We’ve been seeing this coming.  It’s really a tragedy that so many families and children’s hearts are completely torn to pieces by the lack of commitment to marriage vows.

THE Rudd government is planning to roll back the controversial shared parenting law passed in the final term of the Howard government, enraging men’s groups, which say the laws have finally given them access to their children after separation.

The council says some men are approaching the court, asking for years-old parenting agreements to be modified so they can pay less child support. Under the Howard government reforms, men can pay less, in exchange for seeing their children more.

The submission says: “Parents are saying they don’t want money. They would be happy to forgo maintenance payments if it saves their child from having to spend half the week with a parent who does not really want to parent them, but whose main objective is to avoid child support.”

Who are these people to be judging the motivation of these men to file for more time with their children, saying that they only want to reduce their child support?

This is a real insult to all fathers.  There are plenty of examples of good dads, as well as bad dads.  The exact same thing can be said of moms.  We all are aware of both good moms and bad moms out there.  So what!  If a dad wants to spend time with his children, who is anyone to get in the way? The whole idea is preposterous, and it is high time that fathers stopped putting up with this nonsense, and stand up to these really evil people who denigrate men and fathers.

In my opinion, a mother who tries to diminish the relationship of a child and his or her father in any way is a bad mom.  An unfit mom.

In my opinion, if a mother is afraid to stand up to a man, then she is mentally imbalanced or incapacitated, or both, and so is an unfit mother.

via Shared parenting laws on way out | The Australian.

The case is among a growing number of custody disputes in Japan that involve one foreign parent. Japanese law allows only one parent to be a custodian — almost always the mother — leaving many divorced fathers without access to their children until they are grown.

While prosecutors have not pressed charges against Christopher Savoie, they haven’t yet dropped the case either, and an investigation is continuing, said police official Kiyonori Tanaka in the southern Japanese city of Yanagawa. They decided to release him on grounds that he was not a flight risk, he said.

As was reported earlier, Mr. Savoie had paid, as part of a divorce settlement, $800,000 to the mother of his children for her agreement not to move the children to Japan, yet, that is exactly what she did.  He was then granted custody by the U.S. courts, and an arrest warrant was issued for the mother.

via US man accused of grabbing own kids freed in Japan – Yahoo! News.

Very interesting interview.  The Japanese mother in this case who took the kids away to Japan, also ripped off the father, but he’s in jail.

Video – Breaking News Videos from CNN.com.

THE High Court will today consider whether to hear an appeal by a mother who has been forced by the Family Court to stay with her daughter in a remote mining town in western Queensland because her ex-husband does not want to move.

Notice that the way in which this issue is presented subtly implies victimhood for the mother, and that the father is restricting the freedom of the mother.

This is how the issue has generally shaken out everywhere  the issue comes up.  It illustrates, in my opinion, how very few really get the true issue, and that is that talking about best interest of children outside the context of parental rights leads to difficulties, almost every time.

Shared parenting is under attack wherever it has been instituted.  I believe it’s fair to say that the entire effort has been a waste of time.  The issue should have been from the very start that this is my child, and the state can butt out.    As to divorce, one of the issues that the commentator Stephen Baskerville has pointed out repeatedly is that if someone leaves the relationship, that should be it.  they leave the family.

via Stranded mother goes to High Court | The Australian.