The feminist dichotomy
Oh! how it gives me joy to see the discourse amongst women around the latest policy on solo mothers required to be abailble for work when their youngest is aged 3.
Day care centres are a product of feminists demands as a way of releasing mothers from the ball and chain of children (placed on them by those bloody controlling partners) that halted all joy in life for them. Of course that is all bull shit as is most of their ranting. I await eagerly how history will record the events taking place now where the most important time in a young child’s life are thrown into a care centre that can never give the attention and emotional stability that a parent can provide. Some how I think they will manage to blame a pony tail
pulling PM for the debacle.
If you are a solo dad and working your ass off I can understand why it would seem as some relief that your ex has to work to pay some of the bills. That’s ok because it is always natural to see it from your own angle first.
For me I see no joy to me to see a 3 year old toddler without its mother or father just because the Government can force it. The cost of not having one or both parents around is just plain dumb as the income that person can generate working would not be worth the loss of a close bond a 3 year old needs to form with its parents. At least one parent should be within hand reach of their own toddler up to school age. Before and after school as well.
Taking a step back from what the Government is causing I feel there is a move towards moving the sole burden of the absent single parent on to the parent with custody. That with the forgiveness of billions of unpaid IRD debt in child support if you start paying now is sure signal that the Government is looking for a way to get out of the deadlock that has been created.
Forgiving the billions is a no brainer. There is no way the absentee parent can pay so they were not going to get the money anyway. But a suppose it would seem a carrot if you owed lots of historical money to IRD for family support.
The absentee parent is almost always the man. So it’s a slight win for men. A loss for woman. But the truth is its a severe loss for the 3 to 5 year olds.
If I were a solo dad I would want to know my 3 year old was being cared for as good as I would. And paid staff would never be as good as a parents bond.
Comment by Lukenz — Sat 23rd May 2015 @ 9:39 pm
Thanks for the strongly child focussed post and comment.
Funny how the financial pressures around child support wouldn’t be a problem to Government, if the richest 10% paid a fair share of taxes? A Fairer system of child support assessment is being withheld, due to Government stresses from wider tax evasion.
Our Sky City/National Party has a lot to answer for……
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sun 24th May 2015 @ 1:14 pm
The government either has no real interest in ensuring young children receive adequate nurturing or has convinced itself that paid childcare centres will suffice as substitutes for parenting; probably a bit of both.
A much better way to reduce the cost of sole parents is to try to reduce the numbers of parents choosing that option. Unfortunately, doing this in any form will provoke howls of emotive protest from feminists and social services who will dishonestly imply that sole parenting results primarily from women’s need to escape abusive relationships. So the Key government has taken a more devious approach dressed up as a way to reduce ‘child poverty’ in the hope that will confuse the feminists, which seems to be working.
It’s really cruel to encourage sole parenthood by making that benefit readily and quickly available then making life as difficult as possible for those who have been lured and subsidized into sole parenthood. It would be much better if sole parenthood were discouraged from the outset. This could be achieved by a stand-down before a benefit is paid in all but a few clearly-defined circumstances such as a partner’s recent conviction for serious domestic violence or where the applying main caregiver has been abandoned by the other parent. People who break up their children’s family because they feel unhappy or have met someone new or realize that they will be better off if the parents live apart and one gets free government money, or people who commence or continue sole-parent breeding as a career choice, should not receive a benefit immediately.
Another approach that would reduce the benefit costs of sole parenthood would be a rebuttable assumption of equal shared care. Both parents would then have equal time available to earn an income which if insufficient could be subsidized by a much more affordable and realistic Working for Families top up.
Another important approach to discouraging sole parenthood is to promote family cohesion. Pay, or reduce taxes for, families who remain together rather than paying only sole parents. Educate the public about the true effects on children of family separation and the true risks to children whose homes are shared with their parents’ new partners or fuck-buddies. Run advertising campaigns designed to make intact families fashionable again. Stop giving taxpayers’ money to organisations that spread anti-family propaganda or otherwise encourage sole parenthood.
All pretty simple really.
Unfortunately, government’s hidden agenda is to divide and rule. Families represent the number one threat to control of the people by government and the big-money forces government is in bed with. Sole parents dependent on the state are easy to control; intact families prepared to fight for their children’s best interests are not. So now, after luring people into that position of dependency, government has invented ways to reduce the cost of keeping them in that weakened state. It will now withhold its separation bounty from them for periods of time when they fail to meet ‘job-seeking’ requirements, and will be relieved of having to pay them for other periods of time while they grapple with often temporary jobs or jobs that they will not be able to manage for long alongside parenting responsibilities. All the while the sole parents continue to provide a large group of the population who through their reliance on the state will be easily manipulated. The task to get governments to do the simple things needed to reduce sole parenthood is a complicated one.
Comment by Ministry of Men's Affairs — Sun 24th May 2015 @ 1:36 pm
Great responces above, I’d like to ad that if someone leaves a relationship to take there children into another relationship where there will be two adults able to pay and care for that child then there should be no subsidies and or child support requirements.
Comment by Too Tired — Sun 24th May 2015 @ 4:24 pm
From my experience, I am convinced that children’s interests within the system are only viewed as a conjoint of the mother’s and child’s. Whilst there are individuals with power within the system, able to use their cognition without prejudice, and deduce that there is no empirical evidence that a child would suffer with parental shared custody, they lack the courage to go up against the evil vaginal network.
Comment by triassic — Tue 26th May 2015 @ 10:22 pm
Dear Two Tyred,
your comment is about sorting out money and assets. Making a workable parenting plan is surely the most important issue? This should meet the needs of the children, but to do this, it must also meet the basic needs of the adults and be within their capabilities.
What a sobering thought, if such a plan had to be on the table, before the children’s lives were disrupted.
Bugger, who wants common sense anyway?
Couples are much easier prey, if they are partly broken, desperate and in fear. They cannot protect their wallets and assets and borrowing power. Us legal workers can tear them to bits and bugger the children!
Comment by MurrayBacon — Wed 27th May 2015 @ 10:20 am
Great response #6 I agree, there is a lot of common sense missing. I would pay for my children in case of separation and maybe some wouldn’t. But I earn my money so I should be able to spend it on the kids where I deem fit to do so. I would be a protector and provider for hem and my ex would probably see her way to giving me shared care if she wasn’t so looked after under the current rules. Right now she has all the power and I play along to have access. (Great Access).
I just want things to stop as they are and go back to normal, but that’s at least six more years away. No amount of griping on sites like this will change anything.
Comment by too tired — Thu 28th May 2015 @ 1:00 am
Dear too tired,
I agree. But it isn’t only how the money is spent that impacts onto the children’s upbringing and development, it is the accountability between the parents.
Successful couples have a sensible degree of accountability between them. This accountability greatly improves the value delivered to the children, from a fixed amount of parental resources.
Although this accountability comment can be applied to money, it is far more true of time and care.
Even separated parents can achieve as much for their children, if they sensibly honour accountability between them, especially around decisions that impact directly and indirectly onto the children’s development.
The social failure of the child support system, is that it disconnects accountability.
This causes losses far larger than the unfairness of the “formula” and the issues that the formula turns a blind eye to.
The ignorance about child development and child economics in familycaught$ is just icing on the child [and spousal] support disaster-cake.
The familycaught$ vandalises accountability between parents, of parents to familycaught% and also of course their own accountability to parents and society.
Guaranteed disaster and cashflows in the wrong direction.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Thu 28th May 2015 @ 8:13 am