View Single Post
  #23  
Old June 29th 03, 11:11 PM
TeacherMama
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Where are all the pro- "child support" (backdoor alimony) folks?

Selfish and self centered, Max. Only "fairness to men" is important. Women
"have been supported" by the poor, long-suffering victims called men for so
long that all women deserve is to be screwed blue by the system--just as the
poor, long-suffering men-victims have for all these years. BECAUSE the
system has been so unjust to men, ALL women deserve to be screwed. Because
THAT will fix the whole system in Max's eyes. WOMEN suffering as MEN have
suffered will make it all better. I do note that you have not presented
YOUR plan for fixing the system, except for your notion that WOMEN deserve
to suffer. Wow! Let's get you into politics!

"Max Burke" wrote in message
...
TeacherMama scribbled:


Max Burke wrote:


snip


I'm STILL waiting for you clarify several statements of yours. But
you conveniently ignore them....
I'll try again with this one:
When YOU believe that:
....dumping a SAH parent back into the job market after years of
taking care of home and family and saying "Support 'em your 50% of
the time by yourself" isn't right, either.
I responded By asking:
.....is dumping the wage earner into the SAH role right after years
of working? What do YOU say about that TM? what form of compensation
do YOU think the SAH should have to pay the wage earner when that
happens? Anything at ALL?


The wage-earner can survive on fast food, and will not die from a
dirty house.


ROTFLOL
What about when they have the kids 50% of the time? Are you REALLY
suggesting that the kids survive on fast food while in the wage earners
custody, but when in the SAH's custody the wage earner pay the SAH just
so the kids DONT have to survive on fast food in a dirty house????

What you're really saying here is that the wage earner deserves nothing
for their chosen sacrifices made during the marriage.

As I said your hypocrisy is clearly evident when you claim to support
men and the way they are treated by the 'system' you claim to be opposed
to...
At the very least you probably haven't even thought about this
'situation' or more likely dont consider it a 'situation' at all so
there is no need for the wage earner to be considered at all.....

The SAH will have a very difficult time finding work at
a survival level after a dozen years out of the job market, let alone
providing for her children 50% of the time.


That's the result of THEIR CHOICE to be an SAH and their failure to keep
up their job skills while still married. And before you start whining
and bitching that both made that decision, both also made the decision
about who would be the wage earner, therefore if there is a need for
compensation for the consequences of those *mutual choices* then it
should apply to both parties.....

FYI (try reading it this time)
Men on the edge

SATURDAY , 31 MAY 2003
http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/print/0,1...3a1861,00.html

It's the men's club no-one wants to join, but it claims as many as a
third of the country's men in its ranks. Geoff Collett reports on New
Zealand's army of blokes with little cash and few hopes. In a tidy,
modest, rented house in a tidy, modest, Christchurch suburban street,
47-year-old Richard is spelling out some of the mundane realities of
life as a marginal man.
He rarely goes out, except to work. He sold the motor mower because he
couldn't afford the petrol. He won't use electricity for heating, and he
relies on his teenage son's op-shopping skills for clothes. Such are
the facts of life on $300 a week.
Richard (his name has been changed for this article) clearly displays
many of the traits associated with masculinity in this day and age he
is proud, capable, fit-looking, resourceful. He is also better off than
many might be, working in a bar for $12 an hour, 30 hours a week. But no
matter that he can bake his own bread, grow his own veges, and look
after himself around the house.

Richard like tens of thousands of other Kiwi blokes is falling far
short in a crucial measure of being a man the ability to earn a decent
whack.
And the vast presence of these marginal men in the population statistics
is emerging as a troubling trend, calling into question the ability of a
large chunk of this country's men to contribute to society in the way
traditionally expected.
Membership of this least exclusive of men's clubs comes from earning
below $25,000 a year, or $12 an hour roughly two-thirds of the average
wage and a point not too far above where poverty starts to scratch at
the door. Besides being poor, many of their number are isolated and
alienated.

At the last Census, a third of New Zealand men in the prime of their
lives aged 25 to 44 qualified. Of those nearing retirement, those aged
55 to 64 , the proportion was 42 per cent. In Canterbury, a third of
men aged 25 to 64 40,000 in all declared their annual income at Census
time to be below $25,000. While it is tempting to dismiss their plight
as paling alongside the lot of other minorities sole mothers, for
example, or the profound disadvantages stacked against Maori and while
many more women than men occupy low-paying jobs, these marginal men have
problems all their own.

Many are single, or separated and embittered by child-custody
proceedings, their meagre incomes further reduced by child-support
obligations.
Their financial circumstances mean their prospects for starting a new
family are slim indeed. An Australian researcher has linked their
prevalence in his country to declining fertility rates. These men have
little hope of owning their own home if they don't already.
And at least some social workers are convinced there is a connection
between the numbers of marginal men and the fact that in 2000, men aged
25 to 55 accounted for almost half of New Zealand's suicides. Being
poor, isolated, and alienated cuts manhood to the quick. Even in a
generation where most women have more than proved their ability to look
after themselves financially, a man's ability to earn remains a core
expectation "that society has of its men and men have of themselves",
says
Rex McCann, the director of Auckland-based Essentially Men.

"The ability to earn is very deeply connected to our identity," he says,
likening it to the birthing and nurturing role in women. And women look
for a partner who can offer them financial security. That, McCann says,
is instinctive, too. Simon Jones, a counsellor and social worker with
Catholic Social Services in Christchurch, sees familiar signs in the
struggling single men he works with. They suffer low self-esteem, have
poor communication skills, "often feel they don't know how to approach
women ... they think basically they haven't got anything to offer".

And to rub their nose in it, a relationship is often all they really
yearn for. They feel that if they found a woman, got married, and had
children, that would be the answer to all their dreams, Jones says.
Another counsellor, Don Rowlands of the Home and Family organisation,
and co-ordinator of the Caring Fathers' Group, sees men who are excluded
not just from the dating game, but from any social activity that
requires money.
They cannot afford a night out, or live in such seedy accommodation they
are embarrassed to bring guests home. A round at the pub, a sports club
membership, a car to go on outings are all beyond them.

Karen Whittaker, the manager of the Salvation Army's Hope Centre in
Christchurch, tells of the men she and her staff see, the sort "who just
manages I wouldn't say he has quality but manages, to go to work, he
has his cigs, and that's probably about all". "And every fortnight,
he'll have the kids for the weekend, and there's not enough money to
feed the kids," she says. That is when the Sallies will see him when he
swallows his pride and shows up at the food bank. Or when it's kids'
birthdays, and he is scouring the op-shop for presents. "A dad on his
own would say he could go without a lot of things,"
Whittaker says.

"He's not worried about heating and that sort of thing. "But he would
rather come to us than lose face with his kids."
Whittaker worries about what she is seeing: the legacy of men who have
lost their place in life. "Society and culture has stripped so many of
the things from them that
are instinctively theirs to do. "There has to be some breaking out of
that."

One of her staff, Hope Centre advocate Rance Stuart, knows all about the
peculiar hardships of being a man trapped in a low-income existence. He
works with some pretty dire cases. His own income squeaks in above the
$25,000 level, and while he doesn't think that is too bad, he knows
about struggling to get by.
He shares custody of two daughters with his former partner. He doesn't
run a car. That is an obstacle to social activities he would like to
join a tramping club, but doesn't want to be in a situation where he
would always be hitching rides. He doesn't go out much and has chosen to
concentrate his money on things such as food, so the family can eat
properly, and on activities his daughters want to pursue.

But, as he laments, "there are little hidden traps in being poor". Like
not being able to afford insurance he recalls buying on hire purchase a
mountain bike for one of his girls who wants to ride competitively, only
for the bike to be stolen with just three payments to go. His dream is
to own his own home. He could afford the mortgage payments, he says, but
scraping up a deposit seems a distant hope. "I'm frustrated, very
frustrated, because for a lot of my life I wasn't
concerned about owning a home, but since I've had a family, particularly
since I've had them in my care, I've wanted to."
Stuart is philosophical about his own struggles, especially compared to
men who don't share even his modest lot, nor his determined optimism.
The men who have said to him that they have achieved nothing with their
lives. The men, single, alone, and poor, who count up the positive
aspects of their existence and settle on suicide.
It's ironic, Stuart reflects. Women who struggle alone, raise children,
and defy the odds simply by getting by are typically praised for their
fortitude. A man in such circumstances is called a loser.

One of the few attempts to raise the profile of New Zealand's struggling
men came earlier this month from a New Plymouth-based employment
researcher, Vivian Hutchinson. He used his website publication, The
Jobs Letter (www.jobsletter.org.nz), to report on their prevalence,
highlighting research by Professor Bob Birrell, who heads the centre for
population and urban research at Melbourne's Monash University.
Birrell sees a link between Australia's high proportion of single men
(40 per cent of Aussie guys aged 30 to 34) and the high proportion of
low-income men there (42 per cent of men aged 25 to 44). It is not a
direct correlation, but Birrell is convinced the connection is there
and, as he wrote in Melbourne's Age newspaper, he considered the low
rate of partnering was less to do with men "enjoying their manly
freedom" than with simple if bleak economic realities.

Another Australian academic, Professor Bob Gregory of the Australian
National University's department of economics, believes unskilled men
have been left behind during Australia's past two decades of economic
growth. Their low earning power was now affecting "the main
child-bearing, career-making, income-generating years of a man's life",
he told the Australian Financial Review.
"It is becoming a much more permanent thing," Gregory warned. "It is
stuck there as a mucking-up-people's-lives phenomenon, and all the
policy changes haven't been effective in getting to this group."
Wellington economist and researcher Paul Callister has studied the issue
in this country, and while his work is now a few years old, he reached
similar conclusions.

He thinks many low-income men will eventually escape their straitened
circumstances, but about a fifth of all New Zealand men are in a "fairly
difficult long-term position" as far as job and earning prospects go.
And, like the Australian researchers, Callister believes that throws up
doubts about their preparedness to enter the family way.
The numbers may seem huge, but economists and social researchers working
in the area can readily point to the reasons why.

Prominent among these are the waves of redundancies and corporate
restructurings of the 1990s which left thousands of men stranded with
out-of-date skills.
Divorce and the high costs to some men of custody disputes is another
popular theory. Less obvious causes include the number of men hampered
by physical injuries, especially from their youth, and former convicts
trying to get back into society.
Poor education, illness, dumb decisions and simple hard luck are other
factors blamed for holding men down in the sub-$25,000 income bracket.
And, of course, there is unemployment, and the general loss of union
power in the employment market.

Council of Trade Unions economist Peter Conway says: "Essentially, we
had an economy for 10 years or more run on the basis of getting the
cheapest possible labour, making it as flexible as possible." The
award system was abolished, removing minimum pay rates and conditions
(Conway is keen to point out that both men and women suffered). There
was a dire lack of investment in retraining and improving workers'
skills.

"The extent of poverty is a lot more embedded from the last 15 years
than many people realise," Conway argues. The CTU may see the current
Government as generally moving to address the shortcomings of the 1990s,
but "we don't bounce back from that in a couple of years".
Back in that tidy, modest rented house, Richard makes clear his dismay
with the way New Zealand has gone.

For much of his life he did well for himself. But circumstances such as
an expensive custody dispute after his divorce, and a serious accident
while working overseas after the dispute have conspired against him. He
returned to New Zealand with his savings gone, to discover a place which
had no room for a man down on his luck.
He is embittered about the divorce and child custody laws, about demands
on hard-up men to pay child support when the female partner may be
better off financially. He is angered by a social welfare system that
treats its users as the enemy. And he is frustrated at being part of a
low-wage economy.
Richard struggled for a year to find a job. He still has a folder
stuffed with job advertisements and rejection letters. He is loath to
complain about the one he now has, his $12-an-hour, 30-hours-a-week
behind a bar. But he can't help himself, saying wearily: "It's tough
coming home and being in a slave market." A man expects more.


So, Max, in order that I can fully understand your position on these
issues, tell me what you think the system should be like.


That's simple. Make the system as legally and morally right to men
and their parental choices as it is for women.


Start from
scratch--don't patch up today's system by giving men "as many
rights" as women, because we know darn well that will not work.


There you go again, saying that giving men the same legal and moral
rights women already have will not work.......
Why wont it work? It works for women TM. It works damned well when
they have to decide if they will or will not be a parent.
Tell me why having that choice wont work for men?
This is why I believe your claimed stance of supporting men is so
hypocritical; You refuse to accept that men having the same legal and
moral rights as women already have to choose to be a parent or not
wont work if and when men have those rights.


I think by just awarding more and more "rights" to try to balance
things out is making a bigger and bigger mess than we have now.


IOW Society has handed out enough rights WRT being a parent; Too bad
that men missed out on those rights, they'll just have to live without
them....
You haven't even thought about this at all have you; You're making it
all up as you go along to justify your knee-jerk reactions.......

At
the points where men and women's rights clash, we need to get back to
ground Zero and rewrite it!


No we DONT! We dont need to take away women's rights to avoid men
having those same rights. After all we didn't have to take away men's
rights when giving women those same rights. I have to wonder why you
think this way, and wonder how you'd really feel when YOUR rights get
taken away just so men dont get the same rights.

Because there are places where you can't
give balancing rights--such as the man wanting the woman to continue
an unwanted pregnancy.


In cases like this men need to find and make a commitment to a woman who
wants a child as much as he does. There is no need for men to have the
right to force women to continue an unwanted pregnancy at all.
But to make it equal, when women want to give birth to the child when
she knows the man doesn't want the child, she likewise should have no
right to force him to be a father to that unwanted child. She needs to
find a man who wants that child as much as she does and be prepared to
make the long term commitment that is required.

Should the woman be forced to carry the child
because dad wants it?


Not at all. But then neither should men be required to be an 'unwilling
father' when they dont want the child and women do......

The child belongs to both--should a judge be
able to intervene in a case like this?


Men should have the legal, social, and moral right to decide if they'll
be a parent or not. Women already have this legal, social, and moral
right to decide, so should men.

Or are the only "men's
rights" we are talking about the ones that keep a man from paying CS?


No. See above.

Telling men
"If you don't want the kid, just say you don't wanna be a dad." and
telling women "you didn't create the kid alone, you have a right to
help from the dad." is only going to create a battle of "rights"--it
won't solve the problem.
So, you found a lamp on the beach, rubbed it, and out came a genie,
who says "Tell me how to fix the family court system." What would
you say, Max?


See above and below.


You didn't say a thing, Max. Not a thing. Just the same ofl "The
girls got more cookies than I did...NO FAIR!!" stuff you always say.


ROTFLOL
And your whining and bitching about the SAH not getting the same number
of 'cookies' and the wage earner after the divorce is NOTHING like that
is it......

If you REALLY want equality TM, then you'll need to realise that it will
require you to change your attitude and realise that equality means
being EQUAL, including men having the same rights that women already
have.

What, specifically, do you want for men? No "As much as the girls
got!" Specifically!


The SAME RIGHTS women already have. Why is that so hard for you to
understand TM? I mean what EXACTLY is it that you find so difficult
about understanding men having the same legal, social, and moral rights
as women?

You appear to be so totally against men having the right to decide if
they'll be a parent or not, you're quite willing to have that very right
taken away from women (including yourself apparently) just so men dont
get that right.

So I take it when you 'rewrite' these rights, start from scratch, you'll
say women cant abort the pregnancy they dont want, or cant keep the
[potential] child they cant possibly look after without needing welfare
or CS.....

That you'll tell women that when they choose to have sex and conceive as
a result tough that was YOUR CHOICE, you now have to live with the
consequences of that choice, and women DONT get to decide what the
outcome of that conception will be, it's all down to the law, judges,
and child care authorities that tell women what sort of parent they will
be and what their parental 'responsibilities' are......

# If the abstract rights of men will bear discussion and explanation,
then those of women, by a parity of reasoning, will not fail the same
test; Although a different opinion prevails in the minds of most women
when their rights are put to that test....

--

Replace the obvious with paradise to email me.
See Found Images at:
http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/~mlvburke