MENZ Issues: news and discussion about New Zealand men, fathers, family law, divorce, courts, protests, gender politics, and male health.

So much news, so little time! Grab a cuppa and sit down to consider some noteworthy recent events from the perspective of aware men and fathers. More than one post will be needed to show the cavalcade of relevant stories. (more…)

On Tuesday July 7th the Bank of New Zealand has filed proceedings against Wellington’s Political Busker, Benjamin Easton. The Bank is responding to proceedings of judicial review filed against them by Mr Easton. Easton claims that in June 2008 the Bank funded an advertisement that was gender offensive and unlawfully discriminatory against fatherhood.
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Man meets a lady in 2003. They have a casual sexual relationship. Nothing more, nothing less. The man uses condoms every time. Lady says she is pregnant to the man. 2004 a son is born. Man is adamant that he used condoms every time. So man asks lady for a DNA test. Lady agrees and the DNA test was done. The lady gives the man the results which states that he is 99.9% the father to this child. So man accepts the fact that he has become a father due to the results of a DNA test. Lady says to man “I want the DNA test back to destroy the evidence as she didn’t want the son to find out that this has ever happened. Man didn’t think that there was anything wrong with this, so he gives the DNA test back to the lady. He says to the lady that he will do everything he can to support his son. The man has never lived with this lady, so he was picking his son up either every weekend or every second weekend to spend time with his son. He paid for most of the necessities for his son i.e. nappies, formula, wipes, baby food etc. Spending almost $6,000 dollars in the first three years of the child’s life. He set up a bank account with the lady in the form of a trust for their son. Man putting into the account over 5 years of the child’s life $6,500, lady only putting $125. Man paying $60 a fortnight into the lady bank account to pay for daycare. Although the lady wasn’t working she wanted time out from her son.
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Leah Ward Sears became the first woman and youngest person appointed to Georgia’s highest court in 1992.

But she stepped down this week as Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court after her brother’s suicide. She found amongst his personal effects a questionnaire he had completed in 2005 for a church class.

The very first question was a fill-in-the-blank that went like this: “At the end of my life, I’d love to be able to look back and know I’d done something about …..”

“Fathers,” Tommy wrote.

When asked to identify something that angered him that could be changed, Tommy wrote, “Re-establishment of equity and balance and sanity within the American family.”

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By Barbara Faithfull

On 16th June 2009 I wrote (in “The fraudulent case against corporal punishment”) : “The anti-corporal punishment lobbyists operate dishonestly” etc. Nevertheless I hardly expected them so soon to provide the excellent proof of that assertion which has come to hand over the past few days via abuse of the scientific process. Professional statisticians are strangely slow to challenge this sort of deceitful lobbying, so I feel bound to make some effort in that direction.
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From Peter Zohrab

What do people think of what Judge Boshier said on TV One ? You can read what he said at tvnz.co.nz.

Watch the video here.

In particular, what do you think about what he said about Family Court statistics? You can see the statistics at:
justice.govt.nz/

He is saying that the stats prove that fathers and mothers are treated equally. What is our response to that?
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Sunday Star Times 28 June 2009
A Christchurch dad who let his nine-year-old son and four-year-old daughter play at a school park unsupervised is furious the government’s child welfare agency is now investigating his family. The case highlights the dilemma parents face in striking a balance between protecting their children and risk them becoming bubble-wrapped kids and giving them a taste of the freedom and independence parents themselves enjoyed as youngsters. READ MORE
Children’s Commissioner says parents took ‘risk’ letting kids play alone The Press 29 June 2009 READ MORE
Family First Comment : The concerning aspect about this case is that CYF is investigating the family. Parents take ‘risks’ every day as they allow their children to undertake potentially ‘dangerous’ activities e.g. letting a son play rugby, letting a daughter do gymnastics, walking to school etc. Previously we could trust our communities to keep an eye out for each other. We are quickly creating a ‘paranoid parenting’ environment. An investigation by CYF suggests that these parents are being irresponsible. Or is that where we’ve got to as a society??

Read More: Family First News

We’ve always argued that good parents are being criminalised and harmed by the anti-smacking law and we currently have a number of cases in front of both the Prime Minister and other Cabinet ministers for their consideration. These have been independently reviewed by a senior policeman.

In the latest case covered by the media we’ve been saying that this is a ‘good dad’. And we stand by that .

We would never support a parent who ‘repeatedly throws their child to the ground’. But in this case that NEVER happened!

How do we know ? Because we had an observer in the court who heard ALL the facts (unlike the media who relied only on what the witness alleged in the police report!)

In the same way that the anti-correction lobby groups use words like ‘beat’ ‘thrash’ and ‘violent’ to describe a loving parent who may use a smack to correct a child, in this current case, words count.

Please take a moment to read what our observer wrote (our emphasis added):
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An Australian mother has been convicted of murder over the starving death of her seven-year-old daughter, who at the time of her death appeared mummified.

The prosecution claimed that the mother starved her daughter to death because she was autistic and too much to handle.

At the time of death, the child weighed only nine kilos and she was left to die in her urine-stained room.

Her hair was matted and her fingernails were black.

It was her father who called the ambulance. As the shock of the death set in, he lashed out at the Department of Community Services.

By delivering this verdict, the jury accepted that the woman deliberately starved her child to death but that her husband, who lived in the same house, did not intend for her to die.

“Shocking figures have revealed that the number of women who have been charged with domestic violence-related assault has soared by 159 per cent over the past eight years.

The figures, from the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics, show 2336 women faced court on charges of domestic violence in 2007, mainly for bashing their husbands, compared with just 818 in 1999.

Men’s groups said yesterday they were happy that police were finally taking men seriously but it remained tough for husbands to admit they had been attacked by their wives.

Research shows women tend to use guns, knives, boiling liquids and irons to attack their partners.

The increase in violence, which is often fuelled by alcohol, has sparked calls for refuges for men.”

It’s ridiculous to describe this as shocking – but I am just quoting the source.

Full story: http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,,25667548-5005941,00.html