Thursday 3 July 2008

Where are the Fathers?


With more cases of child abuse and neglect coming to light in Australia,mothers being brought before courts, the question arises, "Where are the fathers?". There is no plausible reason for any child to live in absolute filth and be subjected to neglect as seen recently.
Ideally parenting of a child should be met by both mother and father. Realistically this isn't an ideal world with thousands of children living in broken homes and the responsibility of parenting is borne by one, usually the mother. It should be noted that not all single mothers/fathers abuse or neglect their offspring . Still, in the cases that have been broadcast , there seems to be hardly any if at all, mention of the fathers. You will find a number of mothers/fathers use their own issues and apply it to the kids as a reason for not allowing access in their lives. Issues between a mother and father need to be kept between them, kids don't need to be witness or subjected to their parents hostilities. Absentee fathers; and I use fathers here as I stated before with the cases we are now hearing about are not in the picture, need to step up to the plate and take an active role in their kids lives and accept responsibility. Children don't ask to be born and they deserve the best from both parents, whether they co-exist or not, it is achievable.

5 comments:

jmb said...

It's not unknown for mothers to go off and leave their children behind but mostly it's the fathers who gaily abandon their offspring without looking back.

Where indeed Nunyaa? On the other hand I have several close examples of fathers who share joint custody with the mothers and are just as good parents as the mothers.

Nunyaa said...

Exactly JMB, there are excellent fathers out there. I think men are just as good and capable of parenting as women. It irks me especially in cases of the woman now in custody, seven children and pregnant with her 8th at 28 years of age...single and where is the father or fathers of these kids? IF and only IF, a woman is going to pop out babies just because she can and not give a rats about how important a father is and can be in a child life, she has no business being a mother.

LordSomber said...

More and more, fathers are seen as nothing but sperm banks and wallets, as mothers can receive more money from the government if unmarried.
This shouldn't excuse poor behaviour from fathers, though.

"...government programs aimed at inculcating "life skills" and improving relationships simply serve to bring even more of the family under state control. "Here we see the culmination of a government perpetual-growth machine that has been building for decades: Destroy the family through welfare and no-fault divorce; then evict and criminalize the fathers; then institutionalize the children as state wards through various 'services' to relieve single mothers."
[...]
"Unfortunately, many fathers' rights activists undermine their cause by resorting to extreme rhetoric. Baskerville, for instance, claims that courts, lawyers, and bureaucrats have a vested interest in promoting divorce and "ripping away" fathers from their children: As he put in on The O'Reilly Factor in October 2000, "the more children they take away from their parents, the more business there is for their courts and for those who are the recipients of their patronage."

http://www.reason.com/news/show/28949.html

Crushed said...

There are mothers out there who do a deal; no access rights, no maintenance demands.

It suits them because they still get bumped up the housing list, but don't have to have the father as a egular part of their lives.

Why would a father accept this, you say?

Well, if you're a broke student, it seems a good idea at the time. It's not myself I refer to here, but several people I knew.

Nunyaa said...

That don't happen here unless the father isn't named on the birth certificate. I know of quite a few women who deliberately do not name the father so they can claim single parents pension, live with the father, get full welfare benefits yet can have multiple kids with the same man. The Child Support Agency will exhaust every avenue to track down fathers so the financial burden of raising children isn't left up to the government, this can include hiring private detectives to find them. Hence these women write "father unknown" where filling out registration forms. It's just a way to rip off the system and people wonder why our taxes get so high, not the only reason but a big part when selfish, greedy women choose to lie and rip the system off. They don't think of it like that and definitely don't think of the child. Pisses me off hearing about it and what you are saying Crushed.