Lately I have been receiving e-mails from mothers introducing themselves as being in a shared parenting arrangement. It is nice for me to hear this because after 2/3 generations not very good at sharing, we have a new generation mediating between each other well.

I am worried though, because I have been to a radical feminist meeting where they’ve said fathers who use the family court as a means to be in their children’s lives just want control of women, and I know here in New Zealand we do have a national group of radical feminists who lobby against shared parenting.

My worry has turned to fear by the actions of radical feminists and their radical socialist male supporters in Australia where father’s groups worked hard to change the law in 2006 so fathers could share their children and be a part of their lives as they grow up instead of just paying child tax to the mothers.

I like what Australian journalist Angela Shanahan of the The Australian newspaper had to say on how feminists are depriving children of their fathers. I’d enjoy reading YOUR opinion and perhaps having some discussion over this; Do you think children have a right to a relationship with both mum and dad?

Angela tells us, … according to Australian newspapers, shared parenting is “on the way out,” to be “rolled back,” considered to “bring little change” and “failed children”. This is due to radical feminist’s anti male ideology and their tax paid lobby.

She starts her article by mentioning two stories that hit the headlines where feminists went nuts. The first was the hysterical reaction to Tony Abbott’s Women’s Weekly interview where he says fathers are responsible for children (other than paying child tax) ……. and the second over family law reforms in 2006 that father’s groups worked hard for. ……She says:

The reaction is puzzling since it goes against a supposed feminist notion of equality: that fathers and mothers have equal responsibilities and roles in their children’s upbringing.

She is right to be puzzled. Feminism WAS believed to be about equality. Women and men were both supposed to challenge their gender roles of the past. Women were encouraged and welcomed (by most men) to enter the workforce while men were supposed to be encouraged and welcomed (by most women) to enter the home to share the responsibility of raising their children. Feminists denying fathers to raise their children is far from standing for equality. …..Angela continues,

Adding fuel to this is a report by Richard Chisholm and a psychologist, Jennifer McIntosh, that concludes the reforms of 2006 have not benefited children, especially in acrimonious situations, which one might have thought was obvious.

Since only 16 per cent of parents practise shared parenting — and, according to the Australian Institute of Family Studies, most arrangements work well — one wonders what Chisholm is talking about. To work well, they must be non-acrimonious.

There is a reason for the difference in the reports. The Australian Institute of Family Studies most likely would use statistics through collected data while feminists make their report based on work they do in the community. Because they work with men and women in dysfunctional relationships, they’d be expected to say shared parenting doesn’t work in acrimonious situations.

Feminists including Psychologists follow radical feminist ideology which is, man = perpetrator, woman = victim. They send men to prison and women to refuges. The only reason they would say shared parenting doesn’t work for children is because they don’t believe heterosexual relationships are any good. Radical lesbians are major leaders of the radical feminist movement. They say to love a woman is to hate a man. I believe they mean men are competition for female sex.
…Back to Angela….

But there is more. According to Chisholm many parents — read mothers who still are the main carers of children post-separation – are being “coerced” into shared arrangements by fear, and by a presumption on the part of the father that shared parenting equals 50-50 shared time.

In other words, Chisholm is saying mothers are being coerced by the law to share their child with the other parent, being the father, when it goes to the family court and she must obey the law in fear there may be consequences. You see, Australia unlike New Zealand holds (some) mothers accountable if they alienate a child when shared parenting has been ordered.

Chisholm can’t be talking about women fearing shared parenting unless it goes to court because there is no law to say parents who work things out themselves or women who have for real been abused must share their children.

Also Chris is saying it is wrong for a father to presume he is one parent of two and that sharing between two = 50%. I can see this being a problem for a mother if she is wanting a higher rate of child tax from a father.

According to Chisholm, an unacceptable number of children in court-mandated shared care are exposed to unnecessary levels of acrimony and possible violence.

I’m not so gullible to guilt trips these days. As much as I don’t like the idea of a child being harmed I can’t be suckered into thinking one child is one too many (so to speak) when I know the alternative has thousands of children suffering. It just doesn’t make sense to me to destroy every father and child relationship because a few fathers could possibly harm their children.

I personally get sick of all this possible abuse being an acceptable excuse. As the saying goes, anything and everything is possible. You just can’t go around in a healthy society putting everyone at a disadvantage because they could possibly do something negative. Either fathers are abusive or they are not. If they are, arrest them, and proceed in the criminal court. If they are not or you’re dealing with a far fetched possibility based on someone’s gender, set them free.

However the legislation is clear that where shared care has been ordered by a court, the presumption of shared care is dependent on there being no violence; putting a child into a possibly violent situation contradicts the law. So what is all this about?

Shared care and domestic violence are separate issues. Children should not be exposed at any level. But there is definitely a risk of violence to children due to family breakdown and not simply from the father, but from the mother and other males.

Well, this is it. Radical feminists believe children should never trust a man, be he a father, policeman, teacher or church minister. Their work to destroy relationships between fathers and children is way off the mark. It is the dysfunction in a break up that harms the children and instead of society allowing radical feminists and their socialist male supporters to negatively affect every man, woman and child, society should be concentrating on helping families through this difficult time with education, support and encouragement.

If we want to fix child abuse that is another issue. Mothers are more commonly perpetrators of child deaths than fathers, and boyfriends are six times more likely to be perpetrators of physical and sexual violence than biological fathers.

She makes a great argument pointing out domestic violence and shared parenting are two different issues while giving some facts about child abuse. She’s correct that biological fathers are the least likely to abuse their children.

It could be that mothers spending more time with children than fathers makes the difference but if this is even slightly correct, fathers are no more of a threat to children than mothers.

Mother’s lovers are a worry and biological fathers have a right to care because it’s their child being harmed. Sometimes a mother is piggie in the middle of two sides that war for her attention. Sometimes the new lover will use his adult strength to force a child to step in line while sometimes the new lover becomes sexually attracted to the daughter or son. The children are not connected to the new lover the way fathers are.

But I’ll tell you that we have thousands of adults in New Zealand who have stories of abusive step mothers and dad’s lover. The abuse of children is not only a men’s issue. …..Angela goes on …..

None of this bothers those who want the 2006 reforms abolished. For them mothers must have autonomy even at the expense of a child’s relationship with its father.

The sad reality we are faced with is that radical feminist ideology is about women supremacy. The last thing radical feminism will allow is discussion where women supremacy is threatened.

Attorney-General Robert McClelland has said the catalyst for the Chisholm report was the death of little Darcey Freeman last year, allegedly at the hands of her father. According to this newspaper, her mother was intimidated into surrendering her.

Curiously the intimation is that only fathers who intimidate pose a risk. They don’t. When Gabriela Garcia jumped off the same Melbourne bridge with her baby later last year, no one began an inquiry.

These deaths are tragedies, the product of despair and madness, not a catalyst for gender wars.

Isn’t this amazing. Both a man and a woman at separate times kill their child on the same bridge and yet society allows an over powered, seriously ill interest group to change the law and destroy thousands of children’s relationships with fathers by selecting one child’s life to matter while the other child’s death is hidden.
There are many more words Angela wrote that is of interest. I’ll just leave with her ending.

As Patrick Parkinson, a principal author of the reforms, has said, “In the past 30 years, we have sown the wind in the revolution in attitudes to sex, procreation and marriage. We are now reaping the whirlwind. The societal problems which this has caused are problems that no law can resolve.”

Family breakdown contributes to child abuse; shared care does not..