It hasn’t been a good week for disaffected fathers. Most weeks aren’t. Since Mick Fox disrupted half of Sydney to protest his custodial battle, we’ve seen the shocking case of Paul Rogers, who fatally gassed himself and his daughter Kyla, while the awful case of Ramazan Acar goes through the courts. Read the gruesome details if you dare.
As we all know, custodial battles over children are the common thread in these and many similar cases. But why do men snap? At what point does frustration boil over into mass scale public nuisance… or even to murder?
Let’s take a small picture view and a big picture view. The small picture, with a focus on the ass that is family law, comes from Barry Williams, president of the Lone Fathers Association. The wide view comes from social analyst Richard Eckersley, who regularly measures Australia’s pulse through a thing called the Wellbeing Index.
As the president of the Lone Fathers Association, and the spokesman for its affiliate Parents Without Partners, Barry Williams says he heads the two biggest single parent groups in the world, and is Australia’s only registered federal lobbyist on family law.
Williams doesn’t mince his words when asked why fathers snap. “The government and its departments are causing a lot of these problems,” he tells The Punch.
“The government spends around $250 million a year on women’s services, and our organisation supports that because they need it. But we wouldn’t even get $15 million.
“Men snap because they can’t get access to immediate services like women can. There are no men’s refuges at all in Australia. The government has got no services for men.”
According to Williams, the major problem with the family law system is that mothers often hold all the legal aces.
“When two people go to court, the court will say the kids are to have shared care. But still, the other partner can say ‘no I’m not going to let it happen’. The only option then is to go back to court.”
And that, says Williams, is a process which can cost anywhere between $20,000 and $100,000 – money which is obviously well beyond the reach of most people, not least dads paying child support.
Williams says he’s well aware there are many violent fathers in the community who are rightfully denied access to their children. Again and again, he states that the death of one child at the hands of a violent father is one too many.
That said, he fears the introduction of a new raft of laws redefining the concept of family violence. Potentially, says Williams, these laws could result in more men being falsely accused of violence and denied access to their kids. And this, he says, could lead to more scenarios like this week’s.
“We need a smart law so that when and if a person is denied access to their children, the police have powers to go and intervene, to go and look at the orders. This would stop a lot of this,” he says.
Now let’s go big picture, because the issue of disaffected fathers isn’t just an issue about the law. It’s about men, their dreams, their ambitions and their often shattered self esteem.
Social analyst Richard Eckersley has done a lot of work showing that women are better socially connected than men these days. “Men often connect socially through their partners and when that breaks down, their support network breaks down,” he says.
This makes sense on an intuitive level. As any parent knows, their social network revolves around their kids, and the parents of their kids’ friends. When a man is denied access to the kids, the grown-ups disappear too.
“If you look at issues like suicide, it’s clear that men are particularly vulnerable when their marriage breaks down,” Eckersley explains. “Women get more depression than men but men commit suicide more often.”
“Men also tend to respond to their despair, their alienation, their isolation, through violence and drug and alcohol abuse.”
But there is something even deeper underpinning men’s vulnerability after a marriage breakdown, as Eckersley explains.
“At a broader level, what we’ve seen in western culture is a shift from intrinsic to extrinsic values and goals. So much [of people’s self esteem] depends on what you do with your life, what you’re achieving, your lifestyle.
“We live in a culture that celebrates success in individualism and materialism. Our sense of identity is determined by what we achieve in our own personal lives, and less on things that were once social givens, like shared cultural traditions, religious and ethnic affiliations and community attachments.
“These broader, deeper forms of identity and belonging are really important in sustaining you when things come unhinged at the personal level.”
So the problem, according to Eckersley, is that men feel worthless when a marriage breaks down. And that can bring them unhinged. But at what point does an unhinged Dad become a murderous Dad?
Eckersley can not, and will not, draw a direct link between this week’s events, and the dented self esteem of single fathers. But he does draw an indirect link.
“You can’t use what I’ve told you to explain what happened on the Gold Coast this week,” he says. “But you can say this is the sort of context that makes it more likely to happen. It’s all about probabilities.”
Lifeline offers 24/7 crisis support on 131114.
Facebook Recommendations
Read all about it
Punch live
Up to the minute Twitter chatter
In my sports column on The Punch tomorrow: why Eurovision was easily the best game on the weekend. Mummy bloggers, you'll like this one!
Recent posts
The latest and greatest
Abbott’s crass logic: trash the Parliament in order save it
An email was sent to almost every politician in Australia this week saying that someone should cut off…
Our special forces don’t always need special treatment
We admire them, but we’re not entirely sure why. We allow them to operate in the shadows; we rarely…
A good holiday is about unrest, not rest
Like a fat full-stop, it lay in my hand. A small orange – not exactly fresh, but purchased anyway…
Nosebleed Section
choice ringside rantings
From: They must pay for one’s bitter disappointments
Michael S says:
"A teacher at Geelong Grammar had criticised her for using words that were too long, which had left her confused and had made her doubt her ability to write essays. She became ''quite distressed'' when her English marks began to fall." I can sympathise. My scholastic mentors conveyed to me a causal relationship… [read more]From: Welfare for breeders is a bonus for everyone
Change Up! says:
I have no problem paying my taxes. As a single, childless person on a very decent income, I can afford it and not have my life severely altered. Plus I understand that my taxes paying for things like schools, childcare and infrastructure is ultimately a good thing. A better community is better for me… [read more]Gentle jabs to the ribs
They must pay for one’s bitter disappointments
A private school girl’s family is sueing her elite, extremely expensive private school for not… Read more
Most commented