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Solo mum blocks male bonding session

Filed under: General — Alastair @ 8:23 am Sun 2nd June 2013

NOTE:- One lone protest?

How often have men protested at events organised by women? About the same number of times as we are ignored! What are they afraid of?

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/8746739/Solo-mum-blocks-male-bonding-session

A father-son bonding session planned by a North Island primary school was cancelled after a single mother demanded to be included.

Two “Band of Brothers” seminars were arranged by Matakana School to help fathers get more involved in their sons’ lives, and as a forum for dads to share their issues. One session was for dads and another was for fathers and sons.

A solo mum wanted to attend but was told she couldn’t because her presence would inhibit discussion. She was told a mother and son seminar was planned for later in the year.

“We really just wanted an opportunity for the guys to open up and chat, and they wouldn’t particularly want to do if there were females around – which I think is understandable,” said principal Darrel Goosen.

The woman’s son was welcome at the second seminar and the guest speaker offered a specific session with her and her son but she continued to insist on attending, Goosen said, so the school board decided to cancel the event.

“In hindsight we realise we may have offended some single parents, for which we apologise, as this was never our intention,” said a school note to families.

Family First director Bob McCroskie yesterday said the decision to cancel the event meant fathers had lost a crucial bonding opportunity with their sons.

“Unfortunately it seems to be a society problem that we get held hostage by one person who gets offended,” he said.

“I think the fact they were having other programmes specifically for mums shows that they are not ignoring their needs.

“Schools are starting to realise the importance of dads being actively involved in the education of their kids.”

Other parenting experts said male-only groups were important to get men talking.

“At the end of the day, guys aren’t the best at opening up. Scientifically we are told the females tend to open up much better and at a far deeper level, a lot quicker than men will,” said Bruce Pilbrow, chief executive of the Parenting Place.

“From a school’s perspective, fathers are the hardest audience to engage with. Anything that encourages a dad to get involved with their child’s life in a positive way is really good,” he said.

Psychologist Sara Chatwin, from MindWorks, said in today’s society – where almost 50 per cent of Kiwi households are single-parent households – the session should have been promoted as a parent-child affair.

“I understand where the mother is coming from. The implications are that that child will feel incredibly left out if they are the only child without a dad who is going to a seminar like that.”
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Parents of children at Matakana School were disappointed the event had been cancelled.

“Everyone knows the school system is dominated by women teachers and women parents and modern thinking is that this is to the detriment of boys. It concerns me that what appears to be a men-driven effort to redress this has been abandoned,” said a mother, who did not want to be named.

The school is planning a “more inclusive” replacement event.

11 Comments »

  1. Oh well, I hope lots of fathers from the school complain about the mother and son one. Get that cancelled. Heck, why stop there? Let’s not allow any sports where it is just one gender playing. This country is going to the dogs… the female dogs.

    Comment by Scott B — Sun 2nd June 2013 @ 8:56 am

  2. Incredible. Thanks for this Alastair. Men should now insist on attending women’s only gyms, refuges, businesswomen’s groups, antenatal exercise groups and all the other activities designed for women. As the men’s movement song “Wake Up” says: “Women’s only groups are thriving, waging war on men, but clubs for men these days are disallowed”

    Comment by Ministry of Men's Affairs — Sun 2nd June 2013 @ 10:45 am

  3. And you know what we call a female dog!

    Comment by Gwahir — Sun 2nd June 2013 @ 10:45 am

  4. How odd ….. I posted this story a few hours ago and it’s gone. wtf ?

    Comment by golfa — Sun 2nd June 2013 @ 4:28 pm

  5. Hello. Jane here. I want to join Big Buddy (Fathering fatherless boys). Where do I apply?
    (And you can’t stop me, its my right to usurp fathers roles in boys lives).

    Comment by Black Pete — Sun 2nd June 2013 @ 6:20 pm

  6. Alastair posted this version first, so I deleted yours.

    Comment by JohnPotter — Sun 2nd June 2013 @ 6:55 pm

  7. Hi, I saw this item too, and was gob-smacked by the double standards. I raised my two girls alone, and so was solely responsible for their education, training and activities. There were a lot of meetings around these activities, and too many were ‘mothers only’. In terms of the mothers role relationship to the children’s school involvements, there was no difference between them and me. I was not only excluded from some educational meetings, but activity ones too. New Zealand is a shockingly unjust hypocritical country. Who is worse?, the legislators, the administrators, or the general population for refusing to think and act when policies and conduct a harmful to families?

    Comment by Alan Radford — Tue 18th June 2013 @ 10:54 am

  8. @ 8 Alan
    do the same big stink up as the solo mother did

    Comment by kiranjiharr — Tue 18th June 2013 @ 1:03 pm

  9. Good to see you again Allan! all smoothe now? You may be interested in http://www.cyfstalk.org Can be a bit radical. Is just getting back on it’s faet after being villified and threatened by a couple of people. My studies continue into the differing rights woman have in the criminal justice system.

    Pauls-News http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pauls-news/ is also still there.

    Comment by Gwahir — Tue 18th June 2013 @ 1:34 pm

  10. I saw this comment today over at The Spearhead website and thought that in a way this solo mom blocks fathers’ bonding session mirrored what it had to say perfectly. Judge for yourselves –

    Analysis of feminism in a nutshell

    Feminism is a movement with the aim to give more power (and options) to women and reduce the power (and the options) of men. Feminism creates a state that operates as a substitute husband, distributing wealth from men to women with the goal of reducing women’s dependency on men.

    Feminism creates laws that make a marriage a bad deal for men and laws, where nearly everything could be interpreted as sexual harassment.

    The product of feminism is a matriarchy, where children are raised by women while men are marginalized.

    Gradually men lose their motivation to contribute for the sake of the society.

    In the end, the whole society is in the danger of collapse.

    Comment by Skeptic — Thu 20th June 2013 @ 7:32 am

  11. One thing I find interesting is looking at this through belief systems. Feminism demands a secular society rather than a sacred society marginalising the church in the same manner as men.

    This has created two separate belief systems in men and women.

    The women’s belief system is at most times covert, word of mouth between women, between the State and women. The belief system distributed directly into policy in such places as the Police does not stand the scrutiny of society.

    The media occasionally scratch the surface of the belief system.

    This belief system does actually exist and it is controlled by a small collective that ensure that it is reinforced and women in general come to believe that it is acceptable to hold feminist beliefs – Godhead has become their God-given-right.

    Men on the other hand no longer have any form of combined social belief system.

    White knight characters, even if they do not share feminist beliefs will not dispute them; they would rather retain their social position.

    Men have lost respect for politicians, church leaders, social leaders and public figures, particularly judges.

    The belief system in New Zealand is fractured, disrupted and marginalised by makeshift law changes, policy shifts and compensatory hand-outs.

    Comment by Down Under — Thu 20th June 2013 @ 9:34 am

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