New survey shows men who don't see their children much are still great fathers | Herald Sun

Wheelers Hill father Sam Katakouzinos and his son Liam, 7years spend special times together. Picture: Janine Eastgate Herald Sun

MEN who don't see their children much can still be terrific fathers, a new survey has found.

The study from the Parenting Research Centre has found it is the quality of the relationship that matters, not the amount of time spent together.

Academic Nina Lucas and her team examined the wellbeing of 302 eight- and nine-year-old children with a non-resident father.

They found dads are important, whether they live with their children or not.

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21st century man: lost and anachronistic? (SMH article)

Today's Sydney Morning Herald features an article by Guy Mosel titled 21st century man: lost and anachronistic. Overall it's a very good overview of the various strands of the men's movement. However, it suffers from a couple of problems that most media coverage of men's issues falls into.

Firstly, while highlighting many of the issues that are faced by modern day males, it sometimes presents them as if they are "men's own fault", rather than focusing on the social determinants that give rise to them. For example, men are called "stupid and "lacking ambition." Imagine we called women "stupid and lacking ambition" in the 1950s when females were underperfoming at schools and in the workplace! Imagine we called girls suffering from eating disorders "stupid"! We don't do this for women - we see the larger social structures in place that cause their problems - so there's no reason to do this for men.

By taking this at times hostile and sneering look at the men's movement, the article illustrates very well the challenges faced by men's activists. Media coverage of the women's movement is, on the whole, favourable and sympathetic. When the men's movement actually gets some media coverage (such as Mosel's piece), it is treated quite differently.

Secondly, the article ignores all the wonderful things that men and boys do every day to make the world a better place: fighting bushfires and floods; building the roads, buildings and infrastructures that we all depend upon; mining, logging, deep-sea fishing, long-distance transportation; doing frontline dangerous work in the military, police and security - risking their own health, safety and well-being to help others. Not to mention being great husbands, boyfriends, partners, lovers, mates and mentors, and increasingly being irreplaceable hands-on dads.

And while the article presents the men's movement as a rag-tag mish-mash of disparate views and opinions, the same can easily be said of the women's movement. Both movements are essential to make the world a better place for all people - men, women and children. And both movements are necessarily diverse - as diverse as our societies are.

But these quibbles aside, Mosel must be given credit for taking the time to research and write such an in-depth article about the men's movement - one that will raise these issues with a wider mainstream audience, and hopefully stimulate some much-needed discussion about men and boys and their needs. 

Here's the article...

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Parenting Plan/Agreement research by Dads in Distress

To Dads in Distress (DIDSS) members and supporters,

As part of the member feedback work we are doing for the Department of Families and Housing, Community Support and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA), our next paper (Paper No 5) is going to address the topic of Parenting Plan/Agreements.

We have developed a survey via the Survey Monkey tool seeking input from our Members and the broader community. The survey is in two parts - the first part is seeking information on individual Parenting Plan/Agreements but at all times protecting the privacy of survey participants. The second part is seeking broader information about Parenting Plan/Agreements.

I would appreciate your time in completing the survey which can be done by clicking on the following link;

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ParentingPlans

Yours sincerely

Barry Guidera
CEO

If no-one speaks of dreadful things « Karen Woodall

Spring sunshine on a Tuesday morning and I am musing on the emails and letters that I have been receiving over the past few months from mothers, fathers, grandparents and other family members, all on the subject of family separation, some on related issues such as family violence, false allegations and prevention of relationships with children.  Some of these letters are truly heart breaking and they make me feel, in turn, angry, ashamed and bewildered that such hideous stories are being lived out up and down the land without anyone, anywhere, turning a hair.

Those familiar with the fathers rights movement will be familiar with these stories but too many outside of that will either never have heard them or will be easy in their dismissal of them.  The idea that the abuse of men and boys is routine and systematic in our country is an issue that I have heard being laughed at, ridiculed, and simply ignored.

I used to be part of the women’s movement back in the day.  I remember a time when women’s issues were treated in just this same manner.  I went on to be active in that movement for many years, fighting for equality and justice and truth in every aspect of life, including the family.  Never for a minute during that time was it my intention to achieve all of that at the expense of men, I believed and still believe in true equality in which difference is valued and supported. I am deeply ashamed of the way in which the pendulum has swung so far that men and boys are suffering to a truly desperate degree.

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SLIMS and the decline of partnering in Australia

This is an edited version of a research paper by Prof. Bob Birrell, Virgonia Rapson, and Clare Hourigan, of the Monash University Centre for Population and Urban Research for the Australian Family Association written in March 2004. Their insights are still very current today. 

Economic changes over the past 20 years have conspired to create a growing underclass of single low income males (SLIMs) without the financial resources to marry and support a family. Consequently, this study shows that primarily it is not the DINKs (dual income no-kids) behind the decline in Australia's fertility rate. Rather, the decline in marriage and fertility is largely among the SLIMs. In 1986 most women were partnered by their late twenties. By 2001 only a bare majority, 53%, were partnered. In 1986, 71% of men had partnered by their mid thirties, but by 2001 this had shrunk to 59%. 

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