Really? we think that "that organisation" are representative of fathers in general? really?

[NormaStanleyFletcher]

"They are already telling us that F4J (and by association every dad in the land) are bullying and intimidating them in this latest campaign, a stance that completely ignores the decades of intimidation that has been suffered by fathers at the hands of women?s organistions and which attempts to control the space around the campaign..."

Do they think we are as mad and misguided as them?

Intimidation by women's organisations?

From http://karenwoodall.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/on-the-tyranny-of-the-weak-a-mothers-day-musing/

Who is this handmaden person?

What an asinine question.

Dave is that you? This isn't the way to win back women voters you know.

I wonder how many of the fathers advocating 50% care actually did 50% of the work Xenia sets out while they were living as co-parents i.e. the washing, dealing with school and childcare, taking time off work when the children are ill, shopping for clothes, picking up toys and preparing meals etc.

the 'tyranny of the weak' mythology is just horror at any 'rights' the weak have managed to gain. horror that a woman can now leave a violent man with legal and financial support from the state and the right to maintenance from a man for the upkeep of his children. oh the tyranny!!!

John, What are your thoughts on re-introducing hanging for those that refuse to pay child support?
Serious question, like.

Exactly saf Can I join you in a ?

F4J (and by association every dad in the land)

F4J (and by association every dad in the land)

I just wanted to re-state the bleedin' obvious that every father in the land certainly does not associate themselves with the 'F4J' grouping of individuals. It's laughable, really.

Just for the record - Am I a member of F4J? - no. Do I support their tactics? - no. Am I cynical about the motives of some of them? - yes. Do I understand the despair that some of these guys are suffering? - absolutely definitely yes.

My point is that tens of thousands of children and parents in this country are being deprived of their basic human rights because of the parent's gender and the fact that their ex wishes to use the children as a tool of abuse.

Historically fathers were automatically awarded custody of children post divorce. Now the state automatically awards custody of the children to the mother, regardless of the pre-separation childcare arrangements, and despite the fact that fathers in intact families carry more responsibility for day to day care of children than they ever have before.

Before I separated from my violent abusive ex I provided more care to my children, and all the tasks associated therewith, than her, and loved doing so. One of the reasons we separated was that she could not handle a man who did not conform to her neat gender stereotype - it was too threatening for her.

I now have about 45% care time of my children but in order to achieve this I have had to pay a 'ransom' of over £100,000 - more than my net worth. She still regularly hurls abuse at me in front of the children to the point where they are in tears.

The CSA calculation takes no account of her income which exceeds mine. She pays nothing from her own income for the upkeep of our children when they reside with me. The net effect is that she has to pay nothing from her income for the upkeep of our children.

I think parents who refuse to pay for the upkeep of their children are a disgrace. My ex is one of them. The only difference between her and so-called dead-beat dads is that she can use a government agency to abdicate her responsibility. (Giyadas - I still would not support hanging her!)

I believe in equality, first, last, always. There is none in the current situation. I have two daughters who I am bringing up to believe in equality, and in respecting people for who they are regardless of their gender. I do not want them to grow up thinking they are victims because they are female.

was that "ransom" her share of the marital property by any chance?

it is not true to say that children automatically go to the mother in the way that they used to 'belong' to the father. as you've said yourself you have 45% residency.

also i'm surprised you're paying much if anything via the csa if what you are saying about the children being with you for 45% of the time is true. if they stay 3 nights out of 7 that would be factored into their calculations re: she would not get maintenance for nights when the children were with her. so you should be paying 15% of your net income minus 45% realistically. if your facts are straight and that's not the case call the csa and get it sorted.

incidentally no the csa don't take into account the RP's income. it's quite clear that at least 15% of their net income will be spent towards housing, clothing, childcare etc etc etc when they have a child living with them.

from the nrp's contribution there is a scale of deductions whereby you pay less than that if you have other children to support in your home and you have deductions dependent on the amount of time your child spends in your home whereby you too will be incurring expenses.

so basically if you never have your child, or have them less than one night a week and you don't have any other children to support you pay 15% of your net income. the more you have them or the more other children you have the less you pay.

and bear in mind that the nrp's maintenance is all in - it's not maintenance plus school trips, uniforms, braces, music lessons, clothes, after school clubs, childcare, sports equipment etc. so everything is included in that sum. whereas the resident parent retains full financial responsibility for the child.

i don't know about anyone else (and £500pw net income is wildly beyond my means) but it is impossible to bring up a child on 15% of your net income - for most working single mothers with a young child full time childcare (in order to be able to work) is over half of their income gone straight away.

'was that "ransom" her share of the marital property by any chance?'
Nope - That's over and above a 50:50 split of matrimonial assets. Actually way beyond that.

'it is not true to say that children automatically go to the mother in the way that they used to 'belong' to the father. as you've said yourself you have 45% residency'

I had to pay for it, she did not. That's my point. It was made very clear to me that I would lose contact with my children if I did not pay up. Not just by my ex but both lawyers involved, they knew the score.

'also i'm surprised you're paying much if anything via the csa if what you are saying about the children being with you for 45% of the time is true.'

It is true and I'm pretty 'surprised' too. The 45% calculation is based not on nights resided with each parent as the CSA do, but actual time, i.e. weekends, evenings and holidays involve proportionately more care time, and more cost, than weekday school nights.

'so you should be paying 15% of your net income minus 45% realistically. if your facts are straight and that's not the case call the csa and get it sorted.'

No, it's not. 20% for two children, reduced to 15%. Only one night per week difference in the time they spend with each of us. That's the CSA calculation.

For parents who have equal incomes and share care of two children equally (as calculated by nights spent with each) Dad still pays Mum 10% of his income, and she gets to keep all the child benefit. She ends up with well over 20% more net income than him.

The really sick thing is that this will go down on the CSA's balance sheet under the "amount collected for amount spent collecting" balance sheet. This means that the CSA can look like they're doing their job when they are not. As I said equality first, last, always. The people who ultimately suffer from the calculation are low income parents with 100% care of their children whose fathers do not want to be involved in their care, and want to evade their financial responsibility. It all goes down on the same balance sheet. I pay the same as 40 scumbags who do not give a damn about their kids.

'incidentally no the csa don't take into account the RP's income. it's quite clear that at least 15% of their net income will be spent towards housing, clothing, childcare etc etc etc when they have a child living with them.'

Yes, of course, unless you are a wealthy mother with a wealthy ex. I provide accommodation for my kids, food, clothes, presents for their friends, mobile phone top ups, pay 60% of their school fees, 60% of any school related costs etc. etc. She lives in a house that's worth 2.5 times the value of mine.

The government made absolutely no attempt to calculate the costs of caring for children when they devised the CSA formula. By contrast studies in Australia suggest that parents with one third time with their children carry at least 40% of the costs involved. Their CSA calculation takes this into account, and what's really interesting is they have a much better "amount collected for amount spent collecting" balance sheet, suggesting that compliance is much higher with systems that are transparently fair, as one would expect, and the money gets to those that most need it.

'i don't know about anyone else (and £500pw net income is wildly beyond my means) but it is impossible to bring up a child on 15% of your net income - for most working single mothers with a young child full time childcare (in order to be able to work) is over half of their income gone straight away.'

It depends on your income. Studies suggest that the top income quartile spend only 20% more on their children than the bottome quartile. I spend well over 50% of my income on my kids. My ex spends approx 10%.

right so the point is that you are not having them 45% of the time by the standards set (re nights stayed) but are deducting the time they are in school from her time. manipulating figures basically.

so what you have them every other weekend and a school night and call that 45%?

No not manipulating figures. Actually giving a realistic apraisal of the time we each actually spend caring for our children, and the costs involved. I wonder how you would respond to a mother whose ex had treated her like this?

Who takes them to the Dr/nurse/dentist/optician?

Who provides care when the child needs a day off school sick?

Why buys the school uniform - and by this I don't mean who pays for it, I mean who takes the child with them round the shops to make sure the clothes fit and the shoes are correctly fitted. Who notices that the shoes are wearing a bit thin or getting a bit small?

Who deals with the endless requests for money/items/help/information that come home from school every week?

Who makes the packed lunches, makes sure the uniform is clean and pressed? That the PE kit has been remembered, the reading diary filled in, the consent slip signed, and the coat has not only been brought home from school but is actually the right one and is clean. Every day.

Perhaps more importantly the question should be who did these things before the marriage disintegrated.

I don't doubt for a minute that fathers can make just as good parents as mothers. In some cases they might even do a better job; it all depends on the individuals concerned. However, I think many fathers are guilty of vastly underestimating just how much the mother of their child does and probably the first time they think about how much has hitherto been taken for granted is when it is 'used against them' in court.

Johnde, I can't comment on your individual case for obvious reasons, but if you were abused by your X then I am very sorry. No one deserves that. I hope you manage to get past it. However, asking for school hours to be deducted from her time is rather silly since you've only got to look at the points above to realise just how much time and effort goes into keeping a child at school even though the hours may not be spent together. Trying to insist that time at school doesn't count just makes it appear like you have an alternative agenda whereby you simply want to belittle and diminish your XW's contribution to your child. She may well be an abusive manipulative person for all I know but by using arguments such as that you are actually painting a negative picture of yourself that presents her in a more favourable light.

The answer to all your questions is both of us. I am aware of all your points because I do all these tasks, and more. I am not trying to insist anything. Time at school is time at school. We both take responsibility for it, and always have.

I will meditate on your comments on Sunday night when I will be shining their shoes, defluffing their blazers, ironing the incredibly frustrating blinking pleats in their school kilts (aarrghh!), helping with the late homework, etc., etc.

Do I value her input with the children? Absolutely. She does not, and never did, value mine; she views it as a threat to her gender-defined role, and possibly a sign of some effeminate weakness on my part. In fact in much the same way you might find some men criticising women drivers or managers at work; because they feel threatened in their gender-defined roles.

What I find people have difficulty with is moving beyond the 'woman weak,victim, good; man strong, abusive, bad' sexist paradigm.

I do not, and never have abused her in any way, shape, or form. She continues to verbally abuse me in front of my children, and whenever else she gets an opportunity. Thankfully I don't think she would hit me again, but you never know. She knows I am now way past caring how many different men she shags, so the kids become the tool of abuse when other avenues are closed off. Despite this I actually bear her no malice. I just wish she would stop, but I cannot make her. My view is that you are only responsible for one person's behaviour in this life, so I focus on that and remain calm and appropriate (which I think she probably finds more frustrating!).

I never went near a court. My view was that it would simply serve to fuel hostility and line the pockets of lawyers who create conflict that they then profit from - disgusting. If I had I would have had a much better financial deal but I would almost certainly not be seeing my kids.

it's also the case that on school days it is down to the rp to be there in the morning getting them ready and delivering them to school on time and being there mid afternoon and picking them up and doing all that needs doing after school OR to pay for someone else to do this as they are at work. hence them being counted as days of residency and financial responsibility.

to do it yourself you need either to not work or work a very short day with very specific hours which is unsurprisingly difficult to do so for most who are working it means making use of childminders or afterschool childcare on school site.

it is massively misleading and/or unaware to pretend school days don't require parental responsibility and incur time and money commitments.

Johnde I'm not trying to minimise your experiences honestly, but you're on a feminist board and therefore you are going to have to expect us to talk about male/female behaviour in terms of patterns - that is how the group behaves as a whole.

Feminists tend to be more open to the idea of men as nurturers than anti-feminists IME. You won't find any feminist denying that a man can - and should - be more involved with his children. But generally this isn't the case. How many men in your own social circle are as involved as you? How many men nationally?

Whether married or separated, the overwhelming statistical truth is that the vast majority of men just don't put the hours in to rearing children that their female partners do. And that's reflected in residency arrangements. If you really want to see that pattern changed, you would be far better off encouraging other men to do as you have done, rather than getting angry at the law, which is basically just trying to provide some continuity for the child.

Likewise with the 'paradigm' of female-victim-good v male-abuser-bad - this is again based on statistical and historical truth that women have had very little power and have suffered at the hands of men out of all proportion with what women have done to men.

This is no way states that individual men and women cannot buck the trend. We all know horrible women and lovely men. But if you're looking at men/women as a group, you just can't deny the truth unless you are purposely determined to. As a feminist I would dearly like to see that 'paradigm' changed too, but in order for that to be the case, we need to see a massive reduction in rape and domestic abuse far more than we need to see equal residency arrangements handed out in court.

Dear sab

Thank you so much for your comments. The first sign of non gender-based empathy. I am finding this dialogue very therapeutic.

Emmeline Pankhurst once said 'In order to free the women, we have to free the men' or similar, can't remember the exact quote.

I would argue that women and men have always (well over the past 50 years or so in the West) had power in different measure in different spheres of life. It depends how you measure power and freedom. Power is not dying young because you work in a dangerous job for long hours, or missing out on family life because of work. Even feminists undervalue the contribution of childcare to society bizarrely enough.

'How many men in your own social circle are as involved as you? How many men nationally?'

Truthfully, more than you might think, and we talk about childcare issues all the time, but thinking about it there is a real divide between those who have ex's/wives who also work full time, and those who don't. For those whose partners work full time the overwhelming majority share childcare equally, as far as I can judge. The national stats are that for dual full time working couples the fathers are responsible for about 45% of the childcare time, I think that was a CEHR study. But bear in mind that 'full time' can encompass anything from 37.5 to 60 hours a week, and men will work the longer hours.

The issue of domestic abuse is a really contentious, and highly politicised, one. Robust community surveys do not support the usual statement that 'the overwhelming majority of perpetrators of abuse are men' but I am very aware of the responses that this might provoke. You should read the story of Erin Pizzey, one of the founders of Women's Aid for an illustration.

I do not think you can draw any equivalence between crimes of violence, sexual or otherwise, and the issue of childcare. Should one not aim to eradicate inequality wherever it exists?

we don't undervalue it (childcare) - we recognise that it is undervalued and see that as part of the problem. if it was valued more then we would have respect for people who sahp and more men would choose to do it. when a traditionally seen as female role gains status men start doing it more - re: nursing, teaching. also we would see easy access to affordable, quality childcare if society valued it more. we'd see couples making more creative choices re: work and childcare - two part time careers for example so that both can take a 50% role in raising the children and valuing it over being able to afford more holidays or fancier cars.

then naturally the court would be making different rulings because when, as they do now, they maintain the status quo that status quo would look very different.

there is the odd person who calls themselves a feminist and doesn't value childcare - on these boards though the over riding view is that being a sahp is a valid job that should be valued more.

You should read the story of Erin Pizzey, one of the founders of Women's Aid for an illustration.

Erin Pizzey was NOT a founder of Women's Aid. At the meeting in 1975 where Women's Aid was formed as a federation, Erin Pizzey flounced out in a huff because she was not automatically made the leader (there was no leader - it was a federation) and has spent the last 37 years pouting about lesbians 'stealing' 'her' movement.

Erin has also spent the time in-between spreading deliberate misinformation about domestic violence. When she claims that, in her experience, women are as violent as men she is including self-harm. In other words, she claims that a woman who is beaten by her male partner and then attempts suicide, is as violent as the man who beat her.

i also think it's disingenuous when dv of being punched, kicked, brutalised by someone stronger than you is viewed as exactly the same as being slapped by someone smaller than you or having something thrown at you. both are abusive and unacceptable but there are also very clear differences.

i realise it is not PC to point out that being slapped by someone a foot smaller than you and a few stone lighter is different to being the smaller subject on the receiving end of violence but none the less it is true.

it's also true that included in these figures of women who are violent towards their partners are women who are being abused and have fought back.

it is also true that wider societal power differentials come into play too in dv - being financially dependent, being a mother of young children etc plays a role in keeping women with violent partners. a woman can more easily be 'trapped' in violence by societal factors that don't generally (back to groups rather than individuals) apply to men.