Single Mothers

Only a few days ago I was talking about how manageable babies are. They sleep when they’re put down, eat what’s in front of them and you can strap them into the pram and walk and it’s a world of fun. Day care is a drop off at 8am and a pick up before 6pm.

My daughter is now 4 years old and everything is a negotiation. How I cut her sandwiches (I am not going to cut them into circles) how I make her chips (long or round) and the inevitable ‘five minutes more’ at the playground, in front of the telly, on the trampoline…

And we’re at ‘the kindy year’ – the five-day fortnight, sign in at 8.30am and sign out at 2.40pm. Everything gets a little more complicated as they get older.So it makes no sense to me about the changes introduced by the Gillard Government.

Continue reading "Single parents who don’t “work” still contribute" »

When the Federal Government announced the mining tax, the mining industry employed an armada of lobbyists, produced reams of reports and flooded TV stations with advertising to get their point of view across.

The resulting debate dominated headlines and won the miners major concessions.

Single parents and their children can’t afford well-paid lobbyists or advertising campaigns. In the main they’re too busy with work and family responsibilities to organise themselves.

Continue reading "A blow to single parents, on the eve of Anti-Poverty Week" »

In Victoria alone, almost 500 single women and lesbians have used IVF and other fertility treatments since a law change in January last year made it easier. Some see this rise in fatherless parenting as a violation of children’s rights. Others say kids can cope without dads - although they still need male role models. Susie O’Brien’s story is in the Herald Sun today and she will be blogging live.

Do we really need dads?

Absolutely. In an ideal world all children would grow up with both male and female adults to care for them.

But in the absence of a father, a father figure who might be a close male relative or family friend can do the job just as well. It just takes time, love and commitment.

Continue reading "Do we really need dads?" »

“White underclass” is a term I’ve used often in my writing, and most American readers seem to know what I mean. They’ve got eyes and live in the same nation I do. But in a sudden burst of journalistic responsibility, I decided that if I am going to throw around the word underclass, then I should offer some clearer, perhaps more scientific definition.

So I started writing this with a pile of published research papers before me. Now they a re in the trash can by my side. Looking down on them, I can see the gobbledygook titles, the stuff of which government policy and political platforms are made. They run together in slurry of the language of our society’s commissars: Concerning-Prevalence-Growth-and-Dynamics-Concentrated Urban Poverty Areas- block-level vs. tract-level segregation-800-tract-tables-urban abstracts-Defining-and-Measuring-the-Underclass-from-The Journal of Policy Analysis and Management-s tatistical-summary-of …

What I find is that nobody in social science seems to agree on the term, or, being firmly placed in the true white middle class themselves, even agree if such a thing as a white underclass exists.

Continue reading "An underclass war that is more than just linguistic" »