Would anyone like to sign a petition i have just read?

Question

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/law4maintenance/

Don't be rude with an answer, any questions please email me directly and i would be happy to reply!

Thank you

SAR - Uneducated and niave, how funny, i have been dealing with this situation for 9 years, and that petition is actually fact, because i am educated, and i have done my research, i did say not rude answers, but clearly that fell on deaf ears

I am not a feminist i am a working single mother who was on full state benefit and i am sick of having the 'children in poverty' rammed down my throat, i did not produce these children on my own biology depicts differently, i want this changed clearly across the board, but then nobody had bothered to email to discuss this further...chickens!!!!

This is about 'ABSENT PARENTS' and there are alot of errant mothers, but sadly we need to hear the voice from those fathers

Answer 1

Sorry, i agree with SAR 13. The Law weighs heavily in favour of the mother in financial settlements and in my opinion needs to be seriously addressed. Its quite easy for the following scenario to occur and often does. A wife after having a child, has an affair, decides she wants the marriage to end. Claims nonsense reasons or engineers issues for a divorce. The father is then ordered to pay maintenance ( further pressured by the ex wife's emotional blackmail) until the child is dependent, whilst having to watch another man enjoy quality time his child. Hrmmmm...something not quite right there! Not quite sure what the answer is, but certainly something needs to be done. Perhaps the father should pay what the state benefit would be for a child or pay for child minding so the mother could enjoy a working career. We (women) wanted equality and independence, I for one, wouldn't want to benefit from a marriage financially and certainly wouldn't want to benefit from a divorce financially.

Answer 2

I can understand your ideals, but legislation does exist.
The CSA was created to resolve this issue in an ideal scenario.

Clearly you are intelligent enough to realise that there are such a vast range of circumstances that generalised legislation is a very clumsy tool for tackling specific areas of difficulty.

We have many laws, unfortunately due to 'interpretation' their intentions have become obscured and frustrated.

I am sorry but I don't think more legislation is what is needed.
Many absent parents cannot be traced, others who can, have no resources and others still are completely unsuitable as parents in 'our view of society as it should be'.
The result is we spend more on trying to make the system work than actually getting useful results. The aforementioned CSA is the perfect example.

In the end society can provide the guidelines but individuals have to want to do what is best for their children for the right results to be achieved.

If you are in this position you might be better to set aside your 'pride' if I may use such terminology and put your considerable skills and energy into persuading the absent father that he does care about his child/children. One small victory would make an example for others to follow.

Answer 3

It sounds like quite a good idea, however the only concern I would have is that the child gets the right and necessary amount of attention from the parent. I can fully understand a parent wants to work, but they also need to be responsible for the kids. I think it also depends on the current age of the child and probably also in individual circumstance. Some parents for example dump their kids in a nursery for 10 hours a day just so they can work............... I think there needs to be a sensible balance between work and child and its not always easy to determine what that should be.

Answer 4

I can and will sign your petition, which may seem strange, as I am a this very moment refusing to pay.

Let me explain if I may. I have two children, and in 12 years I missed two weekends, as I was in the US on business, but called the children three times a day, even though I was only away for 2 weeks.

I am not an absent Father, far from it, moving from London, giving up a job, just to be closer to them. That involved losing a well paid job, and while my children were with me from Friday afternoon till I took them to school on Monday, their Mother claimed for the whole week, and chaild benefits, even for three years after my Daughter elected to come and live with me.

The main thing here is this. Firstly, I paid for every need of the children, but refused to put money into the house as it got drank or smoked. Further to that, the house was a 4 bedroomed house, with no mortgage, and with their Mother well off, loadsin the bank, gained from, wait for it, two previous divorces due to her drinking and infidelity, and with all of this money, here I was having the CSA tell me that each of my children needed £22.83 each per day.

As siad, I will sign your petition, but while it is widely accepted that there are, reasonably, two sides to every story, the only one that gets heard in divorce is the one about bad men.

One bad example of this, and a sad story whenever it happens, was the recent case of the Mother who killed her two children and then herself. The newspapers, for less than 2 days, were full of the reasons for her doing this.

When this is a man, with as many of the pressures suffered by any woman, especially when you cannot see your children, then the press are all over the 'nasty man murderer' for weeks on end.

When there is balance there is usually justice, and with the tilt generally against men at the moment, in this regard at least, their co-operation will be reluctant.

Ps: And if I may add here, thanks to the comments of one of the other contributors, a though struck me. It is this. When a woman or a man, with a family,ay two children, become unemployed, and there is no second breadwinner r support, absent or not, its interesting to note that the dole office, after careful consideration mind, comes up with a weekly sum, which they say the parent and children can live on. However, and what is so amusing here, where amusement can be found, is that the same calculation, when it s a man being penalised, is twice the figure the Government would dole out.

The inequality is indeed widespread, and in addition to reading what I have written here, and with all that the CSA has to say on the subject of funding, they just awarded themselves, failed lot as they are, millions in bonuses.

Seriously, you show me the logic in any of this.

Answer 5

Its a bit more complicated than that,I think you are naive and uneducated it is not that simple, sorry.

I was not being rude.My wife told me to leave because she did not love me any more and had met someone else, after she had started going out with her new found friends, while I stayed in all the time with our handicapped son I left her with my handicapped son with the house we were buying I give her the lot, I still have my son 5 years later every school holiday,even though I have remarried and bringing up 3 children of my wife whos ex does not pay anything toward because he is on the sick,and we have a son of our own and live in a rented house because the house prices have gone through the roof.While my ex wife as remarried and just bought a 250,000 pound house.

Demonising absent parents is not funny, 9 years playing with paper work not funny,people commiting suicide not funny.Silly partition not funny,to get people to sign it when they have not got the full facts of a very complicated issue not funny.

Sorry ,sensitive issue,I can't email because I do not contact people over the net. Nothing personal sorry.

Answer 6

Regarding this issue yes I feel that absent parents should pay maintenance however take the following case into account:-
Last year I split from my girlfriend and was still paying maintenance and buying things for our daughter. Then she turned nasty and phoned the CSA and said I wasnt giving her any money or anything for the baby. I was hit with a deduction from earnings order that took 40% of my earnings and after paying the bills and rent I was left with £50 to last me a month. In order to avoid starving to death I ended up going through bins, poaching, shoplifting and picking wild plants so that I had enough to eat. I was unable to afford to heat my flat and had to sit wrapped in blankets. and out of two payments totalling nearly £500 my ex g/f got £95. If the government were planning to set up a fair system that takes things like this into account then I would sign your petition

Answer 7

this is less about supporting children and more about the feminist lobby persecuting men. A friend of mine got divorced and he had custody of the children. Although his ex had a well paid job and kept the family allowance, he still had to pay her maintenance. His income was reduced due to his child care commitments, and he and the children had to manage on what was left. This was the ruling of the CSA. It took 2 years of court battles to get the maintenance payments cancelled. He never got the family allowance though. They should be called the child impoverishment agency

Answer 8

I am not from the UK, but an absent parent should pay support for their children. I cannot believe that the UK doesn't already have something to that effect.

Answer 9

Anything to do with the UK govt at the moment is a con. Criminal war. Trying to pervert the BBC. Trying to pervert the Police investigation into Cash for honours. Trying to pervert the press and public. Its evil!

Answer 10

I'm with Jill, on this. If I were a subject of the Crown, I would sign it in a heartbeat.