to will be the ones who don't give a monkeys.

If Cameron truly believed this, he'd make sorting out the CSA a priority. But he's going to start charging to use it's 'services' If HMRC can locate a person for tax purposes, then they should damn well be able to do it for child maintenence purposes too. I have an ex who jumps from job to job in a deliberate effort to evade the CSA. The same CSA who keep saying they'll give him 'one more chance' before doing a deduction from earnings order. Fuck that. They have his bank account details. They want to punish and stigmatise? Hit them where it hurts- their wallet.

Taking driving licences and passports away would be a great idea. But watch out for threads on here with second wives or partners moaning about how unfair it is. There have been some horrible threads where people bitch about their step-children's mothers, begrudging every penny their husband pays in maintenance. They appear to think it's completely unreasonable for a father to support his existing children and outrageous that the mother of those children doesn't have to submit an itemised receipt for every penny. Oh, and that the father shouldn't have to pay for housing or utility bills because the mother would have to pay for those anyway if she was childless.

Edam+1

Snorbs - some people have unrealistic expectations of marriage and expect to be happy all the time - all marriages will have problems because it's hard being perfect - in fact it's impossible. what you do is resolve problems as and when they come up, you stick together and show your children that there's real commitment and stability in their lives. Children need security in order to thrive and be confident. Marriage is good for children and it's good for society.

Chillistars, that's a hard group to define though. My x believes that he's the injured party in all of this. He was so financially abusive that he left me with no choice but to move miles away so I could rely on family (I had two pre school children and a low earning potential). Despite this though, he believes I am the bad guy for moving away. The fact that I had no choice will NOT register with him, and so he punishes us by not contributing a penny. Although he is so mean I think it suits him to have an excuse to give us nothing.

We manage no thanks to him. BUT wrt to the stigma single mothers face, and they do even if it's subtle and not constant, it has always struck me as unfair that my x goes into work every day where he is in charge of a team of people and he is respected I presume. People know he has children but nobody knows that he doesn't pay maintenance.

My x probably votes for DC. Dc would probably like my x if he met him. DC knows nobody like me I'm sure.