It’s too easy to blame dads..

It often fascinats me how the bleeding obvious use to be used as common sense, that was until the male-haters, the feminists ensured that only one sex is legal and the other one was, well, just there..

Too many times have feminists been demonstrated to be liars, male-haters, destroying facts and introducing fiction ( one in four women will be raped, women do not lie about rape, women only abuse when they are attacked)are just a few examples and have been clearly and completely demonstrated to be totally untrue as well as demonstrated that it was all part of their doctrine and their aim to destroy families as well as Fathers..

And they won !!!

Fathers are now second or third class citizins in countries they have swaeted blood over to build and ensure security for their families.

Fathers are no longer recognised as any legal enitity with any government department except the C$A..

So what does that tell you ?

Anything ?

http://women. timesonline. co.uk/tol/ life_and_ style/women/ families/ article6919217. ece

The Times (Britain)
17 November 2009

It’s too easy to blame dads

When separated families fall out of touch, it’s easy to find fault with others. But there is plenty all parties can do.

By Suzie Hayman

When my stepson, Alex, was a child, he lived in Birmingham, and his father and I lived in London. My husband used to scour the capital every weekend for postcards - from museums, galleries, anywhere to send to him. For several years, almost very day, he'd compose some awful bit of doggerel about the picture and send it off - a way of saying “I may not be seeing you today but I'm thinking about you.” Alex now has a child of his own; and a box on a shelf that contains every single one of those postcards.

When he fetched the box out last Christmas - postcard after postcard keeping the link - we were reminded how important it was to keep that contact. Adults may be able to hold on to a relationship many miles and many days apart, but it’s far harder for children. They need their parents to be there for them.

This kind of regular contact between separated families seems to be getting harder to maintain. Most parents will say that their child’s welfare is their main priority during a separation, but according to a new study of more than 4,000 people by the law firm Mishcon de Reya, more than a third of children lose touch with their father after their parents separate.

Whether it’s a third who lose touch permanently, or the more frequently quoted 50 per cent (from a 1996 study) who stop contact in the first two years, clearly it’s far more than it should be. But what makes keeping in touch so difficult?

One answer could be suggested by a finding of the Mishcon de Reya report - one in five divorcing spouses admitted to having the primary objective of making the experience as unpleasant as possible for his or her former partner.

Mothers may demand money and refuse contact if it’s not enough; fathers may retaliate by playing fast and loose, changing arrangements at the last moment. It causes stress, anxiety and rage. And with their eyes on the “enemy”, what both often forget is that the person who suffers most is the child, who is often used as an “emotional football”, according to the study, feeling “used, isolated and alone”.

There are two theories that might explain what happens even to those fathers who want to keep contact with their children. When Dan divorced from Louise, he swore that he'd never lose touch with his eight-year-old daughter and nine-year-old son. Three years on, he never calls, he never sees them. Mention children and his fists curl, his teeth grit and he changes the subject, fast.

His is a classic example of the discontinuity hypothesis, which suggests that fathers who have been highly involved with their children are more likely to become disengaged because of the pain of separation. Every time they see their child, knowing that at the end of the day or weekend they have to hand them back, they feel misery, hurt and guilt.

Children often act out their distress so that bad behaviour before, during or after time spent together places particular strain around the whole issue of contact. Both parents may come to believe that limiting or stopping meetings altogether will clear up the distress.

“It just got too much,” says Dan. “Every time I saw him, I wanted to cry. Every time he stayed the visit would end in tantrums and tears - for both of us, frankly. I'd take him back and she'd look at me with such disgust as if to say, ‘What are you doing to our boy?’ So one day, I just stopped. But there’s not a day when I don't think about him.”

Other fathers duck out because the discomfort becomes too much for them to bear - they may rationalise it as doing the best for the child, but it may be their own anguish that drives them.

The continuity hypothesis suggests that post-divorce relationships correlate to pre-divorce contact. A father who, prior to divorce focused most of his attention on work, friends or his own interests, may find it hard to continue any relationship. This type of father often loves his children and wants to stay in touch, but what encouraged him to relate to them was always the child’s mother. With her now fighting against him, he will be put off.

Bob is typical of some of the fathers who have come to see me in my capacity as a relationship counsellor. “I never knew what I had till I lost it,” he says. “I used to make excuses not to have to play with him. Now I'd give anything to see him - I don't know, it’s just too much arguing every time I try.”

The results can be dramatic and far-reaching. Children of messy divorces can exhibit a range of psychological and behavioural problems in childhood and beyond, from bed-wetting and tantrums to truancy, risk-taking, premature sexual behaviour, pregnancy, and even criminal behaviour, that can be traced back to the trauma of losing their family, losing a parent and not having a father figure around.

Look into the background of any “out of control” child, teenager or adult and it’s a betting certainty that somewhere, sometime, loss and rejection form part of the picture. Children need their fathers; fathers need their children. How, as a society, are we going to turn the tide on the loss so many of our families suffer?

A good beginning would be to go one step farther than the Children Act that 20 years ago tried to put the needs of children at the centre of divorce proceedings. The act moved court proceedings from being a fight for “custody” of children, as if they were belongings to be fought over and won, to residence and contact. The presumption was that the child’s right to contact with both parents was the vital issue.

But there is still an assumption that children live with one parent - usually the mother - and ‘visit’ another, usually the father. What we should now do is to make an assumption that children have two parents and that both are full-time parents, even when children do not spend 100 per cent of the time with each. There needs to be an understanding, for instance, that children should be able to be in contact with both and either parent whenever they choose, by mail, through mobiles, or email if necessary.

When parents are at loggerheads, there should be much more done to sustain the interests of the father and child. When a mother turns her child against the father, when a mother refuses to comply with a court order on contact, nothing is done because it is felt sanctions against her would not be in the interests of the child. But is the situation as it stands in that child’s interests? We pay only lip service to the rights of a child to have contact with a father and we need to do better.

When parents part, the courts prefer them to settle their differences and make arrangements between themselves, only calling upon the legal process in extremis. But there is no requirement for parents to access any of the excellent help and support that would make it so much easier to manage co-parenting apart.

If parents were expected, encouraged or even required to go to mediation or counselling, they could settle the unfinished business of their rage and pain, put it aside and get on with bringing up their children in partnership, though no longer partners. More people need to be made aware of Parenting Plans - a guide for separating parents published by the Department of Children, Schools and Families that covers everything from day-to-day arrangements to holidays.

We also need to put money into doing so much better for children. Increasingly, schools are inviting Relate and other counsellors in to talk to children and offer confidential consultations. But it’s still a postcode lottery - not all local authorities make funding available, and not all schools use it. It should be a given that all children have somewhere to go to speak to an objective professional with their needs in mind.

Overhauling the way we deal with parenting, with divorce, with separated families would have significant effects on the lives of so many families. It might cost millions, but what it would save in emotional terms is priceless.

And in Britain particularly, it’s much needed. The 2007 UNICEF report A Review of Child Well-Being in Rich Countries makes sobering reading. It looked at a range of indicators to measure wellbeing among children and young people, including healthy living, risky behaviour and relationships with family and friends. Out of 21 countries, the UK’s average ranking was 18. In quite a few important indices, we came 21st. Can we afford to go on accepting that a third of children lose their fathers?

What dads can do

- Keep in daily contact with your child: texts, cards, emails, Facebook, Twitter - use anything that keeps you communicating.

- Get help and support from family, friends and charities such as the Fatherhood Institute, Parentline, Families Need Fathers and the Centre for Separated Families.

- Negotiate, conciliate, mediate and communicate. While you may feel that your ex is behaving badly, your anger hurts your child most of all.

- Go to mediation or counselling. If your child’s mother won't go too, then start without her.

- When you see your child, accept that it can be painful for both of you. Allow for some negative feelings and behaviour on both sides.

- Foster contact between your own parents and your children too.

- Don't allow living in another town or country from your children to make a difference. Use technology to stay in touch and meet them as often as possible.

- Lobby your MP for more money to be put into services for parents in conflict, before and after separation.

What mums can do

- He may no longer be your partner but he’s still your child’s parent. Put your feelings aside and help him to stay in contact.

- Encourage children to stay in touch with a non-resident dad. Whatever you think of him as a partner, he can still be an excellent dad.

- Never criticise your former partner, even if you think that your child can't hear you. Think of and refer to him as “my child’s father” rather than “my ex”.

- Ask for help from friends and family or call Parentline on 0808 800 2222, open 24 hours a day.

- Use mediation or counselling to end your disagreement and decide on how to co-parent.

- Money and contact are different issues: refusing contact because of rows over finances hurts your child most.

- Don’t forget grandparents - your parents and his. They can be a point of stability for children.

What children can do

- Accept that the split is not your fault. You are not to blame for your parents arguing or separating.

- Get some help to understand what is happening and feel better from websites such as http://itsnotyourfa ult.org

- Talk to someone - a friend, family member, teacher, counsellor or youth worker.

- Talk to both your parents, too. They may not have realised how much you know and how much it hurts - so trust them to want to help.

- Let the school know that you are having a tough time. They can help - and if it affects your schoolwork, they need to know.

Fathers Gain Respect From Experts..

How condescending is this article ?
The usual gab feast from the New York Times but surprisingly pro-Father which actually does rather surprise me. Feminists as well as women in general have been brainwashed into believing that Fathers are irrelevant and only tolerated for their atm benefits as well as being sperm donors. Are those lies finally being laid to rest ?


Fathers Gain Respect From Experts (and Mothers)

By LAURIE TARKAN
Published: November 2, 2009

It used to irk Melissa Calapini when her 3-year-old daughter, Haley, hung around her father while he fixed his cars. Ms. Calapini thought there were more enriching things the little girl could be doing with her time.
Well


But since the couple attended a parenting course — to save their relationship, which had become overwhelmed by arguments about rearing their children — Ms. Calapini has had a change of heart. Now she encourages the father-daughter car talk.

“Daddy’s bonding time with his girls is working on cars,” said Ms. Calapini, of Olivehurst, Calif. “He has his own way of communicating with them, and that’s O.K.”

As much as mothers want their partners to be involved with their children, experts say they often unintentionally discourage men from doing so. Because mothering is their realm, some women micromanage fathers and expect them to do things their way, said Marsha Kline Pruett, a professor at the Smith College School for Social Work at Smith College and a co-author of the new book “Partnership Parenting,” with her husband, the child psychiatrist Dr. Kyle Pruett (Da Capo Press).

Yet a mother’s support of the father turns out to be a critical factor in his involvement with their children, experts say — even when a couple is divorced.

“In the last 20 years, everyone’s been talking about how important it is for fathers to be involved,” said Sara S. McLanahan, a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton. “But now the idea is that the better the couple gets along, the better it is for the child.”

Her research, part of a project based at Princeton and called the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, found that when couples scored high on positive relationship traits like willingness to compromise, expressing affection or love for their partner, encouraging or helping partners to do things that were important to them, and having an absence of insults and criticism, the father was significantly more likely to be engaged with his children.

Uninvolved fathers have long been accused of lacking motivation. But research shows that many societal obstacles conspire against them. Even as more fathers are changing diapers, dropping the children off at school and coaching soccer, they are often pushed aside in ways large and small.

“The walls in family resource centers are pink, there are women’s magazines in the waiting room, the mother’s name is on the files, and the home visitor asks for the mother if the father answers the door,” said Philip A. Cowan, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, who along with his wife, Carolyn Pape Cowan, has conducted decades of research on families. “It’s like fathers are not there.”

In recent years, several fathers’ rights organizations have offered father-only parenting programs and groups, and studies have shown that these help men become more responsive and engaged with their children.

But a new randomized, controlled study conducted by the Pruetts and the Cowans found that the families did even better if mothers were brought into the picture.

In the study, low-income couples were randomly placed into a father-mother group, a father-only group and a control group of couples. The controls were given one information session; the other two groups met for 16 weeks at family resource centers in California, discussing various parental issues.

In both of those groups, the researchers found, the fathers not only spent more time with their children than the controls did but were also more active in the daily tasks of child-rearing. They became more emotionally involved with their children, and the children were much less aggressive, hyperactive, depressed or socially withdrawn than children of fathers in the control group.

But notably, the families in the couples group did best. They had less parental stress and more marital happiness than the other parents studied, suggesting that the critical difference was not greater involvement by the fathers in child-rearing but greater emotional support between couples.

“The study emphasizes the importance of couples’ figuring parenting out together and accepting the different ways of parenting,” Dr. Kline Pruett said.

Fathers tend to do things differently, Dr. Kyle Pruett said, but not in ways that are worse for the children. Fathers do not mother, they father.

Dr. Kyle Pruett added: “Dads tend to discipline differently, use humor more and use play differently. Fathers want to show kids what’s going on outside their mother’s arms, to get their kids ready for the outside world.” To that end, he said, they tend to encourage risk-taking and problem-solving.

The study was financed by the California Office of Child Abuse Prevention, which is looking for ways to involve fathers more at the state’s many family resource centers. Experts say improving the way fathers are treated in many settings, public and private, is an important public health goal.

For example, they say, pictures of families on the walls of clinics and public agencies should have fathers in them. All correspondence should be addressed to both mother and father. Staff members should be welcoming to men. Steps like these promote early and lasting involvement by fathers.

“We want people to think about how positive father engagement in this co-parenting model would work in their foster care agency, local health clinic, pediatric office, adoption agency or school,” Dr. Kyle Pruett said. “That’s where an awful lot of the barriers are.”

At home, the experts recommend that couples keep talking about parenting issues and do their best to appreciate each other’s strengths. A recurring argument among couples is that each partner thinks he or she knows what is right; a mother may accuse the father of allowing too much television, while a father may tell a mother she isn’t strict enough with discipline.

“Instead, they should be saying, ‘How can each of us be the kind of parent that we are?’ ” Dr. Philip Cowan said. “I don’t think it’s abuse for a dad to sit with that little kid watching TV.”

These experts agree that parents should not focus solely on the children.

“Parents work all day, and feel as if they need to give every other minute to the kids,” Dr. Cowan said, “but if they don’t take care of the relationship between them, they’re not taking care of the whole story.”

This Is Your Brain Without Dad..

Interesting, but typical difficulties comparing animal with human behaviour.

Quote #1: Of course, the frontal cortex - where thinking and decision-making take place - is more complex in humans than it is in other animals. Thus, says Dr. Braun, it is important to be "really careful" about extrapolating the recent findings to human populations. "The minute you get into stuff with extensive social and environmental components, the social differences between humans and animals are massive," says Simon Chapple, a senior economist in the social policy division of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the 30-country grouping of the world's largest economies. It remains an "open verdict" whether single parenthood causes these bad outcomes, or is merely associated with them, says Dr. Chapple.

Quote #2: Still, the prevalence of single-parent households has researchers looking at possible consequences for children. An OECD report ["Doing Better for Children" - Refer appended details after article] found that just 57% of children in the U.S. live with both parents, among the lowest percentages of the world's richest nations. The report, which sparked some controversy when it was released in September, found that children in single-parent households have an increased risk of delinquency and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, as well as poorer scholastic performance. The OECD also analyzed data from 122 separate studies and found that there was variability in the negative effects on children of living in a single-parent home; on average, the OECD found, the magnitude of the impact was relatively small. On a standardized intelligence test with a median score of 100 points, for example, a child in a single-parent family would be about 3.5 points worse off than a similar child in a two-parent family, according to Dr. Chapple, who co-wrote the report.

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http://online. wsj.com/article/ SB10001424052748 7047548045744918 11861197926. html

The Wall Street Journal (USA)
27 October 2009

This Is Your Brain Without Dad
By Shirley S. Wang

Conventional wisdom holds that two parents are better than one. Scientists are now finding that growing up without a father actually changes the way your brain develops.

German biologist Anna Katharina Braun and others are conducting research on animals that are typically raised by two parents, in the hopes of better understanding the impact on humans of being raised by a single parent. Dr. Braun's work focuses on degus, small rodents related to guinea pigs and chinchillas, because mother and father degus naturally raise their babies together.

When deprived of their father, the degu pups exhibit both short- and long-term changes in nerve-cell growth in different regions of the brain. Dr. Braun, director of the Institute of Biology at Otto von Guericke University in Magdeburg, and her colleagues are also looking at how these physical changes affect offspring behavior.

Their preliminary analysis indicates that fatherless degu pups exhibit more aggressive and impulsive behavior than pups raised by two parents.

In a study the researchers presented at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago earlier this month and recently published in the journal Neuroscience, half the degus were raised with two parents, while the others were raised by a single mother, the father having been removed from the cage one day after the birth of his offspring.

Dr. Braun and her colleagues found that in the two-parent families, the degu mothers and fathers cared for their pups in similar ways, including sleeping next to or crouching over them, licking and grooming them, and playing with them. The fathers even exhibited a "nursing-type" position.

When the mother was a single parent, the frequency of her interactions with her pups didn't change much, which means that those pups experienced significantly less touching and interaction than those with two parents.

The researchers then looked at the neurons - cells that send and receive messages between the brain and the body - of some pups at day 21, around the time they were weaned from their mothers, and others at day 90, which is considered adulthood for the species.

Neurons have branches, known as dendrites, that conduct electrical signals received from other nerve cells to the body, or trunk, of the neuron. The leaves of the dendrites are protrusions called dendritic spines that receive messages and serve as the contact between neurons.

Dr. Braun's group found that at 21 days, the fatherless animals had less dense dendritic spines compared to animals raised by both parents, though they "caught up" by day 90. However, the length of some types of dendrites was significantly shorter in some parts of the brain, even in adulthood, in fatherless animals.

"It just shows that parents are leaving footprints on the brain of their kids," says Dr. Braun, 54 years old.

The neuronal differences were observed in a part of the brain called the amygdala, which is related to emotional responses and fear, and the orbitofrontal cortex, or OFC, the brain's decision-making center.

'A Horse Without a Rider'

The balance between these two brain parts is critical to normal emotional and cognitive functioning, according to Dr. Braun. If the OFC isn't active, the amygdala "goes crazy, like a horse without a rider," she says. In the case of the fatherless pups, there were fewer dendritic spines in the OFC, while the dendrite trees in the amygdala grew more and longer branches.

A preliminary analysis of the degus' behavior showed that fatherless animals seemed to have a lack of impulse control, Dr. Braun says. And, when they played with siblings, they engaged in more play-fighting or aggressive behavior.

In a separate study in Dr. Braun's lab conducted by post-doctoral researcher Joerg Bock, degu pups were removed from their caregivers for one hour a day. Just this small amount of stress leads the pups to exhibit more hyperactive behaviors and less focused attention, compared to those who aren't separated, Dr. Braun says. They also exhibit changes in their brain.

The basic wiring between the brain regions in the degus is the same as in humans, and the nerve cells are identical in their function. "So on that level we can assume that what happens in the animal's brain when it's raised in an impoverished environment ... should be very similar to what happens in our children's brain," Dr. Braun says.

Other researchers, such as Xia Zhang, a senior scientist at the University of Ottawa Institute of Mental Health Research, and his colleagues in China, have observed different consequences using voles, mouselike rodents that also naturally co-parent. (Fewer than 10% of species raise their offspring with two parents.)

Voles deprived of their fathers - either from birth or later on in childhood - exhibited more anxious behaviors and were less social, spending less time engaging with stranger voles that were placed in their cage, according to a study by Dr. Zhang and his colleagues that was published in July in the journal Behavioral Processes.

Of course, the frontal cortex - where thinking and decision-making take place - is more complex in humans than it is in other animals. Thus, says Dr. Braun, it is important to be "really careful" about extrapolating the recent findings to human populations.

"The minute you get into stuff with extensive social and environmental components, the social differences between humans and animals are massive," says Simon Chapple, a senior economist in the social policy division of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the 30-country grouping of the world's largest economies.

It remains an "open verdict" whether single parenthood causes these bad outcomes, or is merely associated with them, says Dr. Chapple.

Risk of Delinquency

Still, the prevalence of single-parent households has researchers looking at possible consequences for children. An OECD report found that just 57% of children in the U.S. live with both parents, among the lowest percentages of the world's richest nations.

The report, which sparked some controversy when it was released in September, found that children in single-parent households have an increased risk of delinquency and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, as well as poorer scholastic performance.

The OECD also analyzed data from 122 separate studies and found that there was variability in the negative effects on children of living in a single-parent home; on average, the OECD found, the magnitude of the impact was relatively small. On a standardized intelligence test with a median score of 100 points, for example, a child in a single-parent family would be about 3.5 points worse off than a similar child in a two-parent family, according to Dr. Chapple, who co-wrote the report.

Dr. Braun's goal for future research is to figure out whether degu pups' brains can be rewired by introducing a substitute caregiver, such as a grandmother, or whether other social and emotional enrichment can help "repair" the fatherless pups, she says. Human children may be sent to day care, for instance, which can help them form stable friendships with their peers and other adults.

The bottom line, says Dr. Braun, is that parents need to fuel their children's brains with talk, touch and sensitive stimulation that involves give and take.

Parents, she says, "are the sculptors of their children's brains."

Write to Shirley S. Wang at shirley.wang@ wsj.com

============ ========= ========= ==

http://www.oecd. org/els/social/ childwellbeing
http://www.oecd. org/document/ 12/0,3343, en_2649_34819_ 43545036_ 1_1_1_37419, 00.html

OECD - Doing Better for Children
ISBN Number: 978-92-64-05933- 7
Publication Date: 1 September 2009
Pages: 191

- Table of Contents
http://www.oecd. org/dataoecd/ 10/2/43552898. pdf

- Press material
http://www.oecd. org/document/ 12/0,3343, en_2649_34819_ 43545036_ 1_1_1_1,00. html#Press_ material

- Country highlights
http://www.oecd. org/document/ 12/0,3343, en_2649_34819_ 43545036_ 1_1_1_1,00. html#Country_ specific_ highlights

- Key data
http://www.oecd. org/document/ 12/0,3343, en_2649_34819_ 43545036_ 1_1_1_1,00. html#data

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http://www.oecd. org/document/ 51/0,3343, en_2649_33933_ 32067955_ 1_1_1_1,00. html

Monitoring social policy

Child Well-being www.oecd.org/ els/social/ childwellbeing

The well-being of children is high on the policy agenda across the OECD. But what is the actual state of child well-being today? How much are governments spending on children and are they spending it at the right times? What social and family policies have the most impact during children’s earliest years? Is growing up in a single-parent household detrimental to children? Is inequality that persists across generations a threat to child well-being? The publication Doing Better for Children <http://www.oecd. org/document/ 12/0,3343, en_2649_33933_ 43545036_ 1_1_1_1,00. html>, released early September 2009, addresses these questions and more.

A Child Well-being Expert Consultation <http://www.oecd. org/document/ 22/0,3343, en_2649_33933_ 42534358_ 1_1_1_1,00. html>, jointly organised by UNICEF IRC, the OECD and the European Commission, took place in Paris at the end of May 2009, with the purpose of developing a shared understanding of a set of data that countries should monitor in order to inform policies for children’s well-being. A list of institutional websites <http://www.oecd. org/document/ 58/0,3343, en_2649_33933_ 43429626_ 1_1_1_1,00. html> in the field of child well-being research has also been created and will continue to be updated at the request of stakeholders.

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http://www.oecd. org/dataoecd/ 17/50/43581806. pdf
Summary: "Doing Better for Children"
"How can we do better for our children"

Boy-hating is in and Nobody Cares..

Boy-hating is in

Barbara Kay, National Post
Published: Wednesday, October 21, 2009

But here's where it gets creepy. Barrett's interest in GD doesn't spring from disapproval, but from empathy. Herself the mother of one boy, expecting her second child and bracing for the results of an amniocentesis
As my first-born was a boy, I quite reasonably hoped for a girl the second time around. In my technologically antediluvian era, one discovered one's child's sex upon delivery. So the long gestational lull was filled with suspense and a good deal of base-covering hypocrisy: "Oh, I don't care really, as long as it's healthy" and "Brothers are so cute together!"

Needless to say, when informed I had produced a girl, I gave way to honest emotion and 'fessed up to great joy. I'd realized my tidy fantasy -- as the old song goes, "a boy for you and a girl for me." But had I delivered a second boy, there would still have been joy, and brothers really are cute together.

At the time, culturally naive, I was unaware that for half the female world, the sex of their unborn babies isn't a subject for idle speculation, but an existential matter upon which their social status and even their physical wellbeing depends.

In honour/shame societies, boys are prized and girls are considered virtually worthless apart from their procreative properties, with even that positive valuation contingent on male issue. Until the magical moment of delivery, every pregnancy is a source of profound anxiety to these women. Technology has only exacerbated their unhappy lot. These days sex selection through abortion of healthy female fetuses is pandemic in Southeast Asia, and even in immigrant communities in the West.

Since up to now "gender disappointment" (GD) has been a phenomenon universally associated with female inferiority in patriarchal cultures, I was intrigued by the title of an article in ELLE magazine's online site by Ruth Shalit Barrett, "Girl Crazy: Women Who Suffer from Gender Disappointment."

The article takes the measure of a new phenomenon, a mirror image of the gender pathology we see in honour/shame societies: women so desperate for a female child they will do anything and spend any amount of money to ensure it. According to Barrett, their efforts may include: eating keffir, berries and sesame paste; douching with vinegar and a lime-soaked tampon; "sperm-spinning," in which faster-spinning male-producing sperm are separated and inserted via artificial insemination; and finally the "holy grail" of sperm selection, MicroSort: in vitro fertilization with preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) where the embryos are sex-identified and only the female embryos implanted.

It's no crime to prefer a male or female child. What is disturbing in the situations Barrett explores is the guilt-free dehumanization of boys displayed by these girl-obsessed women. One subject who had gone the MicroSort route, told she was carrying a girl, was devastated when it turned out to be a boy: "I was in hysterics. I felt like someone had died.... I stayed in my room. I felt like a funeral should be held."

There are books on GD, such as Altered Dreams: Living with Gender Disappointment. On GD websites like iVillage.comand In-Gender.com,women trade tips on how to "sway" conception and commiserate with others in the throes of GD over a failed -- i. e., a male -- fetus: "I have not stopped crying;" "[I] contemplate the end of my life;" "[I] am once again considering terminating the pregnancy." One despondent GD mother of three boys, all the results of failed strenuous bids for girls, wrote: "I hate my life... I want to give them to someone who can actually love them." I naturally assumed Barrett had written the piece to express her horror that any women in our culture, so sensitive to all other forms of discrimination, should freely vent what amounts to gender hatred. What, after all, will their sons think of themselves when they are eventually exposed to their mothers' resentment over their existence circulating forever on the web?



which she was resigned to hear would identify a second male fetus, she was "electrified" to hear it was a girl. Barrett reports she then immediately put down her root beer and pad thai -- good enough nourishment for a boy fetus, but not for a girl. "I went to Whole Foods and stocked up on fresh veggies... I felt a sudden surge of tender protectiveness. It turns out I wasn't alone..."

One can argue that female baby worship is only a fringe phenomenon so far. I'm sure that's true. But ELLE is a major mainstream women's magazine. This article, endorsed by editors exquisitely attuned to American women's values, was written not to bury gender hatred but to praise it. That's sick. But also a telling forensic detail in a growing body of cultural evidence proving that boys have become the West's Second Sex, and nobody seems to care about it.

bkay@videotron.ca

Supermom: AWOL..

Another good example of the ongoing blustering we have read about "Supermoms" regularly in the media. Who could keep up with that image besides continually promoting it themselves. Something is going to break and it has..

Women have consistently sided with feminists and failed to point those male-haters in the right direction when it comes to the bleeding obvious but it makes them feel better, at the same time promote everything female and leave Dads out of the picture and childen are the end reward as they include payment from alienated Fathers. They can even scheme to remove them permanently if they wish. The current laws are definitely structured for them and in most cases, even encourage it..

Mothers are the greater child abusers but that's well hidden..

Meanwhile, children as usual, carry the brunt of this doctrine that encourages on the one hand to achieve single motherhood if it can be called an achievement (as it takes very little effort) and instigates more suffering on the other..

Women need to make a decision. If we go by previous decisions such as the rise in single mums world-wide and excluding the Father. Then this is the obvious outcome..

You are on your own..

Women struggling to be 'good mums'
Cheryl Critchley From:Herald Sun October 20, 2009.

Amanda Cox, with Charlie, 13 months, admits to finding kids games boring. Picture: Tim Carrafa Source: Herald Sun

MUMS have admitted swearing in front of their children and at times not even liking them, a survey has found.

Some also find finger painting with their children boring, yell, use the TV as a babysitter or have messy houses. And they feel bad about it.

The realmums.com.au Are you a bad mother? survey found many felt they were doing a bad job, often because of unrealistic ideals imposed by others.

One in 10 swore in front of their children, hated or didn't do housework, didn't like playing with their children or found it boring, and returned to work when the children were young to get time away.

One in seven hated cooking or fed their children junk food or takeaway, and more than one in 10 yelled at them or used the TV or computer as a babysitter.





Mother of three Amanda Cox, 38, started Real Mums almost four years ago after the parenting industry made her feel inadequate and she saw a gap in support for parents of older children.

She will launch a Bad Mothers Club on November 6 to empower the growing number of mums like her.

Through social events and support, the club will give pestered parents permission to have fun and stop beating themselves up about achieving an unrealistic ideal.

"Most mums experience feelings of isolation, inadequacy and lack of support, and would really like a little bit of time out for themselves," Ms Cox said.

"Mums ... feel like they're doing a bad job at mothering, that they can't do things 'right'. And sometimes they don't even like their kids!"

Ms Cox, who has three sons aged one, six and eight, said mums needed non-judgmental emotional support and tactics to deal with children that worked in the real world.

Her survey also found four in 10 wanted friends and support, 22 per cent wanted to know they weren't alone and were "normal", 15 per cent wanted more sleep and 13 per cent more money.

Half wanted time to themselves for holidays, time with partners, and going to the toilet in peace.

"These women are calling themselves bad mothers based on an outside perception of what's bad or what's good," Ms Cox said. "There's no such thing as a bad mother or a good mother."

Maternal Child Sexual Abuse on Rise in U.K...

This is nothing new, it's just been ignored while the children suffer a lifetime of anguish and self-loathing. Probably leading to an "educated by example" potential abusive future, compliments of mother..

Maternal Child Sexual Abuse on Rise in U.K.

By Glenn Sacks | Thu, Oct 15 2009.

Bill Jenkins doesn’t know whether his foster mother deliberately took him into care so that she could abuse him. But that was the tragic result and he, like other victims of female child abusers, says that, while he spoke about the abuse at the time, no one investigated it or believed him.


In the United Kingdom, it's slowly coming to light that women commit far more sexual abuse of children than was previously thought. Read the latest here (Times Online, 10/5/09). As the above quotation shows, official statistics don't tell the real story. That's because official statistics, including those for convictions and incarcerations, reflect prevailing biases about who does and who doesn't commit sexual abuse of children.

The simple fact is that, up until very recently, few people - the police, judges and juries - could actually believe that, for example, a mother could sexually abuse her child. Mothers are, after all, selfless givers of care and nurturance, right? A good half of our Western European culture for some 2,000 years has named the Virgin Mary, mother of Christ, the very embodiment of virtue.

So trying to convince people that mothers sexually abuse their children is roughly akin to paddling a canoe up Niagara Falls - progress is slow and the chances of success remote. The linked-to article describes Detective Superintendant Graham Hill of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Agency as saying,

According to Hill, ten or fifteen years ago most crimes involving accusations of child sexual abuse that the police dealt with were always examined on the premise that the man was the guilty party.

Now though, Hill says that essentially every police force in the country is dealing with a female offender. And that, unsurprisingly is leading to a change of perception by police about who is committing these crimes.

But public perceptions are slower to change. According to Hill, the public clings doggedly to the notion that even when a woman commits a sex crime against a child, a man made her do it. And that,

Hill believes that the public’s perception that female sex offenders usually operate alongside a controlling and manipulative man is often false. He dismisses that stereotypical image as a societal cliché born out of a reluctance to believe that a woman could act so heinously alone and for her own sexual gratification.

Still, Hill believes that at most 20% of sexual abuse of children is done by women. But it's well known that in the U.K. and in the United States at least, the percentage of violent crimes perpetrated by women is on the rise, even as violent crime itself becomes less frequent. So it may be that even that figure proves, once we start getting accurate data, to understate the truth.

But getting and admitting the truth about sexual abuse of children may take longer than we think. Dr. Michelle Elliott, who operates Kidscape, a support group for sexually abused children, places the problem squarely at the door of professionals who work in the field.

“No one really wants to talk about it. But the professionals are the ones who really annoy me. I’d say that 75 per cent of them are in denial — a mental block. I think there are professionals working in the field who have staked a career on a certainty that it is men who do the abusing. They are very threatened by the idea that that might not be true.”

And psychologist Diana Cant talks about the effects of childhood sexual abuse by women. As it turns out, those are intimately associated with the very notion of mother as a provider of safety, warmth and caring.

“If you think about the experience that we have as children, we expect a degree of safety and security and primary care from our mothers. If that expectation is confounded, something at a very primitive level is broken and gets destroyed. The child grows up immediately with a sense of fear and threat. That can lead to an underlying degree of anger, resentment and fury that colours adult life.”

The bottom line? The thing that makes female sexual abuse of children so terrible is the very thing that keeps it hidden. That's a bad combination.

The Supermyth of Supermom..

As in blogs past and well into the future this will continue to rear it's unbiased head..

Succinctly stated and historically correct..

The great writer/philosopher Kahlil Gibran wrote:

Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore trust the physician and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility.

A hundred million other people put it even more succinctly.

Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.

Sometimes we need to be reminded of that well know fact. Sadly in this day and age it no longer applies. Age old memories are ignored and the new " I want it now" maelstrom screams and rears it's ugly head to no one's benefit.

The Supermyth of Supermom
Friday, October 9, 2009
By Paul Elam

Women often lament the state of their modern identity. Every woman is expected to be Wonder Woman; the successful professional, harlot and homemaker for their husbands; the perfect mom, heroine to the children they bear. They are victims of dichotomous demands that pull them in different directions and that sometimes threaten to pull them apart.

It’s a sympathetic and unfortunate reality, and one that society imposed on women, despite their complaints, at the behest and literal insistence of women themselves. At least enough of them to effect sweeping change.

Modern feminism is the feminism of choices, is it not? And haven’t women by and large demanded compliance with that agenda? Women, most of them, understandably want the freedom to choose their path in life, whether that path is of financial pursuit or the path of family or some frequently complicated combination of both. And society, as it always does with women, accommodates these demands. But while we succeeded in opening doors, we cannot and never will be able to provide an out for the responsibilities and pressures that come with such a menu of options.

Indeed, the only way to reduce the pressure on women is to reduce the number of options they have, and we aren't going to squeeze that particular glob of toothpaste back into the tube.

The great writer/philosopher Kahlil Gibran wrote:

Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore trust the physician and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility.

A hundred million other people put it even more succinctly.

Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.

And so now women have gotten what they wanted, or claimed to want. And as in so many other areas it brings them a step closer to the world of men, but only in the abstract; only on the surface.

Men, too, are becoming like stressed rope in the tug-o-war of gender identity, though they never collectively asked for it. Today’s man is called on to be, as much as any woman, all things at once. He is expected to be the warrior standing in harms way, ready to kill and die for our protection and often for less noble causes. He’s also the empathetic counselor with the unending patience to listen and accept; the provider for a home but not it’s leader; the teacher of ideas and ideals, but only those that pass feminine muster.

He is the savior, the pin cushion, the straining back of labor and the sponge for our social scorn. He is the powerless servant reviled for having too much power; the identified problem and the secret solution. And he is always, always the one we induce to act when the Ultimate Sacrifice is required.

These splintered expectations of men were not a result of choices, but of obligations; not an escape from their gender role, but proof of men being inextricably chained to it.

And as laudable as are any efforts toward equalitarianism, the seemingly mirrored struggle of men and women with identity is not evidence of progress to that end, but an indicator that we are going in the wrong direction.

For in the final analysis, women are complaining about the stresses that come with freedom and men are remaining silent about the burdens that come with servitude and expectation.

Equality is an impossible yet noble objective. It is something we strive for knowing it can’t be accomplished. It would behoove us to pursue such unobtainable objectives with at least some measure of thoughtfulness. To date, we haven’t done so well in that department.

But we will come perhaps a small step closer to that unreachable finish line when men are routinely encouraged to voice their frustrations with the twisting, often clashing demands of social pressure.

Or, when women are routinely encouraged to stop.

Paul Elam is the Editor-in-Chief of Men’s news Daily and the publisher of A Voice for Men.