h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

<>

Then you have the middle-class fantasy idea of families with adopted children and of birth mothers!

I unwillingly "gave" up a child for adoption in 1972, when I still a teenager. (You should know this, Blicky constantly uses that fact against me. It's one of the reasons his vicious posts scare me so much. Like others, he knows where I am most vulnerable.)

Of the literally hundreds of women I've met who "gave" up children for adoption by "loving middle class couples", not one was abusive or neglectful, not one! And in all those years, I've met two who were actually ready and willing and happy about it, and both were older, wealthier and 'partnered'.

>>I have no comment to make, but are you sure you've understood her correctly? Given your strike rate at understanding me most of the time, I am not sure.

You can check if you like, but I'm resonably certain that she said that she generally refers to same-sex civil parnerships as 'marriage'.

On the issue of not having anything to say on civil marriage...so your view that marriage is *by definition* between a man and woman only applies to Christian marriage, yes? So for civil marriage, we can change the definition? Would, then, a gay civil wedding be as valid as a heterosexual one?

(Although - hey! - that's not for a Christian to say. We can go our own, civilised way.)

<>

Absolutely not! (That situation id straight from a TV evening soap/drama, I recognise it.)

IMO male "mothers" are an evil as unmitigated as secret adoption.

VA - would you be of the opinion that men raising children are an unmitigated evil?

That's the impression you gave..

'Absolutely not! (That situation id straight from a TV evening soap/drama, I recognise it.)'



I've not watched TV in years.



'IMO male "mothers" are an evil as unmitigated as secret adoption. '

How about this scenerio:

Happily married man and woman have a child. The mother dies. Is the father morally required to find a new mother for the child, even if he himself has no desire to remarry? Or would you allow him to try to fill the roll of 'mother' to the best of his abilities?

>>Then you have the middle-class fantasy idea of families with adopted children and of birth mothers!

Oh, don't talk daft, Vicky. I'm talking about the children I meet all the time. Children of working class mothers taken into care because of neglect and fostered and adopted by (often as not) working class parents. I meet children whose fathers are permanently missing and whose mothers haven't got it together to see them in years. One young man I met recently is not yet adopted, but calls his foster carers of the last twelve years Mum and Dad.

Get a grip, woman. I'm not talking about the olden days of censorious attitudes towards unwed women. I'm talking about genuine, practical realities in the here and now.

<>

In the USA, and in NZ, family court decisions *usually* go against the mother, regardless of the perception that things are otherwise. The latest figures I have about NZ are from the 1990s, butit was rising in 1995 from 60% being the percentage of men winning, to an unknown number now.

<>

By and large, yes, from my observation, men raising children without their mother... It's been my observation (and that of other women) that men who've got custody of children, shut the mother out almost completely, unlike what women do (or try to.)

Disclaimer: That's not a, or the, Christian view, it's my view. No other Christian is to be held responsible for it.

<>

I tend to except widowers, as they haven't cheated, bullied, lied or threatened in order to become solo parents. (That being said, I knew a woman whose widowed father really messed her up - because of his total inability to cope, and the little matter of letting his mates molest her, because of his aforementioned inability to cope.)

'<>

By and large, yes, from my observation, men raising children without their mother... It's been my observation (and that of other women) that men who've got custody of children, shut the mother out almost completely, unlike what women do (or try to.) '

and


'I tend to except widowers, as they haven't cheated, bullied, lied or threatened in order to become solo parents.'




I have experience of men who ended up being single parents because, for example, the wife cheated on him and lied and threatened him and for another example, the wife was a lying physically abusive drunk who was violent toward both the husband and the child. Just because of these experiences, I'm not going to draw the vickyesque conclusion that women are evil.

In my experience, the pattern is that marriages break up not because one sex in particular is prone to screwing up, but because anybody can make the mistake of marrying a lying violent cheat and lying violent cheats come from both sides.


I've become truly disgusted with the bile from one poster on this thread. I think I'll go to the clubbing baby seals thread for something a little less unpleasant and disgusting.

Oh. I forgot to mention

'It's been my observation (and that of other women) that men who've got custody of children, shut the mother out almost completely, unlike what women do (or try to.) '

It's been my observation that your observation is absolute bullshit. I have never met a divorced man (and I've met a number) who tried to shut out the mother -- they have all bent over backwards to make more than fair arrangements. And I've also known a number of divorced men whom the mother absolutely did try to keep from their children.

The only way to settle this dispute is to use the outcome of serious studies, not hearsay and collections of ancedotes.

You're aware of some cases where fathers used stopping women seeing children as a weapon. I'm aware there are cases where mothers have done the same thing.

I'm aware of cases where the mother and father sat down together and said 'how do we sort this out in the best interests of our child?' and came to the conculsion that the best thing was for the children to stay with the father, or the mother. Or perhaps they asked the children. Or in one case where they both brought houses in the same street and let the children lived wherever they choose.

When any relationship where their are children fails the children are let down* and it's even worse if the parents can't make a resonable arrangement between themselves.

If you type 'family court bias' into google you get masses of articles, roughly 50% claiming that they are pro mother and 50% claiming they are pro father.

The only way to solve this argument is emperical research. I've just spent an hour on google scholar - I'm not a social scientist and I don't know of any better social science search engines. (If it was a question on medical science

It's difficult because I don't subscribe to any social science journals - but I did manage to find this analysis of 22 cases in 2001, which showed that they went in favour of the mother in the majority of cases in http://lawfam.oxfordjournals.org/misc/terms.dtl Though it's a fairly close thing and only 22 cases and I guess it could easily have changed.

*fleeing violence accepted, if one partner is violent then taking the children away is the duty of the other partner.

<>

I've known situations where the man physically *took* the child by force, and then went to court and said "she just dumped him on me, yer honner".

And in another situation, a scumbag who told the neighbours his wife had run off and left her children (by two separate marriages!) The neighbours (including my sister) brought the saintly solo Daddy casseroles and offered him childcare. He went to court and claimed the house on the grounds that he needed it for the kids.
The sequel was, that after he got the house, he moved in his new girlfriend, and then sent the children to their mother, - it was the first she'd known she was being divorced! She'd been diagnosed with cancer and her 'loving' husband had suggested she go live with parents in another town, while having treatment. Hence her absence. My sister was stunned when the younger daughter explained all this, as she briefly visited before going forever to live in poverty with her Mum while dad and new g/f sold the house and lived in comfort, his solo daddy-hood brief but very lucrative!
Nevertheless, I don't say "all men are evil" but that solo fathers must be regarded with more than ordinary scepticism.


<>

I've never said all men are evil! You do have issues don't you?



<>

Off you go then!

<>

That's interesting, I'd never seen any figures for the UK.

'Nevertheless, I don't say "all men are evil" but that solo fathers must be regarded with more than ordinary scepticism.'


You are being sick and disgusting. Insulting, vile, abusive, insensitive, cruel.


Thank you very, very much for the pain you have caused me personally. Thank you for the vile insinuations you have directed at me. Thank you for suggesting that because I removed my child and myself from the violence that we were living with -- the violence which ended in a criminal conviction for the person who was abusing us -- that I sould be treated not simply with scepticism, but 'more than ordinary scepticism'. Thank you very much for that suggestion after the years I have spent continuing to encourage (from the distance of divorce) my child's mother to seek treatment, to seek help, to improve her situation, and, more than anything else, continuing to encourage her to spend time with her daughter to the point that now the poor kid is no longer afraid of her mother but is excited about the 50% or more of the time they spend together.

I doubt that there has ever been a man in a situation which offered him more of a case for having the state help him to make sure that he and his child would never have to see the mother again, but, guess what? Neither I nor the state wanted that to happen. From the beginning everyone involved in the legal system encouraged, and I agreed with it, that the goal should be for mother and child to spend as much time as was possible and, in the beginning, was safe with her mother. And now, after years of extreme challenges, that goal seems to be coming to fruition, a goal that would never have been reached within the marriage.

You come across as an evil, hurtful, bigotted idiot, Vicky. And you really don't seem to have any concern about the depth of pain you cause.


I wish you well, in spite of your spite.

Look anhaga, I apologise for any hurt I've caused you in your circusmtances... My apology is coloured by the fact of your animosity towards me, which has been persistent for many, many years, and I shall continue to exercise more than usual scepticism in regard of solo fathers (I used to run a support group for non-custodial mothers - and we were actually harassed and had to get police protection at one point - and these were the wives of men who had *won* custody.

Men who've lost what many regard as a competition can be even more dangerous!

Gender Bias in the Family Courts of Canada: FACT OR FANTASY?

"
The lies that women get away with about Fathers must stop! The courts must see who is the better parent, for the children, and not just because that parent is a woman. After all, it is what's best for our children and the children of the future, that we all get together and make our laws fair for women and men, mothers and fathers, but mainly for our Sons and Daughters.
"

http://www.4famlaw.com/genbfamc.htm

>>Rather obviously, any children a homosexual couple have don't erally belong to that "family"... <<

Vicky, your uninformed bile really has no end does it? So what you're saying is you've got to have a blood link for it to be family?

So say two guys adopt a baby at birth and bring it up. For whatever reason, at age 12, the two dads split up. You're saying that, rather than have custody agreed as would happen in every other family, this kid should be taken from two loving parents and handed to someone he/she does know and who probably doesn't want him/her. That's pretty inhuman.

Plus, it's nonsense for heterosexuals as well. As I've mentioned, I don't get on with my parents, or pretty much any of my biological family, at all. I was lucky enough to have an incredible couple of people looking after me, and they and their wives and other kids *are* my family. It's as simple as that. One couple treats me like their grandson and the other treat me like their kid brother. The fact I'm unrelated by blood to any of them is utterly irrelevant

I'd hate to live in your world Vicky, where loving relationships are so difficult to find

While I'm sorry for your own pain, Vicky, I suggest that there is a fault in deriving opinion solely from personal experience. For example...your judgement that adoptive children should be returned to their parents (ie mother?)...I'm fully aware of the injustices of coeerced adoptions in the past. However, note that eighteen year olds living this year will have been born in 1990. By then, unmarried mothers were no longer expected to give up their children.

In my country, the presumption is that parents are normally the best people to bring up their children. Adoption is, nowadays, rare. However, it can become necessary for the welfare of the child. Some parents or their family members (grandparents are often unsung heroses)are, tragically, simply unable/unwilling to care for their children. Even in these cases, every effort is taken to maintain regular family contact. That's the law.

Nevertheless, in my semi-professional capacity, I've seen children who have been cared for by foster parents for many years. Oftentimes, their mother's chaotic lives (poverty, alcohol, drugs) leads to their failure to maintain contact. At some point it becomes in the child's best interest to make their established family relationships permanent. This is never done lightly. There are many checks and balances (of which I am one: I sit on Children's Panels whose duties include giving adoption advice to Sheriff courts, based on the welfare of the individual child).

On mothers: let's face it - in reality, most childcare is done by women. Men tend to be more feckless. *However* - one must never generalise. There are also many examples where men have been sole childcarers due to their former partner's problems. There is no reason whatsoever to remove childer from the care of these fathers.

As I say, Vicky, I am truly sorry for your own past hardships. But life is more complex and diverse than your experience. Each case on its merits.

'All happy families are alike; each unhappy familly is unique in it's misery'
(name that book)

Oh...meant to add...there have been cases where mothers have got their act togethr after a period of chaos during which they have become estranged from their child. Even here, it may well be judged that the child is so settled with their new parents that it would not be in their interest to disrupt their lives by returning them to their mother. Desperately sad for the mother, I agree, but my country's law makes the child's welfare paramount.