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.

Primal, I think you are the one with unrealistic expectations. Not all marriages are happy or even OK. Levels of domestic violence this country are appallingly high. Yeah, it's great if people who are fundamentally decent can stick together and be happy, but that's not going to happen in every case. Some people have sadly made a mistake and married a Grade 1 shit and some people have just married the wrong person.

My mother has a theory that Mother Nature encourages you to fancy the person whose genes will go well with yours. And that's not necessarily the person who would make the best life partner.

Primalscream me and my DP do a pretty good job of that without a marriage certificate, just as some married men do a good job of buggering off at the first sign of trouble or a better looking prospect. Its about commitment to family, not a piece of paper.

PrimalScream, Only good marriages that work are good for children. When a dysfunctional relationship disolves it's better for the child. I think DC and his policies refuse to acknowledge that.

Edam, think your mother was right!! I'm a short pale freckly Irish person with tipp-ex white skin. Was attrcted to a tall mixed race guy who is an ARSE, but our chidren are lovely. Sometimes wish I'd chosen another freckly irish person with skinny white legs and invisible eyelashes though. . ah well, too late now. I can't cut and paste a dad in now.

I tried to point that out on one of the step-parent threads and was told 'oh, but if the father had had more children with his first wife there would have been less money to go round anyway - it's no different if he sets up house with a second family'. They refused to see that no-one would imagine when they had a second child that they could suddenly support their first child on £5 a week. It's amazing what lies people can tell themselves to justify unreasonable behaviour.

It depends what you call dysfunctional doesn't it - a dh who gets drunk one night and calls your mother a fat hippo? snoring too much? laughs at jokes he shouldn't? - I'm sure people have got divorced over less -
Unless there's violence towards you or the children - stay together.
And if marriage is 'just a piece of paper' - what are you scared of?

Not scared at all Primalscream, I just don't see the need for it when we're both happy as we are, and so is our child.

Your examples show that people do get divorced for what can seem quite petty reasons to outsiders, yes, thanks for proving my point that marriage is not a firewall against people walking out on relationships they should possibly try and sort out before making such a drastic decision. But I do think that you are being a bit short-sighted by citing dysfunction as not applying to anything else than just physical violence. A relationship with, for example, no mutual love and respect, can have a very negative effect on children.

People never really change that drastically - the man ( or woman ) you marry at 25 is not going to suffer a complete personality transplant at 35 - yes people can change a bit here and there - they'll be a few tweaks in your personality along the way - but your fundamental personality is set in childhood and never changes. So, basically what I'm saying is this; you knew exactly what you were getting into from day one - people use the -. 'oh he's/she's changed so much' - no they haven't, people say that to cover up their own inability to work at it - nothing successful just 'happens' - it takes work and effort - if everything was so easy we'd all be Alan Sugar wouldn't we.
And by not getting married you're admitting you want the back door left permanently open for a quick get away.

I think we're moving away from the original point of this thread Primalscream, but I will say that there is no quick getaway when children, a home and a life built together are involved, whether you have got married or not, so sorry, but I don't buy into your idea that I haven't got married so I can merrily kick my partner out as soon as we start to annoy eachother, completely guilt-free. I also think it is very naive to think that people can't change, seemingly wonderful people can't end up being assholes, and nice people can't do hurtful, terrible things to those around them.

OP, I think you're right about DC's interview being all about ideology - the exact same ideology PrimalScream supports and I do not.

I think he's making a very valid point about feckless, absent, non-contributing dads needing to become as socially unacceptable as drink driving. Women who abandon their families are treated like social pariahs.... why not start giving men in the same position a harder time? Not feasible for every relationship to stay together, of course, and I don't think anyone's seriously suggesting otherwise. But if a relationship breaks down it shouldn't be socially acceptable for one party to disappear without a backward glance, dumping financial responsibility for their children's upbringing on the state.

You can blame liberal politics and feminism for that -

Sure, let's blame feminism

The driving license/passport thing will never happen because of their yoomn' rites. Would be good though.

i think greater flexibilty to transfer tax free component for income tax would be good for married couples, money problems is a big part of a lot of marriage breakdowns, some cash to enable them to get a baby sitter to have couple time would be appreciated.

There definitely needs to be attachment to earnings/benefits to take money from losers.

David Cameron is all talk. Its all spin and PR. Look at his actions: penalising people for using the CSA and actually making these fathers face their responsibilities.

Lying shit. He gives politicians a bad name.

I doubt it. The CSA has a wide range of powers to enforce payments but it can't be arsed to employ them. Just because we're going to be charged to use the CSA it doesn't mean they'll magically start being efficient.

After all, it's not like you'll be able to say to the CSA "You're not giving me value for money so I will take my business elsewhere". The CSA will remain the only route for enforcement so if you can't get an amicable agreement you'll still be stuffed.

Shouldn't this be about absent parents not just dads? What about absent mums? My friend has four boys mum lives nearby and visits other people locally, but does nothing for her boys and doesn't even visit them. He found it very hard when she left as child benefit etc.. was in her name and she refused to transfer it over so he had to take her to court for that.

What about mums and dads that refuse to let other parent see the child(ren), even when there are no DV or other issues that would warrant it, should they have their passports taken off them when they refuse to pay?

What about dads who are not biological dads, but have had their name put on the birth cert by mums either through lack of knowledge about who the biological dad is or wishful thinking on their part? Should they have to pay hundreds of pounds for a CSA approved DNA test to remove their name?

Some of the payments will be in the form of a percentage of collected maintenance, but you will also have to pay up-front to get them to even look at the case.

ZhenXiang, I agree. I'm a man and my children live with me. My ex has been a righteous pain in the arse with the CSA by bouncing between short-term work and benefits quicker than the CSA could keep up and also simply ignoring all requests for information. She has got a bit better over the last few months but I doubt it will last. Sadly, even though around 1 in 10 single parents are men we are almost always ignored in such discussions.

This is going rather off-topic but a man having his name on the birth certificate is not always because he's "bloody daft" about anything other than trusting the woman he's in a relationship with. That happened to a friend of mine. Damn near destroyed him.

Good for him for saying so -and so let us now see him making sure that absent fathers are leaned on heavily - I believe all payments from absent fathers should come from attachments to wages, benefits, pulled from self-employed by deduction from taxes paid etc

He said absent fathers because in 99.9% of cases it is the father who is absent. >