Leona Lee (imported) wrote: Tue Apr 19, 2005 8:14 am
Howdy! Well ,I'm not sure where your going here. If some of these , so called men would take responsibility for their families and children they helped create, maybe things may be different in our society. As it is you got women trying to juggle home, family, children ,washing ,cooking and everything else that comes along. Now they have to work outside the home and support the whole crew and not complain. Let's give women the benefit of the doubt with a little extra grace. I know there are some here that would disagree but so be it.Hugs, Leona
:hearthrob
P.S Let's all do our share.
With all due respect, Leona, you're now introducing another entire dimension to this topic, and repeating an old canard. Men are doing their share whenever they can. The problem isn't all those "deadbeat dads" out there; it's that many of those dads aren't able to support themselves, much less a mother and child. You may not be aware of this, but fully 70% of delinquent child support is owed by men who earn less than $10,000 per year and have no marketable skills. Hell, many of them can barely read. Efforts to collect the delinquencies don't benefit the mother because they must first go to reimburse the welfare system. The mother sees none of it, and the very poorest men are made the scapegoats for a problem that simply doesn't exist. Worse, laws that mandate driver's license revocation and jail time render such men utterly unable ever to support themselves and their children.
Among men who earn above the median income, significant delinquency is virtually non-existent, limited to the very, very few true deadbeats who are used as poster boys for ever more draconian collection efforts. Indeed, audits of delinquent fathers in many states have yielded lists in which many "deadbeats" were quite literally dead (though according to some court rulings, that's no excuse to stop paying child support, apparently), and in which many others' children had long since passed into their majority and the father no longer obligated to provide support. In Florida, for instance, the number of false delinquents was nearly 2/3 of the total!!
We are therefore left with a corrupt system whose purpose has nothing to do with helping children and everything to do with running a welfare system on the backs of men who have fathered children. And because of federal funding subsides tied to state collection amounts and percentages, child support formulae have been modified in most states to include a large component of alimony disguised as child support -- anything to maximize the dollars transferred and garner more federal dollars. From what I've read, the situation is little different in the UK and continental Europe. To add a tax on top of that for men's alleged violence, one that punishes all men for the actions of a tiny minority, would be unconscionable. Under the circumstances, I'm actually rather shocked that the negative reaction hasn't been stronger.
By the way, speaking of us all doing our share, lest we allow ourselves to believe it's all a one-sided problem, check this one out: Women aspire to be housewives - without any of the housework (
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... wife11.xml)
Women aspire to be housewives - without any of the housework
By Sarah Womack, Social Affairs Correspondent
(Filed: 11/05/2004)
Mothers are rejecting equality in the workplace and prefer the idea of becoming full-time housewives - but not ones who actually do housework.
This is the overall conclusion of research among 2,100 British adults that says women are happy to abandon the workplace but not if it means spending all day at home cooking, cleaning and looking after children.
Marian Salzman: well known for spotting pre-mainstream trends
Instead they want to play the "role" of housewife with a little help from, for instance, a nanny, and someone who does the ironing. And unlike Kylie Minogue, they don't want to do any dusting either.
The report, by Marian Salzman, chief strategic officer of Euro RSCG Worldwide, the world's fifth largest advertising agency, describes these women as princess-style "domestic divas" who effectively exploit their husbands. "Today, 'women's lib' means wanting to be liberated from the intense pressures of the modern-day working mum," she said.
"And what we're seeing is a serious gender divide regarding women in the workplace. This time around, it is the women who want to stay at home and the men who want to keep them in the offices and factories."
Miss Salzman, 45, who does not have children, is well known in the United States for spotting trends before they go mainstream. She predicted the rise of 1970s fashion nostalgia and, on the eve of the Bridget Jones phenomenon, spotted that single professional women would become the new, free-spending yuppies.
Her report last year, the Future of Men, predicted that "metrosexuals" - straight men who care about fashion, food and grooming - would be the new target of advertisers.
Yesterday she said 69 per cent of women thought it perfectly acceptable for females to be housewives and not to earn a salary. In contrast, only 48 per cent of men felt that women should remain outside paid employment.
Her research suggested that the motivation to spend more time at home was "self-centred" for some women. "There are many women who choose to stay home out of concern for their children's quality of life," she said. "But there are plenty of others who are paying lip service to being the 2004 version of the perfect mum.
"In reality they are domestic divas who want the flawless kids, courtesy of the nanny; a spotless home, thanks to a cleaning service; and a reputation for being a fabulously put-together homemaker.
"These are the women who are becoming a target of disdain and rage on the part of spouses who didn't expect to be shouldering the financial burden single-handedly."
She said she was not talking about mothers with very young children but those whose offspring were older and in full-time education.
"My two closest friends are stay-at-home women and I have no idea what they do all day. One of them has a daughter at university and a second daughter at high school."
Jill Kirby, the chairman of the family group at the Centre for Policy Studies think-tank, said: "It's very clear that women who have the choice between working and being at home with their children still want to prioritise their home life and life with their children."
She denied claims that women who wanted to be at home were often lazy, with their reliance on paid help. "We can't create a world where people just do what they want," she said, "but women do need fulfilment."
Last week the actress Gwyneth Paltrow reignited the debate over career versus children for working mothers, saying: "I can't understand mothers who put their career before children. There are certain women in this business who have children and I just think 'you must never see them'. You can't do movies back to back and see your child if they go to school."
Holly Hamilton-Bleakley, of Full Time Mothers, a lobbying organisation, said she abhorred the idea of women buying in child care so that they could simply sit in a coffee shop, but she did not believe this was an accurate picture.
"The dual income, two-career family is becoming outdated. Parents are finally recognising that children need time with them. Time spent with children is well spent and makes a major difference to a child's life."
But Miss Salzman said the reality was that women with older children were increasingly becoming self-indulgent. "They look at the realities of paid work - the stress, the politics, the pressure, the dress code - and they say that it would mean less 'me' time.
"And we are not just talking about women who earn lots of money. Women who earn £27,500, or £55,000, or more than £55,000 did not want to work, and men are feeling a great deal of financial pressure.
"Women think: 'What's mine is mine, and what's his is mine.' "
:hearthrob 
