Tonight is the start of the school holidays; I am allowed to pick up my son.  I feel extremely emotional about this, because I know only too well what it feels like when these times come for men who are deprived of the opportunity to spend time with their little ones. It took a court order to get to this point. What a shame, what a shame on this society, that ...

I’m tired. Last night I had just driven from Coffs Harbour to hold a DIDs (Dads in Distress) meeting in Forster, and returned in the early hours of the morning. I am on the road a lot. My car is my office, often it’s also my dressing room, and often it’s my bedroom. Often on the long hauls, I find myself talking to a very special passenger. My Lord, my Higher ...

It is not the actual divorce that hurts families. It is the pain of finding guilt in one another as divorcing couples. The fighting, the yelling, the attacking of one another’s character is what causes trauma in children and friends. Some people’s mistake is to either marry the wrong person or think they have married the wrong person. The problem then so often lies in couples trying to blame the other ...

The Attorney General has released a discussion paper on Family Law Reform. Take the time, read it and put a submission in to: www.ag.gov.au Think about parallel parenting. Why can’t it work here? We are coming up to Christmas. Many dads won’t be seeing their kids for Christmas — someone else may be handing out their presents from under the tree this year. While you are having Christmas dinner or while you ...

That which has been is that which will be, And that which has been done is that which will be done, So, there is nothing new under the sun. This observation was written in about 935 BC. It is as true today as it was then. Its modern equivalent is the saying, “History always repeats itself.” Last week’s article revealed the similarities in the responses to the introduction of two parliamentary ...

Mahatma Gandhi once said that when facing adversaries, they first ignore you, then they fight you and then you win. Those people who despair at the apparent lack of progress in the fight for social justice for separated families need to take heart from Gandhi’s observation. We have successfully accomplished the first stage of the battle: they’re ignoring us.  If you doubt this success, then read the report by the parliamentary ...

The best decisions about the care, welfare and support of children are those made by their parents. However, the Child Support Agency has decided that it should take over this role. As a result, I know plenty of non-custodial fathers (and one mother) who not only have no intention of ever paying child support, but also do everything they possibly can to avoid it. I’m one of them. What do you ...

Many people have a solid, ingrained resistance to change, particularly when that change doesn’t align with the way they think. Our understanding and perception of the world around us is, to a large degree moulded by the culture of our age. When we look back to another age, another time and culture, we are often horrified by how the reasoning of the proponents of change has been trivialised, debunked or ignored. ...

The subbie was a weathered man in his late 50s with big, calloused hands and knobbly knees. His offsider was a skinny, tearaway kid with wraparound sunglasses and a hotted-up Holden. Watching them work at our house over a few weeks was an instructive experience. They were obviously on good terms with one another, and occasionally there was even a bit of leg-pulling. But there was no doubt about who was ...

(continued from part 1) The next question then becomes, why doesn’t this hard core group just pay up? Well of course, just as there are some taxpayers who will go to any lengths to avoid paying taxation, there will always be some who will adopt a similar attitude towards payment of child support. It is an unfortunate facet of human nature. But there are also wider issues involving such things as ...

It was fascinating to watch the media recently making a complete botch of facts (as per usual) in order to generate reader interest. This mangling of fact in favour of ‘readability appeal’ (fiction) happens all too frequently in our media — something that is costing us dearly as a society, as our perceptions of social reality become evermore distorted by the nonsense we read in newspapers. The recent reporting of child ...

A harsh statistic, which should be sobering and alarming to both legislators and their advisors, but has been largely ignored, is that about 40% of all payer clients held captive by the Child Support Agency (CSA) are effectively unemployed. Another statistic that appears to have also made no impact on government decision-makers is that 76% of all unemployed men receiving unemployment benefits are payer clients of the CSA. The cost of ...

I was 27 years old when, on my first day of teaching, I was presented with a class full of ten-year-old children. I remember thinking that I hadn’t seen or spoken to a ten-year-old since I was ten. I felt equally inadequate a few years later when I was handed my firstborn child. My knowledge of what was required of me was limited to an understanding that this creature was a ...

The observation that separated couples rarely get along with each other would come as no revelation to anyone. It is generally relationship problems that lead to the separation in the first place. Yet these relationship difficulties are often used by the Family Court as the basis for refusing shared parenting and for restricting a father’s contact with his children. I know of one case where a judge, who found no fault ...

While attending ANZAC Day dawn ceremonies just now, I was reminded of how little people understand the unknown/absent/single father from the poems that are read on ANZAC Day. I have re-written the originals slightly below, for those who are battling and those who have gone before, and for those who would like to understand the plight of the “unknown father” who daily still lays down his life. For The Fallen Laurence ...

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 ...