Agenda, much?

[Malificence]

I don't usually wander onto the MN facebook page but I was pretty horrified to find what looks very much like an MRA agenda posted on there.
I'm trying very hard to see what relevance the photo used for their site has regarding the voices of unheard children. Looks more like how they would like to see their women to me.

www.facebook.com/#!/mumsnet?sk=wall

Basil..I share/shared the same feeling as many children feel/felt when they don't see there father or mother. Regardless if he abandoned me or was prevented from seeing me by my mother which I believe the latter wasn't the case in my situaton. Are you getting what I am saying to you. Maybe because you are the 'resident' parent you do not understand? Maybe you take for granted that you are not in this situation. You can't judge somebody when you are not in this or that postion.
I still have a controlling ex wife who thinks she is the better parent. But I am 'lucky' I do see my daughter. But I am more of a Disney dad and feed the ducks dad when I want more input, more hands on. And why shouldn't I have that? Who are you or anybody else to deny me that? And I am not a thug or alcoholic! I have read the F4J blueprint to a parentshare plan sent to the Governement in 2010. Maybe you should read it.

You haven't answered my question, as to how F4J's solutions would have helped you when your father abandoned you.

What are they proposing to do about fathers like that?

Also why do you assume that people on this thread want to deny you personally, the opportunity to see your child?

I think that children have a right to see both their parents, if that is in that child's interests.

Unfortunately, my ex doesn't agree with me - he has no interest in seeing his children, so their rights are irrelevant and cannot be pursued. What do F4J propose to do about my children's rights to have a relationship with their father?

I also do not believe that it is in a child's interests, to be in the sole care of a parent who has a history of neglecting them or abusing them or their other parent - or indeed a history of any violence.

F4J don't believe that a history of violence is a problem, do they?

And I do not believe that non resident parents, should dictate the terms of contact. I don't believe that they should have the right to regularly let their children down and not turn up for contact visits or turn up late or bring back the children hours late or a day early, because they are incapable of co-operating with the resident parent.

F4J have nothing to say about such behaviour, do they?

Smiley, wtaf are you talking about?

No, don't answer that. I think I actually know, and it's not nice.

So in other words, it's not about the children's rights, it's the fathers rights...

In the mean time, personal attacks aren't condoned on Mumsnet. From what I can see, Basil has been nothing but reasonable in her discussion with you.

My children ring up their father and he can't be arsed to travel two miles in his car to see them.

They know he can't be arsed. He manges to see them once a month tops.

Why can he get away with this?

He spends the other three weekends at festivals, parties, holidaying and playing on the beach. (My DD ran into him once when he had told her he was 'working'.)

What manifesto does F4J have for my children?

"you sound like women (or girls) who have been scorned so Hell Hath no fury...Do me a favour..go on Utube and type in search Bob Geldof and fathers 4 justice"

First off, can the insults.

Secondly if you're looking at hell hath no fury, you don't need to go much further than Geldof or F4J. They're basically all about having a tantrum because they don't get their own way. The sad thing is that it is women and children who they are trampling over in order to assert their male entitlement.

Fathers "rights" are the old rights where men owned women and children and they could do what they liked to them, no comeback, no criticism. That's what F4J and their supporters are squealing for.

On what basis do you think Paula Yates committed suicide? I find the things that you have said about her really very nasty. Did you know her personally? Did you know what was going through her head? How do you know that she put Michael Hutchence first and committed suicide to be with him? Why the implication that she did not love her children and put them second in her life? I have never heard anything other than that she was a devoted mother who loved her children, and that her untimely death was the result of a drug overdose, presumed to be accidental.

I think that implying that dead women did not love their children is really fucking low and just in terrible taste and bang out of order frankly.

I love the example of the children who moved 3 hours away from their father and grandfather, so they couldn't see them for 3 years. Such dedication to seeing the children that a 3 hour journey is too much. I'm impressed. The commitment is overwhelming Maybe F4J could provide some basic training on travelling in the 21st century?

While Bob Geldof did a kind and decent thing in taking in Paula Yates' youngest daughter so the little girl wasn't separated from her sisters, he made quite a few remarks about women that don't show him in a good light at all. I remember some people saying at the time of Live 8 that he was only doing it so people started thinking of him as a humanitarian saint again rather than a woman-hating loser.

It's not even as straightforward as that SGB as IIRC there was a massive custody fight as MC's parents wanted the little girl to go and live with them and the rest of his family in Australia.

The family said that they thought BG only got her because he was Sir Bob of Band Aid and they were devastated.

Hard to say what the right decision would have been - stay with her sisters or with her father's family.

But I am very surprised to see that custody being given to a stepfather rather than the paternal relatives as being seen as a good result by F4J

I don't know about DV but I do know that Matt O'Connor wants to take away the rights of women by making it so that the fathers consent is necessary before a woman can have an abortion. In other words, he wants to give men rights over the bodies of women that supersede the rights women have over their own bodies.

Smileysmile1966 - to address your comment about Paula Yates' suicide. I have a long history of depression, and was having suicidal thoughts as far back as when I was 14 years old, and the one thing that I have learned is that someone who is suicidal, is not thinking the same way as someone who is not suicidal - your perception of EVERYTHING is changed, and you can't see things that appear so clear to other people.

My cousin committed suicide, and at the time, someone described this to me as being an incredibly selfish thing to do - but that person was wrong. My cousin was in such mental anguish that she couldn't see the pain that her death would cause to her family (her widowed mother drank herself to death, and her brother was left with no immediate family at all) - all she could see was the pain, and the one way out.

I have never been in that dark place, but I have been close to it, so I can tell you that it is a horrible place to be. I have not committed suicide because the pain has not been bad enough for me to lose sight of my children and my husband, my family and my friends. But the pain was pretty bad at that point, and I can understand how, if the pain got worse, someone can see only the one way out, and cannot see the effects it will have on their family and friends. If Paula Yates was in that much mental pain, she may well have believed that the world, her friends and even her family would be better off without her.

It is easy and simplistic to say that suicide is selfish and someone who commits suicide is abandoning their family - but walk a mile in their shoes, try to live when every day is a uniform grey, weighed down by the sure knowledge that nothing will ever change or get better, you are worthless and the world would be better off without you - and then you may see how those skewed perceptions could blind someone to the effects that their suicide will have on those they leave behind - and you may be a bit more understanding.

Doesn't it embarrass you being part of an organisation whose members planned to kidnap Leo Blair Jennie?

Then you obviously mix with very inferior people TeaJennie

Smiley - the whole point that I was trying to get across to you is that mental health issues can skew your judgement, so that you make decisions you wouldn't have made, had you not been suffering from those MH conditions. Judging someone so cruelly, because they have a mental health issue, is utterly wrong, imo.

I really hoped that by posting my story, and my cousin's story, that I would get you to see that someone who commits suicide is NOT being deliberately abusive towards their family and friends, and should not be judged as if they are making clear, unclouded decisions about their actions, and are fully aware of what the effects will be on those around them. If you are suicidal, you are not making good decisions for those around you - but not because you are evil or heartless or abusive - it's because you are ill! Can you see the difference? Can you apply it to your view of Paula Yates?