Family
Court Media!, by Terry Bowker
Take your average 9 year old boy,
pushbike in high gear and his best mate in tow
working his skateboard like there's not a fear
in the world to be had and caring little for what
society deems he should be. Girls are yuk, dads'
his hero, mums' his whole world and snails are
cool, life is just as it should be for a 9 year
old boy. That was yesterday.
Today
this same 9 year old has been convinced he is
a perpetrator of domestic violence just waiting
to happen, he has been accused of bullying at
least one girl in the school yard and he is well
aware that boys do not have the same set of rules
as girls.
Five
years on and half his friends have gone through
a divorce and he is on his 3rd girlfriend having
found the first either too demanding or too focused
on a long-term relationship, he can't decide which.
Most of his friends are in the same boat, either
having decided it's all too hard or simply just
too soon and there are just too many other things
they want out of life.
After
ten years he is 19, mobile phones are the music
of the night and the nearest party is broadcast
by relay within minutes. The idea of marriage,
children and dream of being a footy star mangled
in the previous 3 years by an incredibly insidious
set of events. After a year of parties in quick
succession and rapid rise in his football career
his world collapsed with a single phone call.
At
9 he would never had conceived in his wildest
dreams that such devastation could occur, that
he would be totally powerless to prevent these
events and that there would be few who believe
and even fewer willing or able to help. So what
could do this?
If
you have absorbed the constant media messages
over the last 20 years you'd quickly conclude
he is the perpetrator of the most highly publicised
social crime, without a shred of evidence he would
be a woman basher or a rapist, or child molester
or one of a dozen other crimes that are instantly
recognised, without a conscious thought , as being
what only a man would do. But in this case no,
he has been accused of being the father of an
ex girlfriend's child.
So
what's the problem, he's earning a good income
and has signed the birth certificate, sees his
son every second Sunday and has taken responsibility
for his mistake, his mistake as accepted by him
after years of social conditioning that he being
the male is solely responsible for the events
that bough this child into the world.
Well,
after 3 attempts in the Family Court, thousands
of dollars in legal fees and endless sleepless
nights that have resulted in poor performance
on the field he is on the brink of giving it all
up. He has failed again to obtain a court order
for a DNA paternity test requested after discovering
he could not be the father but being unable to
prove it in order to meet the requirements of
the Family Court which would bring about the order
for the testing. But that's not all, the judge
fearing he may attempt a test by himself has included
a restraining order forbidding him to go near
the child or the child's mother.
Couldn't
happen, think again, it happens and this is based
on real events but that's not the unbelievable
story.
The
real story is, how have our laws, our social attitudes,
our basic sense of right and wrong been twisted
into an unbelievable grotesque condition that
allows any male to be fodder for the whims of
the few women who will use the system as an accomplice
in her sadistic grab for money and property not
otherwise rightfully hers? How too have we condoned
this abuse of males and accepted the total lack
of consequences for the perpetrators of these
crimes?
By
saying nothing when media push the constant barrage
of negative male messages while insistently pushing
out the message that all women and girls are either
good or victims of what some male has done to
them, again without proof or basis, is our crime.
If men don't take responsibility for doing nothing
they are part of the problem, as a father to 4
boys and a daughter I see both sides of the coin,
good and bad. All these social ills are a human
failure not a gender failure, yet this clearly
is not the message my children are getting, what
about yours?
Positive
messages produce positive results, our boys need
to know they have a future and that they are not
simply a means by which others can profit. Paternity
fraud is only one way this occurs, false accusations
of rape or sexual abuse have no consequence for
the accuser, but can cost a career for the accused,
a divorced dad is assumed to be unfit as a parent
without question simply because he is the male.
He must prove to the Family Court otherwise in
order to see his own children, something he does
against the odds.
Is
this the message that will have our young men
thrusting themselves enthusiastically into love,
marriage and a secure career?
Prominent
men in the media are Australian males' only hope
for fair play as part of the social, commercial
and political conditioning means advocating for
males is wrong and a total vacuum exists when
the subject turns to funding.
What
do you say?
....................................................................................................................
Greg, Thank you once again, I know this is different
to what you may be used to doing but different
is the only way of getting this message out.
....., a little personal background. I have 3
natural children and 2 step children, I am a sole
parent to 2 of them and work full-time while fronting
committees on Reliable Parents and the Shared
Parenting Council of Australia executives. While
I am a custodial parent I am still in a position
of having to prove to the family court that I
am worthy if I want increased contact time with
my daughter, (the other boys are older) as the
mother has chosen to limit it. I am hopeful that
time will change this and mindful that a family
court solution if succesful would still take several
years and cost more than I can afford.
I started Reliable Parents Inc 2 years ago because
I saw the urgency in addressing the longer term
issues and couldn't find an organisation that
had a clear and balanced sense of equity or able
to see beyond the gender issues and beyond their
own immediate wants, (and understandibly so given
the horrors some are going through on a daily
basis). Reliable Parents is made up of primarily
bussiness proprietors, proffessionals, mid management,
acedemics and boasts a 1/4 its members being women.
Best regards
Terry Bowker
rparents@iinet.net.au
Links:
Official
websites
Shared
Parenting Council of Australia
Articles
Discrimination
in Australian courts, by Giles
During
the month of May 2001, by Giles
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