Here we go again — my second Single Dads article in almost 1½ years of the FathersOnline newsletter. I always said the first article wouldn’t be the last. What has brought on this sudden burst of ‘single father inspiration? Read Peter Duncan’s email in the News & Info section before you go any further to find out: Dear Dads4Kids Get off your ‘Unfair Child Support Blame the Family Court’ soap box. ...

Letter to the Prime Minister from The Lone Fathers Association of Australia Part Two The best interests of the child With a legal presumption of equal shared physical custody, a clear message would be sent by the Australian community to the divorce industry that a child is a human being with an inalienable right to equal parenting (including parenting time) by both its parents and a right to not have a ...

Letter to the Prime Minister from The Lone Fathers Association of Australia Part One General comments The LFAA, as the national peak body representing separated fathers and their children, wishes to inform you of our extreme disappointment with the Report on “Shared Custody” by the House of Representatives Committee on Family and Community Affairs released on 29 December 2003. While the fathers and children of Australia have asked for bread, the ...

All going well, I will receive access to my children sometime on Christmas Day. I don’t know whether for 1 hour, 1 day or 1 week. I have no court orders, choosing not to put my kids through it, and knowing by experience they are not worth the paper they are written on. There are many more like me. Most don’t get to see their kids over Christmas at all. I ...

Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea Joy to you and me! Here we come, into the holidays. My two independent elder children will be off with their friends. I will see little of them. My youngest will be at his mother’s this Christmas. I am grateful it is a rotation, but I can find it a bit hard. We will all try to be together for a meal ...

Here’s a nice message that comes from the Bible. It went the email rounds but was anonymous, so I can’t credit the scholar. In the very centre of the Bible, Psalm 118:8, it says (I like the Amplified version translated by Jewish scholars): It is better to trust and take refuge in the Lord [God] than to put confidence in man [general term, men or women — humans in other words]. ...

Recently, I have been pondering the relevance of this statement in my own life. It has been a number of years since I separated, but I still struggle with a lack of vision for my life. It doesn’t really matter how you come to be separated from your children and their mother, I think at some time we all experience the same thing — a need to re-evaluate our vision for ...

Plan some time out for yourself — things you enjoy doing, with friends or alone. It maybe off to the sports arena, or the movies, or just a simple lunch at the fish markets. Try inviting some friends over if you can cook, or invite yourself over to some friends. It doesn’t have to be expensive to have fun. Cook yourself breakfast in bed, or have a video day. Plan some ...

A few years ago I was a happily married man — a beautiful wife, three sons, a home  that  was well on the way to being paid off, a job, and settled in the community.  We had just had our 10-year anniversary — a night on the town for the family.  A few bumps along the way, including some really tough surprises with our sons’ births, but everything was fine — ...

As I walked up the main street of Wollongong one day this week, I heard a voice cry out my name. It was an old friend of mine, whom I knew was now a single dad. He had experienced the full brunt of the Family Court’s injustice. His divorce was both painful and bitter. Simon had subsequently walked away from a very good job on the wharves and become another one ...

At primary school, my eldest son was very keen on cricket. Big problem: the school was not connected into the local cricket team network. So he networked. Cajoling staff and friends’ parents alike, he sweet-talked everyone into joining the competition. There were no teachers involved, little sports gear, no school time practice and no coach… Me? I was so sick with asthma until I was 12 that I never got the ...

It is a well-known adage that evil triumphs when good men do nothing. The events of history testify to the truth of this saying. Yet, there are plenty of examples in history of good men accepting the authority of a tyrannical government. The apostle Paul was a Jew living under the dominance of a conquering nation, the Romans. Despite this, he taught that it was important to be obedient and submissive ...

Each year in Australia thousands of children are being mentally and emotionally abused by the Family Court of Australia by being forced to participate in an investigation of their parents’ competency. This process is called a ‘Family Report’. Many children are severely harmed by the experience. Family Reports are a massive and unjustified violation of the rights of children and parents. They contribute significantly to the social tragedy of the separation ...

In June, 2000, a 44-year-old father experiencing family separation killed himself in the bush in the Victorian Gippsland region. Greg Wilton had a five-year-old son and a two-year-old daughter. This event made national news because Greg Wilton was also a federal parliamentarian. Each year in Australia, more than 2,500 people die by suicide. This is significantly more than the national road toll (about 1,700). Most people are aware of the focus ...

I recently represented the Fatherhood Foundation (Dads4Kids) at a national workshop conducted by the Department of Health and Ageing. Our task was to contribute towards an understanding of suicide amongst men in the 25-44 age group, and to assist in developing a strategic approach to prevention. Some of the discussions and debates about the causes of suicide within this age group reminded me of the children’s story about the animals that ...

I heard recently that over half of the Australian veterans of the first Gulf War still suffer from ‘post-traumatic stress disorder’ and that many of them will probably never recover. The focus of counselling services appears to be to encourage and help veterans learn to live with the symptoms of this disorder. A similar approach is being used to deal with problems faced by separated fathers. These fathers are being told ...

There are quite a few things that I like about the Easter holidays. I like the traditional early morning surfs at my local beach. The king tides sometimes cover a rock outcrop that normally remains exposed at high tide. When the swell is small, this produces a nice little wave that I usually get to surf on my own. By the time other surfers become aware of it, the tide begins ...

A few days ago, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the Iraqi Information Minister, stared unblinkingly into a camera and declared that the US invaders were surrounded by Iraqi soldiers and were about to surrender. The thinking and understanding of many Iraqi people had been so primed and manipulated by deceptions and lies for so many years that they would have accepted this statement without question. On Thursday the true situation was revealed as ...

The Childcare Industry and the De-Fathering of Society Part 5 The preceding articles in this series have argued that while the Federal Government’s generosity and concern for families may be genuine, its actions are lopsided, biased against non-custodial parents, and contribute to the de-fathering of society. The crisis of fatherless children is compounded by the fact that there are few male role models working in childcare centres. And when children leave ...

The Childcare Industry and the De-Fathering of Society Part 4 Government funding of the childcare industry was not designed to remove children from their fathers. The fact that it does so is a consequence of the cultural bias against separated fathers that exists in our culture. This bias pervades every aspect and level of society. It means that in the development of government policies, and in the Opposition parties’ response to ...