What is torture?

What is Torture?

Torture is the deliberate infliction of pain or suffering by a

government or someone acting alone on an individual in order to

obtain information or a confession, or for punishment, intimidation

or coercion. The United Nations declared that "any act of torture or

other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment is an

offense to human dignity and a fundamental violation of human

rights."

One day, Ob told me about a job delivering local papers and pamphlets. Looking at it, I said it might be the worst job someone with a deteriorated hip could take, but it might be good for the exercise. As it turned out, it was probably both.

I did this cruddy, no-pay job for more than 4 months. I could never finish the routes, of course. I walked too slow. Ob had to finish the routes after work or on weekends.

Frankly, I was tired of being accused of being lazy. I thought this gritty work might dispel the propaganda Ob had been spreading in her family.

I had good days and bad days, depending on the weather. Essentially, my hip was ortho-arthritic, and it reacted to a change in weather dramatically. Warm sunshine might allow me to walk – still in pain – for an hour or so a day. If the weather turned cold or wet, my hip just shut down like it was in a steel clamp.

Within a half block, I was usually sweating from pain and effort. Every step meant replacing the support and control from my hip with the muscles around my leg.

I tried to describe to Ob what it was like when I finished a day by saying it was like “a symphony of pain.

I would walk as far as I could, then make my way back to the car. When I sat down, the pain would hit and nearly make me unconscious.

When I told Ob about it, she just shrugged it off. I tried not to complain too often, but she still came to say that I was always sick.

I felt a lot of pressure from Ob and her kids because I couldn’t work a normal job. The pain was enough that to take the train into the CBD to a job meant I spent half the day exhausted and dealing with the swelling and various pains from my knee to my neck.

I thought getting out and walking, and the small income it provided, would rid me of the harassing looks and comments about laziness. The money went to fund Ob’s evening decompression talks anyway. At least I might get some credit for that.

I finally quit when one day I arrived where I was going to do deliveries, opened the car door, and my leg fell out. The pain was astounding. I almost passed out right there.

I just turned around and came home. That was my last day doing deliveries.

Ob had very little to say when I told her I had stopped doing deliveries. Her face just screwed up, and she said, “Well, you know good ole (Ob) will do whatever you don’t!”

I couldn’t believe it.

Ob just went on telling everyone (of her friends and family) that I was lazy; and more, that I was only there out of her pity.

When I got her on the stand in court, I asked her if she intended that work to torture me. She said, “No, I thought you enjoyed doing the deliveries.”

It’s hard to describe my feelings throughout all of this. Overall, I fought the sense of growing helplessness and depression in every way I could, day by day.

That hip meant that doing the dishes daily took over an hour, then I had to lie down for a couple of hours to let the swelling in my hip go down. The pain in my back caused a burning sensation in my butt; twisted my knee; and could cause a headache from pressure up behind my neck.

After an hour or so making deliveries, I collapsed, exhausted, and let the pain slowly go away. It took hours. Really, it took more than a day each time. I always gave myself a day to rest between delivery days.

For Ob, I lived a number of lies about the effects of my pain. I tried to put on a good front every evening.

There was little sense sharing with her the fear of spending the rest of my life in a wheelchair or hospital bed. She just didn’t want to hear it. She made her resentment plain.

Thing is, she couldn’t have missed my facial expressions and effort. She would have to have been deaf and dumb to miss how hard it was for me to stand, or sit.

I think she resented my illness so much that she enjoyed the fact that I was in particular pain. And I came to think that she – and Lob, her daughter – found my pain amusing. They had private little giggles just beyond my hearing.

Yes, I think she intended that work to torture me, and I asked in court.

Her answer only described how full of herself she was, and how blind her selfish ego made her. Then again, the fact that we were in court was only because of her self-righteous, resentful greed.

Read more!

I was roaming again

I was roaming the Net and came across the dads 'N' kids blog. Their homepage is a series of links to lists of links to help people deal with separation and divorce, then single or step-parenting issues.
Relationships Australia takes a lot of maligning on the fathers4equality list, and I have to admit I was cautiously curious when one of the links turned to their website. Considering the prejudiced attitude I’ve experienced myself, I have to give the scepticism a fair judgment. The members of fathers4equality consider Relationships Australia to be a trap. Yet I find their website to be the most professional and informative I’ve found.

Under ..

How can I improve my relationships
(1) Successful Adult Relationships
A 'good adult relationship' means different things to different people. And there are many different kinds of relationships. The couple relationship may be the most important one in our society . It is often the main relationship in people's lives; it is the basis of a family (and this is the place where most of us learn about adult love, about negotiation, about how to change and how to compromise), and it is often an economic unit.

..triggered some memories and thoughts.

It’s interesting to see. Most of the advice on that page about “How can I improve my relationship?” are things I tried to discuss with Ob repeatedly over the course of our relationship. One way or the other, finally turning to bitter sarcasm if nothing else, Ob never worked through any of these issues.

---

I could see that there was going to be some predictable difficulty with Lob, Ob’s daughter, living with us after her marriage broke up. After all, I was her new step father. There was bound to be some conflict.

When, in the first year I was in Australia, I visited and signed up for the Victoria Library, I also joined a Vicnet Step-Parenting email list online.

I followed the discussion group religiously for about a year, and talked over some of the suggestions with Ob (or, more correctly, tried to. She usually barely listened.) One of the suggestions from the group was to institute a Family Dinner night. I talked it over with Ob, saying that it would allow us all to learn more about each other and develop more communication -- and strangely she didn’t seem very taken by the idea. I felt I had to take some sort of pro-active, positive step, and pressed the idea.

It only happened once. Ob encouraged Lob not to attend and shunned the idea until I gave up on it.

---

If you had asked Ob what sort of relationship she wanted, she would have said, “A loving relationship, with lots of affection. I want someone who can communicate, not like (my ex-husband).” (Those are her words from a saved chat online long before I came to Australia.)

When I first came to Australia, I was very affectionate. I used to joke that “I'm Californian. I hug everything.”
In only a few months, Ob had changed that with her criticism and actions.
In private, Ob was never affectionate. Sexual, yes, but never affectionate. It took me a long time to see that she was only affectionate when others were looking.
Simple gestures like smiling, hugging, a greeting kiss, .. were just never done. If I pressed for something like that, she turned from me as if I had some strange odor. If asked, she would tell me some obviously made up distraction, or remember some point of disagreement – even if it had not been discussed before.
More intimate moments, like pillow talk or just holding one another, were rare at best. Never do I remember affectionate pillow talk. And we only held one another as a prelude to sex in the first year or so.
Ob’s actions taught me that our relationship would not be defined by regular affection. Her biting sarcasm made it easier, I have to admit. I found that attempts at affection could lead to an argument, or being shunned for days.
(Later I learned that even sex was seen as a license to an argument.)
Ob could be mind-bendingly two-faced about affection in public.
At one family gathering, we were approaching the group and I moved to place an arm around her. She pulled back with an ugly look, and moved ahead to join the rest of the family.. I just shook it off.
Then, only a few minutes later, she came bounding towards me beaming a wide smile and wrapped me in her arms. My expression must have been of confused surprise. Then she went dancing back to the group. – I just stood there bewildered.
I will never know what she meant to say to anyone – in the family group or to me.

I shrugged off her confusing attitude towards affection by telling myself she was a 45+ year old woman who was only a year or so out of a long, painful marriage. She had a right to be a little confused about her feelings and how to express them.
What I came to realize was that this was how Ob intended to define our relationship.
I disagreed, and all it got me was attacked.

A few times in private, I confronted Ob with her actions, hoping she would tell me – or herself – something that would help us change and grow closer. Her reaction was to look at me like I was an idiot. She felt attacked, and attacked me in return. Her ugliest comments in the first year came from this sort of effort.
Ob’s answer to any conflict or disagreement was to segregate and separate. She tried constantly to build walls between us, her daughter and myself, and me and her family. I would point out that building walls only put her in the middle; how she was building those walls; and refuse to allow them.
This was in the first year or so. Later when I was sick, I would not have the energy to prevent her segregations.

Read more!

Penned Frustration

Days like this, when forces beyond my control force me to be unproductive, my mind drifts to the mad swirl of the Men's Rights movements around the globe.

Class action suits were discussed on fathers4equality and MRA for weeks, then forgotten in a warm huff. Now I find that US and UK men's organizations have instituted a number of them:

Join YOUR County Class Action Lawsuit now!

• http://www.IndianaCRC.org
• http://TulsaFathers.org
• http://MilliondadsMarch.org
• http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Tulsa_Area_Fathers_Rights_Association
• http://PaternityFraud.com
• http://FalseAllegations.org

Figures a bunch of pig-headed OKies would start that stuff up! Mah hart will always be Suthun.
You go, boahees
On thing somebody's gonna find out about Texans and Oklahomans is they won't stop til they drag the carcasses out. -- And then they'll curse you from the grave!
Too bad the aussies can't get their stuff together on this kind of thing ...

There must be a million of these organizations across the US, Canada, UK, and Australia -- and I haven't even looked at Europe yet.
Sooner or later, the politicians will realize the RadFem movement is a paper tiger. They can't deliver the women's vote. They're just running on bile and exaggeration. But until these men's groups get their acts in the same line somewhere, the fear-driven politicians will go on believing this hollow rhetoric.

And it doesn't help that every time someone gets frustrated, they spin off a new group, email list, or something. One of the guys from the fathers4equality list decided that "fathers" for equality was too exclusive, so we needed a "families" for equality list.
I wonder if I should tell him that "families" still excludes the millions of single men -- like me -- who think equality before the law is a good idea too?
We got fathers4 equality all over the US, Canada, and Australia, but soon we're gonna have damned near "anything"4equality. And the message will just get more diluted.

The Men's Rights Agency in QLD (check the link on the right)is doing some practical, good work supporting a limited number of cases every year. I have to say that Sue and Reg Price have the right idea: Defeat the legislation and the legal structure one precedent at a time.

If NOW (National Organization for Women) can come to include 2 million members across the globe at one time, -- It's down to about 300,000 now. -- of men and women, then the name of a group doesn't matter, it's how they do what they do. That name is pretty exclusive, IMO.
There was a time when I would have called myself a feminist. Now, I still fit with the critical feminists' thinking. The radical thinking has caused so much damage across the world.

There are those who are bending their considerable academic skills to researching to make the arguments for various changes to the laws. It's hard to want to belittle their efforts, but I still see much of their efforts as attempts to engineer society. You would think the failure of communism, if not hundreds of other small attempts -- including Family Law itself -- would teach anyone that social engineering only causes problems that can't be fixed.

Surrendering the underlying principles of law doesn't work either.
Intervention Orders (AVOs or DVOs, or whatever they're called) are contrary to the established principles of western law. I imagine the original authors thought they were necessary and would be handled with care, but they opened up a gaping maw in the law that has only destroyed people by the millions across the world, and especially Australia.
This foul maw vomits people's lives into society's toilet by the tens of thousands each week even in a small country like Australia.

You would think that any law that was so notoriously abused would send a signal to lawmakers that something had to be done, but it doesn't. Politicians are too frightened of the paper tiger of RadFems. (Hint: Most women are not going to vote that way. They don't think that way.)
Any law that is so notoriously easy to abuse because it depends on perjury ("Mandatory and necessary", in the words of one local expert.) to support the "due process" is disgusting.
This law is one of the best examples in history that due process does not produce justice. History will deal very harshly someday with the lawmakers and others who have condoned this travesty.
I just hope they get it fixed before the judgment of history is too harsh.

The RadFems have convinced the politicians and legal system to threaten and destroy men's homes, livelihood and children. You'd think a simple practical-minded person would know better.
Any general will tell you soldiers don't fight wars for patriotism, God or Country. The soldier fights for his family and home...This is the great civil and human rights battle of the new millenium.

Some guy in the UK published a list of 126 recent studies showing that shared parenting is better for children than the guilt-driven, winner-take-all custody battles. No kidding. And it took 126 studies to show what is obvious from common sense decades ago?
Oh well.
The courts' winner-take-all mentality is just not the place to resolve emotional issues. Law has to be impartial, and families are all about partialities.

Funny what you find in this stuff sometimes.
Here is a guy citing the wisdom of Emporer Antonius Marcus Aerelius (the founder of stoicism.) The words are great until you are facing someone who is making up lies about you and spreading them all around to your children and friends. I wonder if Marcus Aerelius ever had to deal with Parental Alienation Syndrome? -- Now, that's good for a laugh! (As Emporer, he'd have probably just cut loose the offending member...)

People at A Kids' Rights" are quoting the famous Non-Violent Protesters throughout history: Jesus, St Francis, Ghandi, MLKing, Marcus Aurelius, Thoreau, -- even Constance Lytton, Susan B Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady -- to draw endurance and deterimination.

In the following excerpts we think you will be struck by the problems all these people had in getting their message understood -- and how applicable their message and approach still is for our time!

NonViolent Action in history

• Jesus of Nazareth

• St. Francis of Assisi

• Mahatma Gandhi

• Dr. Martin Luther King

Civil Disobedience & Other actions

• Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius

• Henry David Thoreau

• Women's Rights Activist Constance Lytton

• Susan B. Anthony & Elizabeth Cady Stanton

• 
  

Somebody in here is gonna claim some sort of copyright soon... But this has become a deep, moral fight for justice in the face of cowardly politicians and unending threats. A moral fight for so many things: self-esteem, rights, and even the foundations of western society.

I'm still looking forward to the day when the lazy, sloppy magistrates are removed, and all their assets put to reparations for those they have harmed. Let the aging magistrates live on the streets where they have condemned first men, then their families.

Read more!

Telling the stories

In response to:

Re: Male suicide 
There certainly are some,but a reminder on this subject.

Think about the further pain it would bring to the fathers
and mothers to have the painful memories dug up again
and spread around all the tabloids so that shareholders
can earn more profits out of the pain and suffering.
- by Paul H, fathers4equality list

I'm very aware of the pain (of those who have experienced suicide as a result of illegal Intervention Orders and judgments).

Like everyone here, we are all hurting.

  There is some catharsis for such pain in sharing it, certianly.
And more than that, knowing that sharing your pain might prevent someone else
from having to go through the same sort of experience.
That really is the point. 
   
  There will be some, perhaps many, who simply cannot think about what they've been
through. It is not easy. I didn't go through someone else suiciding; I was suicidal
myself for more than a year -- first while enduring the abuse, then after being
subjected to the Intervention Orders being used as extortion.

  For more than a year, anything I wrote about this time made me shake and stream
tears. In fact, every time I write to this list, I am upset. 
I still stream uncontrollable tears many days.
  I lived in constant depression and anxiety attacks that ran on for days.
And yes, part of the reason is that I kept writing.
  I have written literally hundreds of emails; a couple of dozen letters to
officials; and hundreds of posts to this list and others - all to really no avail.

But I chose this course over violence or legal action: over violence
-- towards myself or others -- because I do not feel it was ever
warranted; over legal action because I simply do not have the money.
  I sincerely feel that what these people have done should put them in jail,
but as Mr Ruddock so plainly put it in a recent letter to me and 
Greg Hunt (federal MP for Flinders, who wrote Ruddock and Hulls on my behalf),
it is "not in the public interest" to prosecute such actions.
   Do I know the pain of someone close to me committing suicide?
Yes, but not in this process. 
  Do I empathize with those who have? Yes, certainly.
  Do I believe that recouping something positive from what has happened is
important? I am living it despite my own pain.
  It is a personal choice. It is not easy. I can say to anyone who makes that
choice that it will be frustrating and painful, and there are no guarantees
that anything positive will come of it -- because of attitudes like those
of Mr Ruddock and Mr Hulls.
  Yet I would still encourage them to write their stories and share them.
I have to believe that this will come to fruition, or I lose my faith in
too many things important to me.

Read more!

A Right to be Happy

In one of the last conversations I had with Ob, she told me, "I have a right to be happy, Paul.", as if it were an explanation for all she had done.

Around the House

After the massive DVT, in June 2002, -- It filled my right leg from hip to foot with one of the largest blood clots on record in Australia-- I spent 3 months painfully striving to walk.
For the first few weeks, crossing the lounge room brought tears to my eyes from pain. In time, I could walk around the small house; then a few times. After three months, I could walk around the house 10 times in both directions.
At the time, I felt I this short walk was a major accomplishment.

It had been a painful three months.
The electic bolts of pain from the DVT had put this pain in perspective. For a couple of days, my leg burned and bolted with pain. The blood clot had swollen the large vein to twice its normal size; and it ran right along the nerve. My whole leg was swollen and every vein had clotting.

I forced myself to stand, then walk, a little farther each day.
I used a simple measure to decide when I had gone far enough: my eyes watered. At that point, I made my way back to the couch or bed.
I did this ignoring the pain from my still-deteriorating hip. I just didn't have the energy to think about that pain.
Coming to walk ten times around the house, one way then the other, was something to celebrate, I thought.


One evening when Ob returned from work, I shared my sense of accomplishment and celebration.
She looked at me oddly, and snorted something about going over to her son's place for the evening.
I guess I should have known better.

Evening Coffee

Throughout this time, we continued to go out for coffee every evening. It was a wind down time for Ob. I learned after a while that this was time for her to talk about her work or her family, and not for me to talk about my pain or our issues in the house. If I brought up those topics, the coffee time ended quickly with sarcasm and ugly looks.
Being a man about it, I just accepted it. -- What a foolish thing to do...
Ob would see me struggle to walk to the car, to get in, and she could not miss the pain on my face when I walked to the cafe for coffee, but she never commented on it.
In some ways, I think that was good. I felt I was too engrossed in my own pain. Struggling against it filled my mind for hours each day. I was always glad to see Ob. I loved her. Just having her around made the day brighter for me.
And the time gave me a way to think of other things.

Taken for a Walk

After I found myself able to walk almost normally for short distances, I found as many ways as possible to keep my mind off the pain. My hip was increasingly painful as the final bits of cartilage disappeared.
I spent hours on the Net studying, and chatting. My studies have born fruit. I've learned a great deal about the Internet and computing.

A few times, Ob decided that she would take me for a walk.
We would go to the beach, and walk on the boardwalk. I used my walking stick. (Ob never returned it...) It could never be a friendly conversational walk on the beach. I was in too much pain. I had to stop every few yards to rest, letting the burning pain in my hip subside.
The second or third time, I told Ob to just go walk on the beach while I made my way along the boardwalk.
I was walking like an 80-year old. She didn't have a pace slow enough to just walk along with me.

I did many things to try to walk better. I gritted my teeth and walked up Oliver's Hill once with my walking stick. I shouldn't have. I paid for that bit of bravado for a few days afterward.

I have to admit now that I saw the looks of resentment on Ob's face sometimes. I refused to let myself read the words behind them. Now, those looks sit in my mind like stones. I don't know if it would have been worth the insults and belittling, the cold tones that would have followed for days, to have challenged Ob on those looks.
I'll never know, of course. The memories are not worth much now.

How to be Happy, I suppose

I had the surgery to resurface my hip in July 2004.
During March and April 2004, Ob repeatedly told me she had "found a way" to have me removed from the house, and to take over all the possessions in it.
Finally one evening, she produced a couple of pages from a concocted "Diary of Abuse." -- I still have them on write-only media. The two pages were dated from a year earlier, but included things that had happened only in the last couple of months.
She admitted and threatened that she was concocting these as "evidence".

They were amazing to read. Part of what was there were things that she and I should have talked about, person to person, in private. Maybe in those hundreds of evenings and coffee. Other parts were part truths about things that had happened, such as when I found a psychiatrist to go to for relationship counselling. In her own words, "Paul is desperate to heal the relationship."
What isn't said is that this was at least the 5th time I'd encouraged us to seek counselling. Or that the reason we never did was that she, not I, decided that it would cost too much -- and refused to go for that reason.
My response was that it would cost more to let the relationship disintegrate, in emotional and financial terms.
There is the old saying that a lie of omission is still a lie. For Ob, she had to leave out a lot. But what she left out portrayed her abusive nature very well.
Her final word on her threats were that it didn't matter if there were no grounds.

When she told me she had a right to be happy, her words stopped me cold. I couldn't believe that anything so selfish could come from anyone I had loved, in the light of what she had done. Yes, she had a right to resent my illness. I resented it myself. And to some degree, she had no one else to take out that resentment upon but me. I was willing to endure it. It's a fairly normal human reaction to take out your frustrations on the person closest to you.
But did she have the right to lie to her children and family about me?
And then to take those lies to the courts to force me out of my own home when I was still recuperating from major surgery?
In my opinion, No. In the opinions of Mr Hulls and Mr Ruddock, the courts, Frankston Legal Aid, the police and the local social system: Yes.

In Mr Ruddock's words, pursuing the illegaility such things are "not in the public interest."
Somewhere in here, you begin to wonder if, instead of human and civil rights, Australian law has a charter to define the "rights to be happy" in terms of what can be taken from the disabled and elderly.
Yes, I am frustrated and bitter about it all. It's a normal human reaction.

Read more!

F4E website links

(from the fathers4equality website)

Dads On The AirFairly active discussion forum on family law

.Mens News Daily (United States Site)For men and the women who love them. Men's News Daily is an online daily news website providing breaking news and information from the United States and International news sources, as well as exclusive commentaries covering marriage, divorce, family, and culture from top commentators around the world.

Mens Rights AgencyA non-profit, benevolent organisation helping men, their children and extended families with relationship breakdown, Family Law, Child Support Agency, Domestic Violence and Discrimination

MensLineMen's Line Australia is the first national telephone counselling line for men who want to talk about their family and relationship concerns. It provides information, support and referral. This service is available 24 hours a day, from anywhere in Australia for the cost of a local call.

Australian Men's PartyA political party fighting for the equality of both sexes

Dads in DistressA dedicated support group of men (in Australia) whose immediate concern is to stem the present trend of male suicide due to the trauma of divorce or separation.

Fathers after DivorcePractical handbook looks at important issues facing fathers after separation or divorce - Mediation, Coaching and Counselling Services

Lone Fathers AssociationThe Lone Fathers Association, a national Peak Body, is an educational and welfare organisation devoted to the interests of lone fathers, their friends, relatives, grandparents, extended family, carers and children.

Richard Hillman Foundationa group that has been formed to pursue equality for All Australians in matters of the Law and in Administrative matters in dealings with Government Departments

OzydadsA small piece of Cyber Space dedicated to promoting shared parenting and to correcting the false stereotype images while exposing the Anti-Father gender bias in the Family Law arena and putting the fathers back in to families.

Men's Confraternity W.A. To help men to help themselves to solve, prevent and avoid marital and social problems.

Alliance for Non-Custodial Parents Rights

Australian Chat and Newslines
The following groups provide support & discussion, variously locally or via the internet, on father and gender issues. There are also other more specialised discussion groups not included here.

Fathers for Family Equity (Yahoo Group)To represent to the community, government and other agencies the important needs of non-custodial (non-resident) fathers and "significant others" as special child caring groups in the population.

Partners of Paying Parents (PoPPs) (Yahoo Group)POPPs is an Australian forum for the Partners of Paying Parents (aka second wives) to discuss issues, feelings and thoughts about life in relationship/married to a parent paying child 'support' (to a previous partner). We will discuss and challenge the (Australian) problems that we experience from the associated difficulties that directly effect us and our family life. These typcially arise from separation, divorce, family law (court), child support (CSA), social services (Centrelink), etc.

ANZ Men's Issue Discussion Group

BoysEd Discussion Group (Yahoo Group)Boysed is devoted to the discussion of boys' education, and gender issues in education generally. It is open to anyone interested in improving educational and social outcomes of boys and men at all levels of education from early childhood to university.

Fathers Against CSA Discussion Group (Yahoo Group)An Australian based discussion group for men (and those few women) being harrassed by the Child Support Agency (CSA). This is a forum to discuss problems and find resources to fight back against this instrument of an anti-male, evil, social policy.

OzyDads (Yahoo Groups)OzyDads home away from home. A small piece of the Cyber World is dedicated to addressing the Anti-Father bias in the Family Law arena and networking for support to make Father's Crisis facilities available.

Children in FocusChildren in Focus is a professional development program for dispute resolution practitioners, counsellors, therapists and other professionals who work with separating parents.

Shared Parenting Council of AustraliaThe Shared Parenting Council of Australia was incorporated in September 2002 as a representative body for a range of Parent, Children, Church and Family Law Reform organisations who share the common purpose of prescribing in law, every child's fundamental human right to an equal opportunity and relationship with both their Mother and Father following parental separation or divorce.

Family Rights InitiativeA directory of websites that contain the latest news on men's issues, men's groups.

Non-Custodial Parents PartyFormed in 1998, registered as a political party. They would like to change Australia's current Family Law and Child Support system to make it more equitable.

Joint Parenting AssociationWelcome to the Joint Parenting Association (JPA) a national non-profit organization based in Adelaide, South Australia. We appreciate you coming to visit our website. Unlike many other organizations with some of the same concerns, we are neither a women’s group nor a men's group. Rather, we advocate what we believe to be in the best interests of children, including the Children’s Bill Of Rights

Joint Custody Discussion BoardI'm just another victim of the system. Ex-wife kicked me out and assumed custody of our daughter without any discussion on the matter. Have been writing a book on the crap that fathers go through with the discriminatory practices in Australia. I am hoping that joint custody becomes the default arrangement because my ex spends the money on herself and not our daughter. I have tried to have some say as to how the money is spent but the Ex-wife Support Agency (C$A) tell me that I have no say, no rights. This forum is a way to make more noise than I can make by myself.

MENSBIZMENSBIZ offers a wide selection of issue oriented products. We challenge the prevalent radical/gender feminist bias in government, the media, education, and society. Our slogans challenge man-bashing, related factoids, and twisted propaganda of today’s radical feminist ideology and industries.

dads 'N' Kids dads 'N' kids is a collection of links created for divorced and separated fathers in Australia and their kids. It contains helpful information to cope with issues after marriage and relationship breakdown. Funny and creative tips to plan activities with your kids.

FindLawDNA SolutionsA fully accredited ‘court approved’ DNA test or a simple Home Test to easily solve any paternity issue.

Child Visitation Software - Custody X ChangeGreat software to manage your child visitation. Custody x change makes setting a visitation schedule a breeze; it saves attorneys tons of time, and saves parents a lot of heartache!

Parent Resources

Todays ParentAt Todaysparent.com you'll find a parenting community to call your own, with a library of information on all the ages and stages of your growing family, fun tools and features, discussion forums to swap advice with other parents, and contests that give you the chance to win fantastic prizes.

Read more!

Readers Digest??

I used to laugh quietly when I heard someone say, "What is this world coming to ...?" because I saw idea and ideals gaining ground that could make a better world for everyone. Now, even Readers' Digest is teaching children not to ask a man for help?

"I helped a lost little girl by taking her to the store's service counter, and having them page her mother. I saw this as a chance to teach my 12-year old daughter, Kylie, a safety lesson.
"That girl did the right thing," I said. "Do you know why? Because she asked a woman for help, NOT A MAN."
Kylie looked at me mystified. "Why on earth would I ask a man for help if I was already lost?"
Submitted by STEPHANIE TAIT, Olathe, Colo. to Readers Digest."

-- from “Life in these United States”,
June 2006 issue on p. 197 at the bottom.

And what will this woman's daugher do if there are no women around when she needs help? Cower in a corner?
What could possibly have brought Stephanie Tait to the point that she would teach her daughter something like that?
And what sort of woman will her daughter grow up to be?
Can you imagine a woman who has been taught a fear of men since childhood? Not because of some traumatic event which skews her emotional balance, ... but by the force of her mother's words, forever echoing in the archetypal memory of her being.
How will this fear express itself in aggression? Fear is the driving force of aggression.
Will she, in turn, teach her daughters to fear men without reason?

Does Stephanie Tait realize that she is teaching her daughter discrimination and prejudice? -- very much the same as southern women in the US were once told to fear all blacks...

"Fear and prejudice are not something a child is born with. A child fears nothing. It has to be taught." -- Margaret Mead, anthropologist, about the Civil Rights Movement in the US

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Best Interest ?

Best Interest of the Children?

…
Having admitted that the father was the prime caregiver while the mother was too busy furthering her own interests, the judges nevertheless allowed her to renege on her agreement and to remove the child as if she was a piece of luggage to be carried to where ever the mother wished.

This would have been the perfect opportunity to prove that judges, indeed, base their decisions on the presumption that the only consideration is the best interest of the child. What was delivered instead was another example of bewildering rhetoric, page after page.
…

Political leaders are terrified of the Women's Rights movement since it got into domestic violence and divorce issues. They are afraid to draw a line in the sand and say, "Enough!"

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Custody Reform Organization

1. We are a group COMMITTED to fairness in the child custody process, since before the new millennium.

• Within this site, you will be able to:

1. Discuss your concerns, either in a public forum, or in private.
2. JOIN US to help change the family laws that govern the family courts.
3. Find the text of all family laws (and any other laws also) in any state in the U.S.
4. Find the contact information (office address, email addresses and/or phone numbers) of any elected official in the U.S.
5. Find many other resources, such as support groups, legal resources, research, local and international contacts, within our collection of links.

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The Rebuttal Assumption

FOX News URL:http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,90801,00.html
The ifeminists.net URL:http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2003/0701.html
A new legal term is creating debate across North America: the "rebuttable presumption of joint custody." It means family courts should presume that divorcing parents will equally share the legal and physical custody of children unless there is compelling reason to rule otherwise. Advocates say children are more likely to emerge from divorce with both a mother and a father in their lives unless, of course, one parent is shown to be unfit. Why is this idea controversial?

PC feminist organizations, like NOW, claim that the rebuttable presumption of joint custody would cripple the current standard, which is "the best interests of the child." They claim the family court system blindly turns children over to abusive fathers. Instead of joint custody, such feminists wish children to remain with "primary caregivers" -- overwhelmingly, the mothers.
...

Ah, yes, divorce......., from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man's genitals through his wallet.
-Robin Williams-

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One Fathers Story

Daily Mail (Britain)
on July 20, 2003 at 09:10:26:
Below is an account of one man's dealings and trials (in both senses of the word) with family breakdown and family law (police, courts, lawyers, govt departments and agencies, etc).
It can also be seen online (as scan) at: http://www.amberell.com/campaign.html (temporary.)

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Basic as Free Speech

Family law is now criminalising rights as basic as free speech and freedom of the press. In many jurisdictions it is a crime to criticise family court judges or otherwise discuss family law cases publicly. Under the pretext of 'family privacy', parents are gagged from publicly disclosing how government officials have seized control of their children. In Australia it is a crime for a litigant to speak publicly concerning family courts, even without mentioning specific cases.
In Australia, the US, and Britain, family courts have closed web sites operated by fathers' groups. Britain, Australia, and Canada have all resurrected archaic laws prohibiting the criticism of judges in order to prosecute fathers' groups. In the United States judges cannot be sued, but they can sue citizens who criticise them. The confiscation of property can also be used to criminalise political opinions. Following his testimony to the US Congress critical of the family courts, Jim Wagner of the Georgia Council for Children's Rights was stripped of custody of his two children and ordered to pay $6,000 in the fees of attorneys he had not hired. When he could not pay, he was arrested.

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A Lot Better Show

Australian politics is still the longest running comedy show around.
On page 25 of the Herald Sun today:

Mr Hulls said a responsible government must have the maturity to acknowledge flaws in the system.

“The government recognizes that within an otherwise solid foundation a crack has developed.: a growing disparity between the law’s application and the public’s perception of the criminal process,” he said. -- from ‘To Jail or not to Jail – Laws force choice”, same page

About here I began to wonder if Mr Hulls was going to move to “firm up” the gaping holes in Family Law and Intervention Orders. It’s a lot more than a crack, Mr Hulls.
Maybe the next story would be about a new law that condemned the “mandatory and necessary” perjury built into the system? – Then I noticed the part about the public’s perception again.
The story goes on:

The new orders …(will) make sentencing far more transparent, in the (Sentencing Advisory Council’s) view, far more accountable, (Hulls) said.

Well that pretty much answers that. In Hull doublespeak, where there is no accountability from his Justice Department, something was missing. And then I noticed a story in the right hand corner of the same page called, -- from “Affair ruined my girl – mum”, and the last paragraph:

“(Attorney General) Rob Hulls was dragged kicking and screaming to make this change,and we applaud the report.”, Mr Medcraft (of People Against Lenient Sentencing) said.

Mandatory sentencing is attractive considering the ridiculous and inconsistent judgments handed down by the “independent” magistracy.
In Melbourne, the criminal courts set aside two days a week to hear Intervention Order cases, Thursday and Friday. The magistrates rush through 2000-4000 such cases each week. In the suburb of Frankston, the courts have only set aside one day to hear the 40-60 cases each week; though they’re considering adding another day.

“Mandatory sentencing takes away the capacity for human reasoning and discretion thatis a crucial part of our justice system.” – from “Beep! You go to jail”, by Anthony Kelly and Pauline Spencer on pg 23

The problem, Ms Spencer and Mr Kelly, is that the magistrates will expedite things where they can. And since there is no oversight on them from Mr Hulls’ Justice Department, and they know the prevailing political wind (however foul) protects them from the small problems of perjury and best evidence in Intervention Order cases, they just make the simple and easy determinations – by excluding evidence.
These folks who get named to be magistrates have not proven their ability to be trusted with human reasoning and discretion.

My head was kinda playing with the idea that Mr Hulls’ mind was like a steel trap: rusted shut, when I saw this quote:

“It’s a lump of solid iron with a few holes in it.”

… and realized that this did indeed describe Mr Hulls’ attitude much better.
‘Course, that quote was from a representative of Bohler-Udderholm about slicing up a 1.2 tonne meteorite a couple of pages later…

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Chemically Induced Denial

From my experience, I distrust drugs -- although I have to admit that they have their place in dealing with these problems.

The problem with drugs is that they are like chemically induced denial. They make the person feel better, but avoid dealing with the root causes of the problem. IF the drugs allow the person to seek out and deal with the issues that trouble them, then they are useful.

Medical Model

The key problem here is the medical model.

A psychiatrist is a doctor trained in psychology. Doctors are trained to treat symptoms with drugs.

You take an antihistamine, for example, to clear up a runny nose. It does nothing to help cure the cold.

You're the Guinea Pig

Another issue that arises is when the doctor writes a prescription for psychotropic (mood-altering) drugs.

Each of these drugs affect different people different ways. The doctor is giving the prescription -- too often -- as an experiment to see if it will help you (the patient.)

What they don't tell you is that it is up to you to be aware of how the drug affects you and to report back to be sure it's working.

These drugs take from 2 weeks to 2 months to really take effect. It doesn't happen tomorrow or next week even. If you return to your doctor in a week and he asks you how the drugs are helping, realistically you shouldn't feel anything in most cases.

(In fact, many of these drugs cause nausea and disorientation for a while. THAT would be the accurate response to show the drug was *trying* to accomplish the desired effect!)

Now, if you go back in 2 months and report to the doctor or psychiatrist that you're feeling better, you've got a drug that works for you. If it isn't working, then you have to report that and try another drug.

-- Surprise: It's up to the patient to manage the drugs; not the doctor or psyhiastrist. There is some degree of self esteem to be earned in that fact, but most doctors (or psychiatrists) won't let you know.

Drugs only help

If you, as the patient, don't use the drugs to help you deal with the issues, you're wasting your time and money on the drugs.

Most of these problems are related to:

• self-esteem,
• betrayal (by spouses, courts, too often children and society itself),
• boundary issues (co-dependence),
• and daily stress caused by loss of possessions, changes forced upon the person,
• and financial strains (read: identity and self esteem again here)

These things are not simple issues. They are interrelated and complex. They take time to manage, and then overcome.

Finding closure is sometimes doubly difficult because of the children being involved.

To that degree, someone who is trained to see and focus on the issues is helpful. But they don't have to be a professional, anyone who has been through the process can do the same thing.

Many times, all the person needs is somewhere to vent. People are resilient. We all have the capacity to deal with these traumatic issues. The part played by a professional or friend is to help the person handle it.

Labelling

Labelling diagnoses (-- And Yes, it is labelling. --) like BPD, NPD, Depression, Anxiety and Abusive attitudes help by reassuring the person that what they see has been identified. If they can identify the pathology of the circumstances, it helps them in managing their reactions.

No one can manage the reactions of another person. (Trying to manage the reactions of another person is evidence of diseased thinking.)

Hopefully, the person who identifies a disorder in the other person doesn't just use it as a weapon. (I made this mistake in desperation after many months of abuse, and she had ignored all attempts to get her or both of us to counselling.)

With enough love and patience, and treatment, sometimes these disorders can be overcome. And when I say that, I mean with another person or within yourself. The same words apply: love, patience, and treatment.

Just Yesterday

I am saying these things from my own experience. And they are in raw focus because of what a friend told me just yesterday over coffee. He told me of a long-term friend he had who had committed suicide.

The guy was smart, talented but never stuck to anything. He got bored with things.

He has three kids, and went through a divorce. He kept the younger child because the mother said the kid was too much for her. (Insert wrenching disgust here.)

Paul,

I like your phrase "chemically induced denial", captures it well.
Although there are circumstances where psychoactive drugs can provide temporary relief, more often than not it provides that chemical straight-jacket.
I once read a lecture comparing the physiological effects of antidepressants to those one experiences when being ‘tickled’ by another person, and we all know that if we are in a bad mood and someone brings a smile to our face by tickling we might at the very same moment feel nothing remotely close to happiness “inside”.

I have heard the term “reactive depression” to describe the normal emotional reaction to traumatic life experience.
– Jason T from the fathers4equality Yahoo list

The point is that depression is a normal human emotion, just like laughing or embarrassment. When you lose someone close to you, or a relationship—which is similar to a death in the family—it’s perfectly normal to feel depressed.
In fact, you should go through all the stages of Greif in such situations in order to achieve closure. (Short form, stages of grief: Denial, Depression, Anger, then Acceptance.)

Obviously, there is a disease called Depression. It is a chemical imbalance in the brain and body which causes a person to feel depressed when there may not be a sufficient (read: traumatic) reason. This sort of depression is often cyclical. It comes and goes at unpredictable times.

IMO It is chemically induced denial.
When I separated from my x I went on chemical induced denial. It’s taken over three years and I am finally off the anti depressants.
It was good for me to start with but towards the end of the second year my biggest fear of getting off them was the withdrawals. The withdrawals lasted for about two months. The withdrawals are horrible. Both S and me came off them together. S says she is thinking clearer and feeling like creating things. Now I am feeling more and creating more but without the immediacy of the initial turmoil and uncontrollable pain that we all suffer at those times.
-- Dan O from the fathers4equality Yahoo list

And there is a tendency to be depressed.—This is me, with a uncontrollable tendency towards anxiety thanks to my workaholic past.—which might be understood as a marginal chemical imbalance.

The hardest part of any mental illness is the same as for sudden physical disability: Your body and/or mind go off and do things you don’t want them to do.
There is nothing more frightening.

The only thing more frightening is the way some people think anyone who has a diagnosis is somehow dangerous. (My ex) knew that I was not bipolar. She had seen the reports from US psychologists and a psychiatrist here in Australia (-- I had to pass a full medical exam to emigrate. --), yet she made a point of slipping in a statement in the court that I was bipolar.
Yes, I could charge her with slander and perjury over that fact. It’s in the court record, and she said it only to prejudice the magistrate. It was a lie and she knew it.
But to do that, I would have to invest time and money that I would rather put to more positive ends.
I do harbour the hope that someday her true nature will become evident to all she involved; and that they will encourage her to get treatment.

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Where do you fit in?

1. Feminist Mens Movement: constituted by alpha males siding with feminist claims that œmale constructed patriarchy is the ultimate evil in society, and that women and children are its vain victims.

2. Mythopoetic men's movement: advocates revival of traditional masculine sex-roles and accompanying spiritual practices; rites of passage, tribal drumming, and father-son reconnection instead of father absence.

3. Good Fatherhood Movement: traditional sex-roles movement promoting breadwinner, involved father and good family man's roles, and critical of all the so-called "deadbeat dads."

4. Christian Men's Movement: Has some similarities with the Good Fatherhood Movement in advocating traditional sex-role divisions, but here strictly based on Biblical and Christian ideologies of gender.

5. Men’s Liberation Movement: men who seek liberation from sexist or misandric social and legal structures and institutions. Has many aims in common with the Father's Right's Movement, but with a focus on all men, not just fathers.

6. Fathers' Rights Movement: Considered warriors of the mens' movement, seeking a fairer legal stake in areas like divorce, child custody, child support awards, and rights of unmarried fathers.

7. New Misogynists: the male equivalent of radical misandric feminists who blame all ills on the opposite sex. Women haters.

Weird to say it, but by this categorization, I'm in the Male Liberation Movement?
Sheesh, and I spent all those years hating communism...

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Quotes to Consider

Good quotes to consider:

"Thus we see that these sexual roles - mother and father, husband and wife - are not just arbitrary categories into which people are squeezed; they are broad patterns and principles of behaviour which define the optimum ways in which men and women can relate together, enjoy intimacy, and provide a context in which children can grow up healthy and
--Prof Peter W Blitchington, "Sex Roles and the Christian Family", page 95

"Finding roles for women isn't the problem, finding one for men is", == Margaret Mead, anthropologist.

"The effect of small sex differences - which are barely noticeable in most circumstances and for most people - at the extremes is profound...

The fact that men in general have more drive, ambition, single-mindedness and competitiveness ensures they always show up at the sharp end of the pyramid, whether or not some women have then in equal measure,"
-- Sociologist Andrew McIntyre.

"Finding roles for women isn't the problem, finding one for men is", == Margaret Mead, anthropologist.

"The quality of maleness and femaleness is intimately woven into the overall fabric of personality. Human beings are not biologically bisexual...

The human spirit is greatly impaired when childhood development does not lead to fully developed masculinity or femininity. Fully masculine men and feminine women are by definition mature, and that term implies the ability to live out one's abilities.

These include the capacity to mate, live in harmony with a member of the opposite sex, and carry out the responsibilities of parenthood. Mature people are competent and masterful; not only can they make families but they can take of hold of life generally and advance it, and in particular they can replace themselves with healthy children who become healthy men and women...

The fate of mankind depends on the durability of the heterosexual relationship, and the stability and integrity of family life".
-- Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst Harold Voth, article "How much longer can the family survive?", in Mothers on the March newsletter, vol 1 # 2, July 1979, page 2. Voth is author of "The Castrated Family"

"Finding roles for women isn't the problem, finding one for men is", == Margaret Mead, anthropologist.

"....The key link in the whole chain is the pivotal point around which all societies turn, namely, the family. Everyone must turn attention to teh task of making it flourish. Then you must make your voice heard as individuals and as organizations or as coalitions of organizations.

We must fight back against the social movements which are destructive to our way of life. We must preserve the vitality of our people and provide these vital and vigorous people a context, that is, a society in which it is possible to find the freedom to express their individuality.

This means, above all, preventing the passage of laws which ignore the differences between people, in particular the difference between a male and a female, and which undermine the security and stability of the family and the nation. Strong pioneer families created this country; strong families and strong leaders will save it."
- Harold Voth.

"Finding roles for women isn't the problem, finding one for men is", == Margaret Mead, anthropologist.

"When laws are passed which prevent individuals having a sufficient freedom to find their best fit in the environment, we are in serious trouble.

Our way of life is based on individuality, personal freedom, and the freedom to find expression of one's abilities. Personal abilities are related to sex identity; there are fundamental differences between men and women.

When the process of selectivity between the individual and society is seriously interfered with by law, an eventual decline is the result, simply because people will be forced to fill positions which would be better filled by others."
- Harold M Voth, M.D., Senior Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst at the Menninger Foundation, Topeka, Kansas.

"Finding roles for women isn't the problem, finding one for men is", == Margaret Mead, anthropologist.

Let me put it to you this way: You've probably heard of Margaret Mead. She's been an internationally acclaimed anthropologist and social commentator for decades. But you've probably never heard of any of the other people cited here.
Now, if you look again, you may see everyone cited here is in agreement. It's just a matter of detail. And that explains why Mr Voth calls it the "Castrated Family."
Somehow, society has lost a role for men.

There will be many new and exciting ideas coming from this intense debate. We will be seeing the maturing of law, civil and human rights. New leaders will step forward. Their ideas will shed a light on a dark abyss in western society.
Or there will no longer be a thing called "western society."
I hate being apocalyptic. I just wish sometimes I was alone.

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