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

I am concerned at the angst showing in many recent posts on these pages. Some men are taking too long to climb out of their hurt and see all of the faces of the world surrounding us.

Are they taking responsibility for the hurts that they may have given?
12 Steps shows a good path, which includes righting the wrongs that you have done to others.
Wikipedia 12 Steps Programme
(more…)

There’s a lot of famous trios out there, …. the 3 musketeers, three wise men, Marx Brothers…. Groucho,Chico and Harpo and another to add …. 3 fathers – Alfred Ngaro, Jack Scanlan and Chris Makoare who have started the group ‘Just for Dads’.

The fathers formed the group with the thought of it being more than just a service, but a collective – a “family” even and wearing T-shirts with their logo, 160 dads, mums and children attended their first event at a Warrior’s rugby game.

Alfred Ngaro is a former pastor and community worker, Jack Scanlan a police youth development programme manager and Chris Makoare a Family Centre manager. All three understand the importance of fatherhood in communities and how fatherlessness is affecting our communities. There is argument that fatherlessness is responsible for crime and argument that it’s more complicated, yet whatever the argument, it’s obvious father’s help keep communities safe.

To find out more about Just 4 Dads contact the Glen Innes Family Centre on 570-6250 or email admin@gifc.co.nz.

To read the full article on Just for Dads, click here. There’s also events organised by the Prostate community from camps to runs to rock climbing. Click here to see their 2010 calendar.

Women wash the care less often:

http://blog.autoquake.com/news/women-drivers-are-dirtier-than-men/1966

Then there are the lawns, the garden, the rubbish, repairs, fixing the car, etc etc.

Union of Fathers president Allan Harvey says “The system is too crude at the moment and encourages one parent to be a care parent and one to be a cash parent. That’s not best for our children.”

Child support reform advocate James Nicolle also said the system was failing both parents and children. “It’s just not fair to anyone – I have seen case after case where people have been pushed to the wall by the amount of child support they have to pay”,

“Systems like this don’t work anywhere in the world. If you go to the UK, Australia, the United States, Europe . . any system that is based on a percentage of income of the parent results in massive debt. They don’t just work – they’re unsustainable,” Nicolle said.

……….

Well done dads!!!

To read the rest of this story, click here.

Many people will have heard mention of the NZ Suicide Prevention Strategy but won’t be aware of exactly what it says, or that it was produced by the Ministry of Health and funded by our taxes. The Strategy was published in 2006 and is intended to be in place until 2016. Well, we all know that men suicide on average at about three times the rate that women do (actually, for some age groups it’s five to six times as much, and the figures will not include many other suicides made to look like accidents). No other population factor (e.g. age, race, socio-economic status) shows the large effect that gender does regarding risk of suicide (except for children under 10 years old who are understandably many times less likely to suicide than are all older age groups). But surprise, surprise, the Strategy contains not one single component specifically aimed at reducing male suicide or addressing the factors that lead men to suicide. (more…)

Minister of Justice Simon Power has been talking for some time about introducing an inquisitorial system for cases involving child complainants and for complainants in sex crimes. Of course, he uses the ploy of referring to “child victims and “sex abuse victims” to manipulate the public towards believing that all such complainants are necessarily victims of real crime, a good example of “begging the question”. But that’s a minor issue.

The term “inquisitorial” is apt given that the Inquisitions were always based on propaganda-fuelled superstition that from the late middle ages included witch-hunting. Power plans to remove lawyers and the process of cross-examination from sexual trials, and plans to remove the need for complainants to tell their story in Court at all (relying instead on statements they made at the time they first complained). (more…)

How far will a father go to protect his little girl?

Two months ago I wrote about a father who has been protesting outside Prime Minister John Key’s home, Social Minister Paula Bennett’s office and CYFS offices around the country.

He has been trying tirelessly to save his 3 year old daughter from her mother’s abuse and gang affiliation.

New Zealand like other western countries follows feminist ideology when it comes to heterosexual relationships and uses the presumption men=bad and women=good. If a man does something wrong it’s ‘men’s power’, ‘ the myth of men’s superiority’ and ‘Patriarchy’. When women do something wrong it’s ‘men made her do it’ because of ‘men’s power’, ‘the myth of men’s superiority’ and ‘Patriarchy’.

Men have received the blame from the very beginning of ‘girl power’ where girls were encouraged to compete with boys and cheered when they could do something better than a boy while boys were encouraged to build the girl’s self-esteem, go easy on them and protect them from hurting themselves. If the boys failed to do this, society came down on them like a ton of bricks. “Good girl, bad boy” was something this generation of children were raised with and in turn as adults, they have placed it into law and policy. The writing of our laws don’t look to be discriminative but the policies on how the laws are practised are.
(more…)

Have a read of this article Upaid child support $17 Million note :

Inland Revenue documents released to the Taranaki Daily News show more than half the parents liable for child support in the region had an outstanding debt.

A total of $6.7m of the money is assessment debt, money either passed directly on to the childrens’ guardian or paid to the Government to cover the cost of providing a benefit to support the children.

The rest of the owed money – more than $10m – is made up in penalties.

The figures show 64.5 per cent, or 2559 of the 3965 parents liable for child support in the region, had an outstanding debt.

Now read the IRD spin ;

An Inland Revenue spokesman said the majority of liable parents pay their child support in full and on time.

The department had collected 89 per cent of all child support assessed since the scheme started in 1992, and 70 per cent of new debt cases were resolved within 12 months.

Lets have a look at what is being spun :

• The majority of liable parents , an unknown number that could be between 50.1 and 100% -
• Pay their child support in full and on time - Yet  64% of those in Taranaki have a debt which  incidentally is about the same as the % for all child tax payers.

Now ask the question why if the majority of liable parents pay in full on time why do 64% of them have a debt? Something does not add up.

• The department had collected 89 per cent of all child support assessed since the scheme started in 1992. Basically this tells us nothing useful but does raise a question: If child support collection is so successful why are so many dads owing so much money?
•  70 per cent of new debt cases were resolved within 12 months.Once again what does this mean? How many “debt cases” are opened each financial year – how often do dads get into” debt” is it the same dads repeating every 12 months?

It is disappointing that no journalist is conducting an indepth analysis of this spin.

Regards

Scrap

I recently came across several articles about the fall of Rome. Although it is widely held that Western Rome fell due to the Barbarian invasions, there are other interesting factors that seem to have weakened the empire from within prior to this, and interestingly, a shift in the attitudes of women, their role in society and the importance of marriage seem to be one of them.

600 BC to about 1 AD – Before the Imperial Age, in very early Roman times, families were organized rather like mini Greek city-states. Everybody in one family lived in one home, including the great grandparents, grandparents, parents and children. The head of the family was the oldest male. That could be the father, the grandfather, or perhaps even an uncle.

Each family had slightly different customs and rules, because the head of the family had the power to decide what those rules were for his family. He owned the property, and had total authority, the power of life and death, over every member of his household. Even when his children became adults, he was still the boss.

But, he was also responsible for the actions of any member of his household. He could order a kid or a grown-up out of his house, but if they committed a crime, he might be punished for something his family did.
(more…)

This short book of 175 pages is separated into 8 chapters with the following titles:
.
Chapter 1 – Historical
Chapter 2 – The Main Dogma of Modern Feminisim
Chapter 3 – The Anti-Man Crusade
Chapter 4 – Always the “Injured Innocent”
Chapter 5 – The “Chivalry” Fake
Chapter 6 – Some Feminist Lies and Fallacies
Chapter 7 – The Psychology of the Movement
Chapter 8 – The Indictment
.
Let us now look at each chapter in depth and summarise their contents.
.
.
Chapter 1 – Historical

In this chapter the author begins by giving an outline of women’s place in society, and how men and women were equal before the law up until recent times.
(more…)