I left the following comments on the Herald Sun site and also in a letter to the editor but they never seem to publish my stuff. I'm too anti victim feminist I guess.
There is no hiding the misandry in this article. The author has relied on unscientific anecdotal reports and events that have nothing to do with the shared parenting law. It is a shame because most studies clearly show the benefits to children having both parents in their lives. My 11 year old thrives on having the ability to love and be with both parents as she needs to. In this era of unilateral divorce - 75% initiated by mom in Canada - Oz was looking a little more progressive. With this kind of biased , untrue and clearly misandric reporting dads in OZ have an uphill battle.
They did publish the above comment and I did a followup:
Annabelle Jones & Coral Hall : You obviously have no experience with real shared parenting where children are allowed to love and be with their mom and dad. Further Ms. Jones you cannot use drive by smears to enforce an illogical argument. I've seen your posts before and they typically involve denigration and false accusations with no substance behind them. You are a member of anonymums, the OZ misandrist group calling themselves maternalists. The corollary of your argument with respect to money and control is of course the moms want their financial entitlements to continue and exercise control of their ex's through the children. This is how most girls are socialized when growing up. Boys wrestle and play sports to channel their aggression girls use various forms of "meanness". Did you ever see the movie "Mean Girls." My 11 year old thrives on being able to have an ongoing loving relationship with both her parents. She loves the change of scenery while maintaining the continuity with school. To use the term ping-pong is to negatively denote something which is clearly not the case. Its all about control of the dads through entitlements and children just as girls were socialized as tweens and teens. Now they are grown up and do it through their children. The upshot of it is these particular women never do grow up. There are some men who do the same thing but fewer in number but both try to alienate the children. Some of these poor kids appear to be posting here. What a shame. It would seem some posters believe females are more equal than dads and would use false allegations and drive by smears to further their agenda. What kind of moms do you think they are?MJM
'Ping-pong' kids of divorce in hell
Article from:
Jill Singer -----> (ed note: A Victim Feminist sympathizer beyond the pale)
July 16, 2009 12:00am
HOW many more disastrous decisions does the Family Court have to make before the Rudd Government's promised review of the Family Law Act is completed and acted on?
Several recent cases highlight the disaster the Howard government's patriarchal ideology foisted upon Australian families by introducing shared parenting laws in 1996.
The idea behind shared parenting is based on the notion that children benefit by having frequent contact with both parents, preferably 50/50.
It works for some separated couples.
But as Prof John Wade, chairman of the Family Law Council sees it, the law is flawed and has led to some horrible decisions.
One Melbourne mother is defying a Family Court order to hand over her 19-month-old daughter to the baby's father, who lives in Darwin.
The baby has always been in the primary care of Ms A but is to be ripped from her and sent back to the father in Darwin.
Ms A incurred the wrath of the court because she left Darwin without the father's permission.
Originally from Melbourne, she met him in 2006 after taking up a teaching job.
They split in May this year, whereupon Ms A decided to come back to Melbourne with their baby.
She is now working two days a week and studying, while living with her mother, who helps with child care.
The court decreed Ms A did the wrong thing by not staying in Darwin and striving to share parenting equally.
Never mind that she's from Melbourne and has done the lion's share of parenting, that the father won't move from Darwin to spend time with his child, or that the baby has extended family here.
Shared parenting laws effectively shackle women to the fathers of their children.
A woman from Bendigo, for example, could get pregnant after a quick fling on a visit to Kalgoorlie -- and be forced to stay there to share parenting.
Mrs B is another Melbourne mother hit by the changes.
Part of a large Italian family, she moved to Sydney in 2001 with her husband and their two children, now six and eight.
In 2005 the marriage fell apart and Mr B set up home with his personal assistant, whom he's now planning to have more children with.
Mrs B also wants to move on by returning to Melbourne with her children, but the court won't permit it.
If Mrs B wants to see her children regularly, she must suffer living near her happy ex-husband and his new girlfriend as they make a brand new family.
Then there's Mr and Mrs R, who lived together in Sydney for many years before their daughter was born in 2002.
In early 2007 he got a job in northwest Queensland and his wife and daughter moved with him.
The marriage broke up soon after and Mrs R returned to Sydney with their daughter.
Even though he could find suitable work in Sydney, Mr R doesn't want to move back home to share parenting, because, as he told the court, he just loves his job in outback Queensland -- it's important to him and interesting.
Meanwhile, Mrs R claims to have felt emotionally and physically isolated living up north.
The legal upshot is that the daughter, aged seven, must go and live in northwest Queensland with her busy father.
Unless Mrs R returns there, she will rarely get to see her daughter.
There will always be bad mothers and good fathers, but this is not the point.
The good parent has their child's best interests at heart, and the same applies to good family laws.
I'm reminded of the biblical judgment of Solomon in which two women come before Solomon claiming to be the mother of the same baby.
How to decide the real mother?
Solomon suggests a 50/50 split between the women, to be achieved by slicing the baby in half with a sword.
Rather than see her baby die, the real mother immediately reveals herself by offering to relinquish her child to the lying woman.
Solomon, of course, gives custody to the genuine mother.
Before the law was changed, it was generally seen as being in the child's best interests to have a primary home with one or other parent.
The shift towards a 50/50 split between separated parents is seeing too many children's lives dangerously disrupted.
We're now seeing children under the age of two being shared week about and often forced to travel long distances, colloquially known as ping-pong kids - shuttled back and forth between homes.
Children this young are highly dependent little creatures who thrive on stability and routine - some are still breast-fed, but being denied primary care by their mothers.
The old rules might well have seen some fathers hard done by, but the pendulum has swung too far the other way.
Any father who could deny his baby a loving mother because of the location of his job or his new girlfriend is as bad as Solomon's lying mother - prepared to destroy a child's life for her own selfish needs.
And any law that condones it is even worse
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25787452-5000117,00.htmlThe following is an excellent observation by Eric Tarkington which may not get published but is worthy of reproducing to give logic and reason to the parable of Solomon as quoted by Singer.MJMI love it when feminists trot out the (patriarchal!) judgment of Solomon story as a reason to block the child's right to both parents, as Singer does in her article. In the story, two women claim to be mother to one child. Solomon suggests cutting the child in half, and one woman gives up the child to prevent that, so Solomon gives the intact child to the self-sacrificing woman. The point here is that the woman who puts her child's interest ahead of her own is the legitimate parent. How, then, should a woman behave, when, to suit herself, she wants to move away with the child, or otherwise block the father's access? ...Yes, you're right, the story tells us that she should put the child's interest, ready access to both parents, ahead of her own. Obviously, this rule applies to both fathers and mothers, but feminists want the father to give up the child, so that the mother can take possession, even though she puts herself first. And the modern version of cutting a child in half? Answer: force the child to side with one parent over the other, or to lose a parent. Divorce is going to do that, but parents have a duty to minimize it by cooperating brilliantly.
