Geldof on marriage - Grrr!

[Sheila]

Anyone see this appallingly unbalanced programme last night? Bob's solution to the current breakdown in marriage is:

1)Women (who initiate 70% of divorces) should learn to put up with men's emotional illiteracy.
2)Divorce should be made more difficult.
3) Single parents should be made less well off (hah!)

Clearly Bob's still smarting from being thrown over for Michael Hutchence ("Taj Mahal of crotches" - that must've hurt).

As for Germaine Greer's contribution - how that woman can call herself a feminist any more is beyond me!

Sorry for the rant but I'm still fuming that someone with such ill-thought out views is given air time. I also worry that his views might influence policy-makers. As if reducing benefits to low income families (single parent or not) is going to decrease the divorce rate!

mm - I heard she still had to go off and be housewifey in it!!!

LOU GO BEFORE I'M FORCED TO DO SOMETHING THAT WILL DEFINITELY END UP HURTING ME FAR MORE THAN IT HURTS YOU!!!

"It seems that for every good-but-badly-treated father there are a handful of other ones who are crackers."
1 for a handful.... oohhh please !

I think mothers tend to get custody because they do most of the parenting in a marriage. The way UK society is organised most women (at least when children are small) stay at home or work part-time. Even when women work full-time they do most of the parenting at home (like myself). Men can be very vocal when it comes to custody-fights and these fathers who climb Buckingham Palace or throw things at prime-ministers.... You never see them climb buildings fighting for lower nursery fees, rights to paternity leave, shorter working-hours......They only seem to get involved when they want to be whereas mothers are there all the time for their children - generally speaking of course.

I am not sure if marriage is taken too lightly these days. It could also be that people stayed in very unhappy marriages in the old days and a lot of women could not leave as they were financially dependent on their men.

If I was married to Bob Geldof it might not have lasted that long either, as he looks really grumpy and like he doesn't wash....

I do need to clear up from dinner and have a shower it is true.

Your poor old dh is underappreciated as much as mine moo, shall we swap?!!!

I think I was one of less than a handful of people on the fathers4justice thread who said that they had a right to protest at the law if they genuinely felt it was unjust. I have sincereviewed my position slightly as I think protesting in general is okay but am totally against personal attack they carried out on the Lib-Dem candidate at a local election.

I am not unhappy with the idea of a review of the law on parental access after divorce but I resent any arguments that claim that family break-ups are caused by women's overly high expectations with out looking into why women start divorce proceedings - how many of them have been victims of domestic violence? how many of them have been left holding the baby after the father of their children left the family to have an affair?

I assume Germaine Greer's presence was to give a false senseof balance in the programme - ie it can't be a misogynist rant because they had a feminist on it!

well said Fairymum

I don't want to swap him for your dh, lou

I'll swap him for a nice big bar of Green and Blacks though

Sexyandhappy, you are right to ask "Why should fathers have so little access to their kids?" but for every woman being spiteful and vendictive (SP?) towards ex partners regarding their children there is at least one man who has walked away from his children and never looked back. The problem with family law is that it assumes that both parties are reasonable when in reality this is often far from the truth. Personally I think the system has to be re-examined and every case should be judged on its merit but whilst in an ideal world 50/50 split is preferable and fair in most ordinary mortals lives it is simply impractical. Their will always be a loser and sadly it is the children in the middle who, when parents deal with it badly, end up being the biggest losers. One cannot be responsible for an ex's actions and I think people are capable of the most horrendous things in these circumstances but sadly sometimes neither party has the child/rens best interests as sole motivating factor. OMG I think I am probably agreeing with BG BUT I am not blaming men or women alone. And I certainly don't believe couples should stay together only "for the children".

Oh go on then.

winnie - totally agree. I was one of those children in the middle and definantly lost out. I wish I could word my posts as well as yours!!

Fairymum, completely agree with your point regarding why women tend to get residence.

watched the programme last night and yet again felt that women who are also the main earners get shafted from all directions dh will probably get custody if we divorce at this rate

Message withdrawn

I liked the first show, but the second! I mean it was said before and I agree, for everyman who wants full access 50/50 custody there are 2 more who do not, and don't want to have to support their kids either. And quite honestly the reasone(In my opinion) a lot of marrieges break down is because the men stop doing anything family/wife/child related. So why would a woman whose husband never fed their kids a proper meal of his own making, a man who never was interested in family vacations or school work or any of that, why would a woman wnat to turn her kids over tho that man!?>!?! And why didn't Bob talk about that!

I thought some parts of the programme were quite outrageous - particularly the part when Bob asked the retired judge how many allegations of sexual abuse or domestic violence made against fathers by the mothers were fabricated to deny fathers access - judge " that's a good question....I would imagine most of them". Incredible - where's the evidence to back this up?! I thought Margaret Hodge was great and the close ups of Bob's face when she was talking - literally wincing as she demolished his arguements with facts and figures said it all really.

ggglimpo, sadly your story is so common. I have a friend whose ex rings her on Friday night and says "I'm coming to get the kids tomorrow", she says, "Um, no you're not, we've already arranged to do x, and you need to give me reasonable notice", he then stomps off to the pub and tells the world how she's denying him access. What he means is, she's denying him access on his terms. He wants to see the kids when it's inconvenient to her, but when it isn't, he's not that interested.

I thought it was excellent (again) and some valid points. I think its too easy to say all men are bastards and all women are angels. Imagine for one minute what it would feel like if you're kids were taken from you - not nice! I really feel for these guys. Let's face it when women lay down with a man and make a baby at that time they think he's a decent human being who's going to make a great dad - and then things go sour and suddenly he's evil personified (ok sometimes this may be true)but whatever goes on between two adults should have no bearing whatsoever on your children and they should not be denied proper access to their dads.
(It goes without saying I don't include abusive or violent fathers in this).

I am with you Joostoo... you loved him once, he was a great dad and now he is this bastard that is so self-centred ????? What happened ?????
I am all for the law to change to give equal access to those who want it/can arrange it (and not all dad will want it!)... my sister is fighting all access to the kids... her husband is not perfect but he is paying his share (actually he is paying all at the moment until divorce comes through - including a nanny she has hired which she knows they can't afford!) yet she is very unwilling to let him see them.
By the way she is a very nice girl but is at the moment so bitter and upset that she in un-recognisable !
I have suggested to her that she lets him have the kids for a week so he can see that realistically he won't find it easy or possible to look after the kids on a daily basis...

Theres no point in Bob ranting about the % of men who get custody without also considering the facts.

1. At the moment, the majority of child rearing esp. in the early years is the responsibility of the women.
2. The majority of domestic violence is perpetrated by men against women.
3. The majority of sexual abuse within the family is perpetrated by men.
4. Extra marital affairs which cause most family breakups are rarely started by the women who has stayed at home to care for the kids.

I'm not trying to demonise men here, but maybe the current figures only represent the fact that each case is being fairly assessed on it's own merits? Women do have strong nurturing instincts and if a choice has to be made between the mother and the father then maybe the mother is the most natural choice for custody - however painful that is for the father. I just think it's a shame that all the bitterness that follows a custody battle and all the adult emotions that are tied up in that, inevitably rub off on the kids. I know. I was one of those kids and I'm now one of those lone parents!

I don't think anyone is saying men are bastards and women angels. Obviously it's in the best interests oif the child to have contact with both parents. But this programme was incredibly unbalanced.

The vast majority of seperated fathers do have access to their children. Only 2% of seperated fathers who have a contact order for their children have been forced to go back to court because their ex-partner is denying them access. Less than 1 % of cases are refused a contact order in the first place - mostly because of domestic violence or other anti social factors which would not make regular access in the child's best interests.

I know several women who are seperated and every single one of them would like the father to WANT to spend MORE time with their children rather than less. The fathers themselves are dictating the level of access they get. ONS research into contact arrangements "found that the overwhelming majority of resident and non-resident parents were happy with the status quo. When asked what would most improve things, the ONS study found that it wasn't so often the fathers who said they wanted to see more of their children - twice as many parents with residence (mostly mothers) wanted that contact to increase".

puddle - I hear what you're saying but quite clearly there are LOTS of fathers who either aren't getting access at all or very little - or else why all the current demonstrations?

Obviously there are some divorces that are amicable and reasonable access is agreed and everyone is happy and amen to that, but from what I can see here there's only 'sexyandhappy' who is prepared to admit that at least one woman (her sister) is using her children because of the bitterness between her and her ex and I'd bet my boots that there are more. That's not having a go at women per se I'm just saying there are always two sides - I just think if mums thought what it would be like for them to have a just few hours or days access per week to their children they might understand a bit more what some of these blokes are going through.

Jools
My point is that the current wave of demonstrations gets a lot of airtime which is not merited when you see the scale of the problem. The Geldolf programme made it look as though most men have been treated unfairly by the courts which are weighted against them. I would say that there are a few very sad cases in which fathers are unfairly treated but only a few. We often see only one side to a story and when a more rounded picture emerges (eg the relationship history of the man who demonstrated on Buckingham Palace)we can often see why they may have been denied access to their children in the first place. In fact that the courts mostly make good decsions.

I think parts of this debate are important - for instance why it is that women do take on the nurturing role which means they are better placed to be the resident carer when marriage breaks down? I think it would be more helpful for BG to apply his influence and lobbying skills to this issue which would mean a complete reversal in the way men and women conduct their co-oarenting and the ability for men to be at home with the children too.

I can't do links very well, but here:

www.guardian.co.uk/analysis/story/0,3604,1325929,00.html

Absolutely agree puddle - I had to turn off last night's programme in disgust and am planning to complain to Channel 4 about this unbalanced and irresponsible programme.

I left my xdp becuase he was never at home - he did no childcare - nothing. Spent all his time doing what he wanted to do - working, going to the pub with mates etc etc. It was a very hard decision to leave and I only did it after 3 long years of putting up with it.

Now I have to constantly nag xp to see his son and he always makes out he's doing me a big favour when he does. Also he pays me no maintenance so I am providing 100% childcare plus 100% finance.

The sh*t has also been known to complain about "how the courts treat fathers". I would like to spit in his face but don't becuase I feel compelled to keep on good terms with him for ds's sake.

Sorry for personal rant - clearly I'm as embittered as BG but no-one's going to pay me to go on telly and talk about it!