Fathers are still showing up at legislative hearings to demand more time with their children.  Opponents often argue that increasing time with fathers could lead to less child support being paid, and so argue that fathers shouldn’t get more time.  Unbelievable, isn’t it?

McCOOK, Nebraska — Wednesday’s legislative session at the Capitol in Lincoln, Nebraska, saw extensive testimony focusing on Gov. Dave Heineman’s proposed tax changes, while another topic was nearly as effective at stimulating speakers. According to Sen. Mark Christensen two rooms were also filled with speakers wanting to testify on father’s and grandparent’s rights.

Sen. Christensen told members of the McCook Area Chamber of Commerce that LB 22 and LB 212 saw extensive testimony about splitting parenting time, with opponents worrying the changes would reduce child support obligations in place.

“I was amazed at how many dads came in and said they didn’t care about child support, keep it the same, they just wanted to have more time with their kids,” said Christensen.

McCook Daily Gazette: Local News: Tax proposals, fathers’ rights topic for chamber legislative call (02/07/13).

30 children with 11 women?  I think I’d take vows in some monastary some place!

Desmond Hatchett of Knoxville, Tenn., has 30 children with 11 women, according to officials and media reports. (WREG / May 18, 2012)

By Rene LynchMay 21, 2012, 1:09 p.m.

Just where is Octodad? That’s perhaps the most pressing question — among the many — pertaining to Desmond Hatchett, a Knoxville, Tenn., man who reportedly has so many children that he’s struggling to keep up with child-support payments.

Hatchett, nicknamed Octodad by various media outlets, gained considerable notoriety last week after WREG in Memphis posted a story and video describing his struggles to keep up with child-support payments for his 30 children.

To say the story went viral would be an understatement. It was republished, reposted, tweeted, shared and commented on thousands and thousands of times. We wrote about it as well on Friday. That story alone was shared more than 26,000 times.

One of the most common questions among readers who have called, e-mailed and commented on the story is this: If Hatchett is having trouble paying child support for these children, who is paying for them? Tennessee taxpayers?

That question adds weight to another question: Just how many children does Hatchett really have?

Hatchett does indeed hold the record for the most children in Knox County, according to Melissa Gibson, an assistant supervisor with the child-support clerk’s office. But she said Friday that she didn’t immediately have the precise number of offspring available.

WREG reported that he has 30 children by 11 different women. The TV station additionally added these details: Nine of those children came about in the last three years — and they range in age from toddler to 14.

Now, back to the “Where is he?” question: A man named Desmond Hatchett from Knoxville, Tenn., has been behind bars at the Morgan County Correctional Complex since November 2009 following an aggravated-assault conviction.

Dorinda Carter, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Correction, confirmed this to the Los Angeles Times on Monday.

The Desmond Hatchett in custody might — or might not — be the same man. (The man behind bars is 32 years old, and local media have said the Octodad Hatchett is 33.)

The math and the kids’ ages could work out if Hatchett was, ahem, especially active just in advance of November 2009. But still, it does suggest that the first question people ask when they hear of his case — “30 kids? Really?” — might also be the most basic question. (more…)

I saw this on Mens News Daily.  It is always amazing to me that the father has so little in the way of rights, but so much in the way of responsibility in these kinds of cases.  If the mother decides to abort, the father has no say.  If the mother decides to keep the baby, the father will be responsible for child support and more.  If the mother decides to give the child up for adoption, she can do it without the consent of the father.  Everything is up to her.

Apparently Utah’s laws on fathers’ rights are making it a haven for women who want to give babies up for adoption without the agreement of the fathers. This kind of consent by default is much like how men in California “accept” financial responsibility for kids that aren’t even theirs. In this case, fathers who want to raise the children have twenty days from notification to dispute the adoption.The man in the video was sent a text message from his girlfriend, who contacted an adoption agency in Utah without telling him, saying she was giving the baby up for adoption. She did not tell him when she went into labor. He had twenty days from that text to file for paternal rights to the baby. That sounds nice and official, right? By the time he knew his baby was in Salt Lake City with an adoptive family, the deadline had expired.The other man in the video had a girlfriend who lied about having a miscarriage, then later called him to say the baby was going to be born in Utah. A deadline he didn’t even know he had was already looming. I thought you’d be interested in this sort of inversion of paternity fraud and how Utah is screwing men who want to raise their children. The local government doesn’t seem to want to do much about it, either. The short video is here. There is also a longer Dateline special here.

via Birth Fathers Getting Babies Adopted Out From Under Them In Utah | Amy Alkon on MND.

Here is some commentary on the Thomas Ball case.

If you don’t know the story by now, Thomas Ball is the New Hampshire man who set himself on fire on the courthouse steps and left a 15-page note outlining the abusive family court system and his reasons for killing himself. Many of you have emailed or commented about this case (thanks very much) here and I think his story is an important one in understanding the psychological and physical damage that the law is inflicting on men in this country. Here is an excerpt from Mr. Ball’s statement that I think makes some very salient points:

I am due in court the end of the month. The ex-wife lawyer wants me jailed for back child support. The amount ranges from $2,200. to $3,000. depending on who you ask. Not big money after being separated over ten years and unemployed for the last two. But I do owe it. If I show up for court without the money and the lawyer say jail, then the judge will have the bailiff take me into custody. There really are no surprises on how the system works once you know how it actually works. And it does not work anything like they taught you in high school history or civics class.

I could have made a phone call or two and borrowed the money. But I am done being bullied for being a man. I cannot believe these people in Washington are so stupid to think they can govern Americans with an iron fist. Twenty-five years ago, the federal government declared war on men. It is time now to see how committed they are to their cause. It is time, boys, to give them a taste of war.

I saw over at Antifeminist tech blog that some are trying to cover up this story, while others, such as man-hater Amanda Marcotte said that Bell’s goal was to use his fiery death to “make his ex-wife’s life a living hell.” This twisted “analysis” is hardly worthy of a response, but I will say that if Ball wanted to make his ex’s life a living hell, killing himself was not the answer. The ex may not have even given a damn.

To read the entire article:

via My take on the Thomas Ball case | Dr. Helen Smith.

In both the US and in Britain, mainstream politicians have been almost criminal in the way they have demonized fathers merely as a way of cultivating the support of rabid female feminist type politicians and advocates.  Essentially, people like Al Gore, David Cameron and the like are nothing by whores and pussies.  It is disgusting that we still see politicians dissing fathers.

 

Fathers’ rights campaigner Matt O’Connor thinks the government is waging a war on fathers; Tory MP Bill Cash defends his party’s stance. Emine Saner hosts

Conservative MP Bill Cash and fathers’ rights campaigner Matt O’Connor discuss the goverment’s record on families. Photograph: Graeme Robertson

Earlier this week David Cameron criticised “runaway dads”, saying they should be “stigmatised” in the same way as drink-drivers. Emine Saner brings together the founder of Fathers 4 Justice Matt O’Connor (pictured far right) and Tory MP Bill Cash – fathers of three each – to discuss the government’s record on families.

Matt O’Connor: Last year, the Conservative party made a series of explicit commitments with regard to family law reform. Those commitments have been reneged on. That’s bad enough, but then for Cameron, who is fighting a war in Afghanistan, is fighting a war in Libya, but at home seems to be waging a war on fathers … I’m outraged. He didn’t seek to separate out the fathers who struggle to see their children, who have court orders allowing them to see them but are denied access. He didn’t say he recognised that was a problem, he just besmirched fathers and played to the stereotype of the deadbeat dad.

Bill Cash: The responsibility for making sure children are given a fair chance in life is equally dependent on the behaviour of fathers and mothers. Focusing on the fathers is not getting the argument straight, because there are faults on both sides. There is also enormous fault with what used to be the CSA [now the Child Maintenance Enforcement Commission]. There is a controversial provision in the bill that wasn’t debated– the idea of a contribution towards the cost [of pursuing the other parent: under plans, single parents – mostly mothers – will be asked to pay £100 upfront towards that cost, and the CMEC will take "commission" from future payments]. I’m waiting to see what the House of Lords does with it. But fundamentally, I’ll never be able to stand up and support fathers who deliberately shy away from their responsibilities. I believe in families, and I know David Cameron does, too.

MO: He’s not showing it. Look at scrapping child benefit [for higher earners]. You’ve still got a prime minister masquerading under the cover of saying he is pro-marriage and pro-family, while demonising fathers. Doesn’t the Conservative party recognise the damage these comments make?

BC: To me, fathers walking away from their children is as bad as it gets.

MO: We never hear you or your party say anything about feckless mothers having children with multiple partners. One in three children in this country are growing up without a father. We’ve got the highest rate of young offending, we’ve got a teenage abortion epidemic. We’ve got boys growing up without a father, who are going to repeat the same behavioural pattern, saying ‘dads aren’t important’. Cameron’s message, demonising fathers, is so profoundly damaging. The Conservatives came in saying you’re pro-family, you’ll sort out the family courts, and you’ve done nothing, it’s a betrayal.

BC: This is an issue about children. The CMEC actually has a responsibility to get it right, and it’s not. That needs reform.

MO: The CMEC can’t work because what Cameron is doing, which is what Brown and Blair did, is to give fathers the status of sperm banks and cashpoints. You can abandon your children tomorrow, provided you pay. Child support should be emotional and financial, and until that enlightened approach becomes currency it is never going to change. There is a simple way of recognising the authority of parents and putting fathers back into the family, and that’s for this government to give children the right, in law, to see both parents. And grandparents. Explain how it can be in the child’s interests to deny access. We have a regime in this country – secret family courts – that is as brutal and barbaric, in my opinion, as any around the world.

BC: It’s a moral issue, it’s about the most fundamental human rights. I have a problem accepting the idea children should not be allowed to see both parents, except in circumstances where there are safety issues and there is violence within the family. I really do not think it’s a fathers-only issue.

MO: What we’ve been campaigning for is to take the conflict out of the court system. We want a court system that is based on transparency and scrutiny. We have an unelected, unaccountable judiciary operating in complete secrecy. If you put fathers back into the lives of their children, you also make them responsible for the financial and emotional upbringing of their children.

BC: But there are statistics that demonstrate that there are a significant number of fathers who are, as David Cameron put it, going awol.

MO: I do not accept that. A lot of fathers walk away because they know the misery and suffering and living bereavement of not being able to see their children. Why does your leader continue to demonise dads? I have had thousands of emails in the last few days since David Cameron’s comments, saying: ‘We would love to be responsible for our children, as long as we were given the chance.’

Emine Saner: Bill, do you think Matt is overstating the case of fathers? Only 40% of single parents receive maintenance from the other parent. That suggests there are quite a few feckless fathers …

MO: It suggests there are a lot of children growing up without a father.

ES: It suggests there are a lot of men who aren’t paying maintenance.

MO: You have to look at the circumstances. Are those men who have walked away, the stereotype deadbeats? Are they men who have tried to see their children and been denied access? There are a lot of women out there who say a man is superfluous to their requirements, they do not want a father.

BC: Anyone who says that is not looking at the interests of the child.

MO: The state is already the surrogate father. It comes in and provides the benefits. What I want are children to have the love, emotional and financial support from both parents, and until we change the mentality of war on fathers that won’t change. Family breakdown is an issue, and we need to find a solution based on reconciliation. David Cameron wasn’t attacking single mothers, he was attacking fathers.

BC: I wouldn’t call it attacking. You and I agree that there is a recognition that in certain circumstances fathers should rightly be criticised.

MO: So should mothers. Can we stop talking about fathers?

BC: I do agree that this is largely a problem of family law. I think it’s a tragedy that we’re still having this discussion and it’s not a problem that has been resolved.

MO: What we need is justice, to be treated equally in the eyes of the law. I’ll tell you how serious I am. I want you to pass a message on to David Cameron. On 10 July, I will be outside his house starting a hunger strike about this issue. That’s how strongly I feel.

BC: I’ll certainly be under an obligation to make sure that message gets to him.

The conversation: Was David Cameron wrong to attack ‘runaway dads’? | Comment is free | The Guardian.

This article highlights how truly insane family policies are in Britain.  Things really aren’t  that much better here in the States.  The willingness of social agencies and the courts to intrude into the relationship of fathers and their children is truly disturbing.  One wonders just how far it can go before people fight back with violence.

A group of Fathers Rights campaigners took their message to the courts on Friday.

 

Three Cornish dads dressed in the now well-known trademark garb of superheroes adopted by the ‘F4J’ movement.

‘New Fathers for Justice’ is a breakaway movement from the original founded by Matt O’Connor, which has changed direction from superhero protests.

Lee pledged: “The main protest today is in Truro, but the Eden Project and Jamaica Inn could also be targeted in the future.

“There has been talk of a putting a superhero parrot on the roof of Jamaica Inn for some time. Expect the unexpected.”

The protestors called on the Truro Magistrates Courts where many family cases are heard and also at the St Austell offices of a court bureaucracy.

‘Cafcass’ are a nationwide network of family court officials who job is to dictate how much time a parent sees their child for.

If parents break up and a mother will not allow a father to see his children, he has to go to law, and will be forced to prove to a Cafcass officer that he is a fit parent.

This most commonly involves the officer ‘observing’ the child and father together for approximately an hour, and taking notes.

The officer then writes a report which recommends how much time the father should spend with their child.

It is a system lifted directly from criminal trials, in which probation officers observe criminals and recommend the right punishment.

But all parents applying to the courts to see their children must be scrutinised by Cafcass.

Criminals only face probation officers if they are convicted.

Another key difference between the family and the criminal courts is that the family courts are held in secret.

There are no juries, no press are allowed in, and the burden of proof is reversed.

Protestor Lee said the system was “wholly wrong” and his group planned to cause “whatever disruption necessary”.

The campaigners say opening the courts to the public and forcing them to give children equal time with parents would end their “injustice”,

They claim such a reform would ultimately see an end to a multi-billion pound bureaucracy of officials and lawyers that has grown up around marital breakdown.

One of the protestors has been made subject to a punitive gagging order by the Cornish family courts.

He spoke out but asked to be named only as ‘Paul’ because of the order, which denies him free speech.

The 28 year old said: “My ex-wife has made my life a living hell by constantly disrupting my arranged time with my son.

“He’s three, and such a lovely little lad. I love spending time with him when I am allowed, but it’s deeply wrong that I should have to fight the system in order to do the right thing.

“I feel I’m fighting a losing battle but I’m not giving up. I just don’t see why fathers should not get equality after family breakdown?”

A long-anticipated review by the coalition Government into family law rejected the demands of fathers rights groups out of hand last month.

The review was announced a year ago as soon as David Cameron and Nick Clegg gained power.

The Government appointed Treasury Official David Norgrove to conduct the review

He in turn appointed as high profile divorce lawyer as his assistant: fathers rights groups have called the resultant report, published on April 1st, “farcical”.

Lee said: “The family court system remains a pantomime. It exists purely to provide enrichment for lawyers and experts behind closed doors.

“Nothing less than an automatic presumption of equal contact with the children when the

parents split as a starting point will do.

“This will give both parents equal parity of rights to see the children. We just want dads to have equal status … same as Mum.”

via GIVE US EQUAL RIGHTS! | Cornwall Community News.

The writer of this letter is a father who has recently experienced the shock of modern day divorce, custody and child support laws.  He correctly sees that in a divorce, the state assumes the role of caretaker of the children, and then assigns that duty to one or the other parent, and charging the ncp with child support.  It does this both for economic, as well as social reasons.  Child support is evil.  It harms children, in that it alienates them from their fathers (about 85% or 90% of the time, fathers lose custody to mothers).

It is interesting, also, that one commentator to this letter upbraided the author saying that it was the father’s duty to pay child support.  Men who take this attitude are one of the reasons that these unjust laws are perpetuated.  They are the problem.

What does it mean to be designated a “deadbeat parent” “Deadbeat parents want free lawyers,” Nation/World news, Wednesday? It can mean you have lost your role and responsibility to be a parent — often because of an uncontestable divorce — withoutt any legitimate cause or reason.Once a parent, now a payee, the noncustodial is faced with the most egregious legal act: the discharging of his duty to his own family, his children.

The basis for such an egregious act is a federal child-support enforcement program — a program that matches the state’s child-support enforcement collections with funds from Social Security that go to the general state budget. In effect, those legal representatives are motivated by financial gain for their purses and for the state’s purse. These representatives are part of a larger program that is systematically destroying parental rights while fleecing the family.

As wards of the state, children are treated as marital property. A price is placed on the children’s heads — which is imputed to the noncustodial — in accordance with guidelines and current or expected family income. Those representatives claiming to act in the best interest of the children are, in fact, acting in their own interest and that of the state.H. Kirk Rainer

via YOUR VIEW: States motivated on child-support enforcement by financial gain | al.com.

Here’s one comment:

bhamliberal March 27, 2011 at 7:56AM

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I have no idea what your point is but when I divorced many years ago, I got hit with some steep child support. Although I was non-custodial, it was my duty as a parent to pay…..and pay I did. Its called responsibility.

A FATHERS’ rights campaigner planned a gunpowder plot to gain publicity for his cause, a court heard yesterday.

Matthew Lloyd Starmore, 31, of Berthon Road, Little Mill, was arrested on October 30, 2009, after police found ammunition and gunpowder at the Newport guest house where he was living, Cardiff Crown Court was told.

They also found a notebook in Starmore’s room, which talked about the start of a nation-wide campaign which would see “the most dramatic and climactic and most hard-hitting series of events to hit Wales since World War Two.”

The book also talked about “shutting down some of the city’ most fundamental necessities, pulling emergency services and police tactile units from far and further afield,” and contained references to Newport’s Transporter Bridge, Father’s For Justice and reforms about how fathers get access to their children.

Starmore denies three counts of possessing explosives and ammunition including gunpowder, 24 rounds, and 108 bullet heads. He also denies dishonestly receiving these items knowing or believing they had been stolen.

Richard Griffiths, prosecuting, said police went to the Corporation Road guest house to arrest Starmore’s co-defendant David Hodge for dishonesty offences when they found the explosive material in Hodge’s room.

read full source article

In this case, we see a good reason to never ever call 911 unless it is a serious medical emergency.  This man is being punished by a state gone insane.  He is now in prison, yet, he did nothing even remotely wrong.  His mother is an idiot for trusting the police and the system.  The judge and the prosecutor in this case are evil.  The ex wife, who was interfering with visitation should be in prison, not Brian Aitken.

Aitken’s legal troubles began in January 2009, when he drove to his parents’ house to pick up some of his belongings. He had grown distraught over tensions with his ex-wife, who according to Aitken had been refusing to let him see his son. When Aitken visited his parents’ house, his mother, Sue Aitken, grew worried about his mental state. In an interview with a New Jersey radio program last week, she said she works with children who have mental health problems, and she has always been taught to call police as a precaution when someone appears despondent and shows any sign that he might harm himself. Concerned about her son, she called 911 but then thought better of it and hung up the phone. The police responded anyway. When they arrived at her home, Sue Aitken told them her concerns about her son, and the police called Brian Aitken, who was then en route to Hoboken, on his cell phone. They asked him to turn around and come back to his parents’ house. He complied.It was there that the police confronted Aitken. Although they determined he wasn’t a threat to himself or anyone else, they searched his car, where they found his handguns. They were locked, unloaded, and stored in the trunk, as federal and New Jersey law require for guns in transport. The police arrested Aitken anyway, charging him with unlawful possession of a weapon.To buy a gun in New Jersey, you must go through a laborious process to obtain a “purchaser’s permit.” But that permit doesn’t entitle you to possess a gun. A few select groups of people, mostly off-duty police officers and security personnel, can obtain carry permits. But anyone else with a gun is presumed to be violating state law and must defend against the charge of illegal gun possession by claiming one of the state’s exemptions.

via Brian Aitken’s Mistake – Reason Magazine.

Some interesting comments in this opinion piece.  I don’t agree, however, that the protests of Fathers4Justice are irresponsible.  They are in fact responsible for the issue to even get raised in the press and media.

OK, so men aren’t the best at conveying their views; just look at the actions of some members of the Fathers 4 Justice movement. Irresponsible behaviour such as throwing flour bombs in Parliament and storming television broadcasts merely helps to serve in the familial courts favour with regard to their decision-making. But when the government enforces such an anti-male bias in legislation what, in all their desperation, are men to do? How long will it be before we hear of yet another man ending his life and those of his children because of the injustices of the system?

Even excluding such acts of despair, the male suicide rate in the UK is significantly higher compared to that for women. Suicide rates for men amounted to approximately 18 per 100,000 population in 2008 (ONS, 2010), with females accounting for less at approximately 5 per 100,000. Aside from wrongful legislation, could this be because of the ‘put up and shut up’ culture we have adopted, whereby men are not meant to talk about their feelings and be devoid of any emotion?

Furthermore, the highest rates of male suicide are for those aged 15-44, the age group at which most divorces occur, and when adolescent males feel under the most psychological pressure. Research has shown that few men seek medical guidance or counselling prior to ending their lives, as opposed to the more pragmatic approach by women. Perhaps men feel they will be ostracised for expressing how they feel, or maybe they fear they will risk losing some warped notion of masculinity if they do so.

Unless some radical form of change takes place in the near future, the downward spiral of attitudes towards men is set to continue. It will only be a matter of time until male suicide rates multiply, male teachers surrender to bureaucracy, and we are reduced to an apartheid-style society where men have few or no rights.

via A crisis of masculinism | Varsity Online.