Do men need rights also?
Feb 17 2009 14:50
I have been pretty dumb to ideology until a year ago while I have enjoyed my recent discovery of Anarchists.
But I do have one thing that I believe fair that may stop me from continuing on. ( I didn't realise that some rights were in fact considered a backlash).
I am just wondering if anyone here as anarchists of the working class know of men as fathers who struggle with their ex to spend time with their children? And/or child support and/or Alimony?
I just ask wondering whether fathers who are going through divorce proceedings or being named a father without the right for DNA are a part of this group?
Feb 17 2009 21:17
#2
Mareika, its a very personal question and one that I reckon would be hard for quite a lot of people on here to generalise in relation to (given the demographics of the users of libcom). I am separated and have had some 'issues' around access to my children, mostly having times changed without consultation etc. And hopefully its all in the past now.
Feb 17 2009 21:15
#3
People don't reply to threads as fast as you seem to think. Sometimes it takes a couple of days.
Feb 18 2009 08:09
#4
I'm assuming the title is a joke?
Feb 18 2009 09:15
#5
Thunk wrote:
I'm assuming the title is a joke?
Anyone posting about the bourgeois notion of rights on a small-c communist board must be joking imho.
Did you hear the one about the constitutionalist?
Feb 18 2009 09:33
#6
Sorry to expect something without consideration.
This is something I chose to be passionate about because it was the new needed area when I became active politically and I have found that like any new movement, it is an uphill battle. So I thought putting it in the too hard basket would be easier than speaking out about an unpopular subject.
It is somewhat hard to tell people that stats are being used to manipulate. For one, women are considered to get the worst treatment under the law because women get probation more often than men.
Yet, no-one is speaking out to remind everyone that men get more sentences than women.
Somehow, I think men suffer under law more by getting sentences and less probation. 
Anyhow, I really like the idea of Anarchy. I just wanted to know if men and women who care about this issue can be a part without being considered a backlash.
Most sane people fully support what many women have done in the past and do presently.
Feb 18 2009 09:52
#7
Mareika wrote:
Most sane people fully support what many women have done in the past and do presently.
What does this mean?
Feb 18 2009 10:28
#8
Mareike. There are a lot of issues related to discrimination but as communists/anarchists our aim is to get rid of all discrimination and most of all the relationship to capital that makes us all, more or less, the victims of capital. I'm not really sure what you want to discuss.
You've also mistaken libcom for a group. It is a discussion forum, there is a membership group who run the site but most of the posters are not members. Most posters are members of other groups or even no group at all (like myself).
In terms of fathers' rights to children I think we'd all agree that a parent should have a right to see his or her child as long as that did not have a negative effect on the child.
Feb 18 2009 10:39
#9
weeler wrote:
Thunk wrote:
I'm assuming the title is a joke?Anyone posting about the bourgeois notion of rights on a small-c communist board must be joking imho.
Did you hear the one about the constitutionalist?
Yeah it was almost as hilarious as this
Feb 18 2009 11:17
#10
Thunk wrote:
weeler wrote:
Thunk wrote:
I'm assuming the title is a joke?Anyone posting about the bourgeois notion of rights on a small-c communist board must be joking imho.
Did you hear the one about the constitutionalist?
Yeah it was almost as hilarious as this
What exactly is your point?
Feb 18 2009 12:06
#11
Mareika wrote:
I have been pretty dumb to ideology until a year ago while I have enjoyed my recent discovery of Anarchists.But I do have one thing that I believe fair that may stop me from continuing on. ( I didn't realise that some rights were in fact considered a backlash).
I am just wondering if anyone here as anarchists of the working class know of men as fathers who struggle with their ex to spend time with their children? And/or child support and/or Alimony?
I just ask wondering whether fathers who are going through divorce proceedings or being named a father without the right for DNA are a part of this group?
Its a complicated issue, but i don;t think anyone on here, or anyone i know for that matter would claim that men don;t have the right to see their kids (excluding situations where this harms the child or puts them or the other parent at risk obviously), or that demanding the enforcement or extension of such a right is just a ''backlash'' against womens rights.
Certainly child support as it exists today often feels like a punishment for the poorest members of society and is often a way for the state to aggregate its responsibility for providing child benefits onto single fathers.
Anarchism involves a society without wages and money, so in an anarchist society you wouldn't have to worry about the potentially punitibve financial element of child support. Also its fair to say that a lot of the financial concerns that stigmatise relationships, eg joint mortgages, careers, the monetary costs of having children and so on would dissappear.
Feb 18 2009 12:39
#12
Hey all, please understand that I also want the same thing as most others here.
I have unfortunately noticed that sexism seems one sided on sites so that is why I asked.
Better to clear something up sooner rather than later I think. I can put this behind me now.
Feb 18 2009 12:43
#13
Quote:
Anarchism involves a society without wages and money, so in an anarchist society you wouldn't have to worry about the potentially punitive financial element of child support. Also its fair to say that a lot of the financial concerns that stigmatise relationships, eg joint mortgages, careers, the monetary costs of having children and so on would disappear.
How wonderful. It will also take generations of people to pay for the money owed to the banks alone. That is not the legacy I want to pass down.
Feb 18 2009 17:26
#14
in a moneyless society there will be no banks and all debts will be eliminated.
Feb 18 2009 17:45
#15
cantdocartwheels wrote:
but i don;t think anyone on here, or anyone i know for that matter would claim that men don;t have the right to see their kids
I would.
Nobody, man or woman, has a "right" to see their kids, because kids are not property or bargaining chips. What matters is the welfare of the children, not the feelings of either parent.
Feb 18 2009 18:22
#16
madashell wrote:
What matters is the welfare of the children, not the feelings of either parent.
in the absence of a centralized bureaucracy dedicated to "social services", who decides what constitutes the welfare of the children? and are you saying that parents shouldn't be allowed to see their children if they fail the "responsible parenthood" test, or are you arguing against the notion of "rights" (if the latter, it's already been done to death in this thread alone, and I don't think anyone needs to be convinced of its reactionary nature)?
Feb 18 2009 18:58
#17
Vlad336 wrote:
in the absence of a centralized bureaucracy dedicated to "social services", who decides what constitutes the welfare of the children? and are you saying that parents shouldn't be allowed to see their children if they fail the "responsible parenthood" test, or are you arguing against the notion of "rights" (if the latter, it's already been done to death in this thread alone, and I don't think anyone needs to be convinced of its reactionary nature)?
Neither, I'm arguing that the only consideration when deciding custody of a child in the event of the parents splitting (which has to deliberated over by some neutral third party, daft anarchist hang-ups about "bureaucracy" aside) should be the best interests of that child. The desire of either parent to see that child is irrelevant and should not even be a consideration.
Feb 18 2009 19:01
#18
Vlad336 wrote:
in the absence of a centralized bureaucracy dedicated to "social services", who decides what constitutes the welfare of the children?
thank you
Feb 18 2009 19:04
#19
I think a better question might be "Should children be considered the property of their parents, with no oversight from the wider community whatsoever?"
Feb 18 2009 20:15
#20
Mad, I do agree with your pointing out that the parent's desire to see their children has no bearing on whether they are in fact a capable parent, capable of seeing to their child best interest anyway, but the "neutral third party" you speak of is, in a capitalist society anyway, an organ of the state. The investigations that determine how the custody will be distributed are not at all value-free, and are inherently based on certain class and gender roles. For this reason they do not genuinely represent the child's best interests. The fairest thing about the current procedure is probably the fact that the child's own wishes are seriously taken into consideration, but this in itself is problematic, as a child may not know, especially at an early age, what his/her best interests really are and may easily fall prey to a competition between parents to win the child's favours. In any case, my point was that if you do away with the capitalist value system, the "neutral third party" becomes an extremely vague entity ("wider community" is not any more precise either).
Quote:
think a better question might be "Should children be considered the property of their parents, with no oversight from the wider community whatsoever?"
Obviously not. My question is, how will the wider community, in a libertarian society, exercise its influence in deciding whether or not a certain parent (or both parents) is (are) unfit to properly look after their children? I'm not saying they shouldn't, or that it's "authoritarian" to intercede on behalf of a child that is perhaps being absued or neglected by their parent(s), just wondering as to how you, or other people here, think this should be done, in the absence of a coercive "social service" apparatus.
Feb 18 2009 21:01
#21
In our group we have a couple of fathers who are the main caregivers in the family. We also had one guy who lost parental rights and was marginally employed and couldn't pay alimony and another friend in this position. In general, such situations are fucked up since there are many assumptions in the society: that parenting should be done by the biological parents, by a heterosexual couple, by a married couple, that women are naturally better caretakers, that if you cannot pay for your family, you belong in jail.
I think a discussion about this could go in many ways. Obviously, we can challenge the model of family. This is one issue.
Another issue which is very important is child welfare in the case where economic issues may play a very important role for the children but there is such awful poverty and little help. I've met people who are in total dispair because they cannot provide properly for their children. To make matters worse, you can even wind up in jail if the state claims you can afford to pay alimony but you really can't. (The have unrealistic measurements.) Leaving aside the phenomenon of deadbeat dads, it's an awful thing. And single fathers or men in general are discriminated against in taking family-related leave.
These problems concern a few people I know, but it is nothing in comparison to the problems women tend to face here.
Feb 18 2009 21:01
#22
What?!?! We can't no platform deadbeat dads?
Feb 18 2009 21:17
#23
laureakai wrote:
And single fathers or men in general are discriminated against in taking family-related leave.
quite true. i work in a place which has paternal and maternal leaves of equal duration, but this is exceptional.
Thunk wrote:
We can't no platform deadbeat dads?
can you translate that into american?
Feb 19 2009 05:12
#24
madashell wrote:
I think a better question might be "Should children be considered the property of their parents, with no oversight from the wider community whatsoever?"
Do you have children? Yes?/No?
Getting back to reality and not some theory for children as property, I 100% believe parents are the best thing we have at the moment against what the state is doing.
IN NZ we had one radical feminist who did some major work to stop women being an experiment for health research after WWII. Women were dying.
Today her daughter and women like myself complain about another move the state has approved which is an experiment also. But this time it is on young girls for vagina cancer. Yet in reality, it is a move from Family planning to work around children having sex to go along with their sex education programs.
As a parent I am willing to die for my children's well being. And so are many other good parents. I even protested about the 'No smacking Law" introduced to our country and other countries through the UN.
It is not about fighting theories. It is about caring for real lives. Children's and the good parent's.
Blood is thicker than water is a good saying I believe in.
The way the system is run is having a negative effect on everyone. I don't trust a system to care for children. And I don't trust young men and young women who do a diploma at school to know what is better for children than parents who have walked the walk.
I too as a teen could tell everyone how to be a parent. I was judgemental. But I soon shut up when I became a parent.
Anyhow, if you are a parent and have no problem to give your child to the state to be cared for, then I am speechless.
Feb 19 2009 09:32
#25
The relationship between children and parents resembles the relationship between citizens and a state, IMO.
It is the first level of socialization, how your parents treat you has a very significant effect on how you perceive the rest of the world and how you behave politically. The relationship between children and parents is also one of the most authoritarian. You can't run around beating people or giving them "time-outs" or whatnot, and the only reason its permissible with little kids is because we all know small children are stupid.
As for the poster above me -- most parents have good intentions. Very few parents, even abusive parents, will ever tell you that they hate their kids. Maybe the neglectful ones, but the ones who beat their kids or give them psychological problems or verbally harass them will always maintain that they are looking out for their kids. I knew/knew of kids who were sent to "treatment facilities" for smoking marijuana, having pre-marital sex, bad grades, fighting with their parents (because we all know that's abnormal for teenagers...); I knew of parents who started bawling when they found out their child was looking at pornography. I know parents who are willing to disown their kids if they marry a Muslim/Latino/outside of their race/caste, or if they are homosexual. They all have good intentions. They love their kids. That doesn't translate into good parenting.
States have terrible reputations when it comes to children as well, don't get me wrong, but I think the idea that keeping power in the parents is misguided. I think there should definitely be more communal oversight.
Feb 19 2009 09:57
#26
Thunk, I don't really know what to say to you. You seem to know a lot of out of it parents.
Or you are just jumping on board with what the anti parent move says.
This is past stuff and that is what bothers me the most with the 70's people who have finally made it in positions to change the world. They are putting their past time world onto us younger ones. The most of us have already adjusted simply by being good people.
Parents today have the luxury of many books and many expert opinions. Parents are self sacrificing for their children, not dominating them.
I may have the wrong opinion of what you say but I get the impression you think parents can't adjust to their children's world or that they think of themselves before their children.
Parents today don't disown their children for being gay or marrying another outside a nationality. Most parents today have a very colourful family tree.
The state doesn't have the best interest of the child in mind full stop. The state cares about itself.
Feb 19 2009 10:02
#27
BTW, Thunk,. I am fully aware we have bad parents out there.
But that doesn't mean the good parents should suffer for a one size fits all state control.
Feb 19 2009 10:21
#28
Mareike, it seems like you've had a negative experience with the state, but I think that you have gone too far the other way. You make generalisations about parents and expect people to take them as fact.
Quote:
Getting back to reality and not some theory for children as property, I 100% believe parents are the best thing we have at the moment against what the state is doing.
So someone else's belief has less validity than yours?
What is the state doing?
Your posts are unclear and it is really unclear what you are trying to do here. It seems as if you want people to agree with you that the state is bad and parents are good. I can broadly agree with that but it's a sweeping statement, much like the 'one-size fits all' approach that you condemn yourself. As thunk says parents are not necessarily the best thing for their own children even if they love their children.
Madashell has a point as well, children are not property and a parent has no right to have a negative effect on a child just because of biology.
Feb 19 2009 11:51
#29
Before you get to the stage of judging me, let me read some more. I might be missing something.
Feb 19 2009 12:53
#30
Mareika wrote:
Before you get to the stage of judging me, let me read some more. I might be missing something.
Mareika, I don't think anybody is judging you personally, I'm certainly not. This is obviously a very sensitive issue for you and I can understand why, but my posts were more about the general idea of parents having a right to contact with their children, which I view as looking at the issue the wrong way around.
I guess we are not up to discussing this. So sad, too bad.
I will come back to this site and others like it in a couple of years when things are a bit more advanced.
Be good, be kind, be careful.