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A Decade of Change
As chairman of Parental Equality I welcome you to our website.
Parental Equality is celebrating 10 years of work in
support of shared parenting issues. The decade since 1992 has seen
enormous changes in Ireland:
- Divorce has been legalised
- Some 40% of births are outside marriage
- Family law activity has increased substantively to where it now
accounts for 20% of all civil legal actions
- A huge industry of professionals now earn their living from the
fallout of family breakdown.
Parental Equality has been at the leading edge of
promoting change in the family law system and in challenging the culture
of 'Sole custody to the Mother, with subservient and controlled access to
the Father'. This discriminatory approach to parental roles isolates and
demonises men in general, so much so that some 50% of fathers lose contact
with their children after relationship breakdown. In driving fathers away
from their children it has led to:
- Colonies of single parent families, led almost exclusively by
mothers, where children have very little experience of enriched
relationships with their loving fathers.
- The Irish State acting as a substitute father to tens of thousands
of children, with spiralling costs to the exchequer (and thus the
taxpayer)
- Elevated levels of male depression, male suicide and societal
violence and infanticide.
The verdict on government Family Social Policy is clear: it
has added to the problem rather than contributed to a solution.
What We Want; What Our Children Need
At Parental Equality we believe that the default
solution after relationship breakdown should be shared Joint Custody with
equal social, tax, educational and welfare supports for both mothers and
fathers. Parental Equality has living, working models to prove that
treating mothers and fathers with parity of esteem as parents creates a
WIN-WIN-WIN-WIN-WIN outcome:
- Children win by retaining and developing deeply loving and
engaged relationships with both their mothers and fathers. Because they
are not forced to take sides they gain greater security in their
upbringing.
- Mothers win because they are not left as sole custodians and
effective sole guardians of their children's welfare. By sharing the
parenting experience mothers share with fathers the same opportunities
for personal and career development. Their level of stress is reduced,
as they do not have to pursue fathers for maintenance, which mothers
often say re-enlivens the bitterness and arguments, and prevents them
from moving on.
Gone too is culturally enforced martyrdom of single
motherhood, and the stigmas which are sometimes attached with sole
parenting. Moreover, if single mothers meet other single fathers, it is
likely that those fathers have themselves an involved commitment with
their own children. Any new relationship is more likely to be based on
an equality of expectation and resources.
- Fathers win by having parity of esteem as parents. Instead of
trying to deal with the emotional trauma of being treated as
second-class parents, subservient to the whims of the mother and often
repositioning their expectation of themselves and their engagement with
their children, fathers can plan to rebalance their career and family
life commitments for the benefit of themselves and their children. By
having equal access to state child benefits, equal and positive support
from the statutory services in dealing with the whole range of parenting
issues, fathers will experience a release of loving energy which
recognition of their role will bring and this energy will be positively
available for their children. This removes the longer term trauma of
future reconnections with their father and his families.
- Extended families - grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins -
will all win. No longer the embarrassment of children and their
grandparents and cousins etc, when they meet in the street, in school,
etc. The present discrimination in favour of maternal grandparents and
extended families, while isolating the father’s side of the family, will
no longer be necessary. Grandparents who are generally completely
innocent and often unaware of the parent’s conflicts and who end up cut
off as result of family separations can now be assured of secure long
term relationships with their grandchildren. In this space grandparents
can provide the wisdom and ease of age, the vital linkages through the
family genealogy, and a comforting ear for the problems of growing
children.
- Society wins by the maintenance of the familial and communal
bonds that shared parenting brings with it. Families are best able to
impart communal values and to maintain a sense of good behaviour and to
look out for their own, instead of abdicating to the state the
day-to-day responsibility for their children. With a reduction in the
exchequer spending on maintenance, the consequent reduction in spending
on adversarial court hearings and costs of social workers reports, etc,
taxpayer monies can then be directed into productive family support,
which can benefit children and their parents.
In short, building a shared parenting culture is about
improving the Quality of Life for all of our citizens.
Overcoming Prejudice and Vested Interests
Some, because of their baggage, blindness or prejudice, or
because of they want to gain financially from the hurt of others, do not
want change even when it’s for the better. They will continue to say that
joint custody and shared parenting cannot work. To those I say: 'Get out
of the way of those who are actually doing it successfully'.
Working for Change
The landscape against which support groups such as
Parental Equality operates is also greatly changed:
- Technology has been a central driver in change. Mobile phones are
now standard. Being on the Web as you are now is increasingly the norm.
The Freedom of Information Act allows a citizen to have access to
information which was at best a black art in the past.
- In the past voluntary groups were composed of well-meaning, unpaid,
caring people who did their best with very little funds, and no one
expected miracles from such groups. Today there is a huge shift towards
a professional voluntary sector, with over 70% of workers in this area
being paid. This process has raised the expectation of callers to the
various services. Callers expect helplines to be available 24/7/365, and
they expect a range of supports without having to contribute for these
supports.
Parental Equality is largely unfunded. We get some
small grant aid that does not support even the maintenance of this
website. Current state funding is concentrated on those groups within the
Golden Circle of political correctness. For most of our work we rely of
the incredible level of commitment of a small band of do-ers who have
risen above their own personal problems and reached out to help others. On
your behalf I thank all the Parental Equality volunteers and wish
for them and their children good health and happiness.
If you would like to be involved in building solutions for
our children’s futures, then I encourage you to become involved with us in
Parental Equality. Whatever your skills there is something you can
contribute and remember: Parental Equality needs you and can only
develop with your participation. So let’s hear from you.
Regards
Liam O Gogain
Chairman, Parental Equality
11th June 2002
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