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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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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Book review of "The Good Men Project: Real Stories From the Frontline of Manhood" by K.C. Glover

David Gilmore in his expertly crafted study of masculinity, Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity (1992), points out that manhood is nearly ubiquitous in the cultures of the world. Very early on in his book, Gilmore introduces us to the Fox Indians, one of the aboriginal peoples of North America, whose word for manhood translates into English as “the Big Impossible.” Anyone involved in discussions of manhood would do well to remember this fact. With this in mind I undertook a reading of The Good Men Project, a collection of thirty-one essays written by “a broad range of men – rich, poor, black, white, gay, straight, urban, rural, famous, [and] ordinary” (from the back cover).

If anyone has had the displeasure of sitting through a gender studies course in contemporary academe, he may be familiar with a kind of class that is run as a sort of self-help group, where mostly young women trade stories of victimhood at the hands of the patriarchy amid rage and tears, while the two or three silent young men in class sweat profusely in their chairs. Luckily for us The Good Men Project is not like one of these classes. While a few of the stories delve into that weepy emotionalism, for the most part these essays have, as another reviewer put quite succinctly, “balls.” The men who wrote these essays are not trying to burden us with their problems or to saturate us with their emotions, but to give us snapshots from the stories of their lives, some of which are able to deliver a devastating emotional payload precisely because of their reserve and dignity. These stories break the great male silence and allow us to start our own analysis.

From New Male Studies: An International Journal - Vol. 2, Issue 1, 2013, pp. 78-81.

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St. Francis House: Mentoring Young Men in a Fatherless Society. By Joseph Campo

The centrality of a father or male mentor in the life of a young man is discussed by the director of St. Francis House, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York. A brief description of this home for boys 18 years and older who have come from extremely difficult situations is followed by reflections on the importance of men’s personal commitment to boys, in particular the combination of a male model for young men’s spiritual life.

From New Male Studies: An International Journal - Vol. 2, Issue 1, 2013, pp. 72-77.

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