I was in town earlier and saw an ambulance and a fire brigade heading up Merrion Square. Turns out some bloke tried to set himself on fire as a protest because he doesn’t get enough access to his kids.
Seems a strange one to me, really. If you set yourself on fire you’re increasing your chances of dying, and if that happens your access to your kids drops to zero. If you survive you could end up all Simon Westony and your kids will run shrieking from the sight of you and your melty face.
But this isn’t about desperate men who set themselves on fire. This is a moral question. If, for example, you happened to walking past government buildings today when that bloke was trying to set himself on fire, and you’d just bought a really nice coat, would you use the coat to put out the flames knowing it would be destroyed?
Personally I’d be loathe to ruin a good coat over someone who’s stupid enough to set themselves alight. If it were an old coat then I’d certainly be much more inclined to help.
So my answer is no, I would not use my new coat to put out the flames. Let that be a stark warning to any other men who feel that self-immolation is their only choice.
I thought it’d turn out to be Brian Lenihan doing the right thing. Oh well.
I saw a guy trying that in town a few weeks back at the Gaza protests. And on at least two occasions, someone tried it in Garda stations. Mentlers. What a way to go…. ffwump
(fwishhh…. )
nah fwump.
This sad story shows the levels of desperation that many men in Ireland can be driven to by our archaic and unequitable family law system.
In my own case, I was in and out of courts for over a decade to gain truly equitable access to my child, who is now resident with me.
I know of fathers who turned up for time with their kids only to find the mother had emigrated with them during the week.
I know of no case where a mother who failed to comply with court orders in relation to fathers’ access was ever punished for it. Courts won’t do it, because fining a mother is ‘taking bread out of the kid’s mouth’ and jailing them is ‘depriving the child’ of their mother. Not a care to depriving the child of their father of course.
I’m fed up blogging about this issue because the wider public don’t seem to care up until the point where some of them find themselves in the situation whereby they have a child that their bitter ex and the courts system conspire together to deny them access to.
But we’re reaping the whirlwind with this social experiment. There is mountains of research highlighting the fundamental importance of fathers in children’s lives, and the phenomenon of feral street urchins causing havoc societally is directly linkable to the lack of paternal involvement in those children’s lives.
We hear WAY too much nonsense about ‘deadbeat’ dads when there is little evidence to support it but the whining of lazy feminist organisations.
The reality is that from the moment of birth, unmarried fathers and separated fathers are systematically deprived of rights and discouraged from persevering with involvement in their children’s lives.
I personally would have given up long ago in relation to my own child, such was the repeated heartaches and misery I was put through.
But while I could not live with the prospect of having to answer the door and explain myself to an irate child as an adult, I don’t blame men who do reluctantly walk away.
Nor do I slander them as deadbeats, because the system would try the patience of a saint, then penalise them for not being Jesus.
I do feel that some campaigners have diminished the importance of this issue by their spiderman suit antics or indeed the desperation tactics of seeking to immolate themselves in front of the Dail.
But no one should underestimate just how much our current family law system is wrong, and how much it hurts and damages children and their fathers.
Sorry for your troubles, JC. It is always staggering to me that what’s best for the child is so often of lesser concern than the settling of personal scores in cases like that.
People might be less tempted to succumb to their petty bitternesses that harm their children as much as the children’s fathers if the legal system wasn’t complicit in aiding their doing so.
The model exists, in Scandinavia, for proper equitable parenting in the case of separated parents.
Why we still haven’t bothered to update our scandalously outdated system to mimic theirs baffles me.
Of course, it’s one issue you never hear feminist organisations like Cherish (the alleged single parents organisation that has almost no single fathers involved) complaining about, since they like a status quo that shovels all the power into mothers’ hands at the expense of actually prioritising children’s needs.
I’m glad you sorted out your situation JC and it is a problem with legislation in this Country.
Its the legacy of a Country ruled with a Catholic family agenda.I know its easy to say that the Church is to blame for everything but there certainly is a portion of blame due in that direction.
What think ye?
This lot?
http://www.onefamily.ie/
Aye. That lot. Forgot they changed the name.
Whereas Treoir (state advice organisation for separated parents) treads a strictly advisory line and are quite good, One Family is a single mums advocacy organisation that has to pretend to represent single dads because I’d have them up in front of the Equality Authority if they didn’t.
But the reality is they actively hate all dads, especially the stubborn ones who go to court and prove they’re better qualified to be parents than their children’s mothers.
I utterly agree with Fillerup. Our family law system is based on the idea that mommy knows best, which is in turn based on the old conservative Catholic notion of women in the home barefoot and pregnant looking after kids, while men are out at work and have no interaction with their offspring.
Time to change the legal picture to drag it into the 20th century if not actually the 21st.
I feel very sorry for the poor demented man at the Dail today. I hope he gets some counselling and the help he needs to have a proper relationship with his children. And I hope the mother, or social services, or whoever is preventing him having that relationship, thinks long and hard about their behaviour today which has driven him to this point.
It’s a pretty desperate state of affairs to have to do that for attention. But now is he even less likely to see his kids?
I would totaly sacrifice my coat for the media attention the book deal and the Movie of the Week money that would come rolling in. Hell with all that $$$ Id buy the crispy skin of the guy and hang it on my mansion wall framed in $100 bills.
But you wouldn’t get any of that. You’d just get a burnt coat.
Holemaster – yes, he probably is. But since he was likely not able to see his kids at all anyway, it’s a zero sum game really.
which is in turn based on the old conservative Catholic notion of women in the home barefoot and pregnant looking after kids, while men are out at work and have no interaction with their offspring.
Damn straight, JC. Us feminists are pretty pissed off about this too.
Maybe not in Ireland Twenty, but I could sell it in the States. They love tragic feel good stories like that there.
Defines a “burning issue”, dosen’t it?
Jan Palach started the trend when the Prague Spring was crushed.
But no one did it better than that guy who was posing for Rage Against The Machine. I just hope they paid him well.
They love tragic feel good stories like that there.
Like Bush’s impending car “accident”..
The Tragedy?
Cant get Cheney in the same car as him..Wheelchair access y’see…
Every child access/custody case should be treated individually.
Any person who sets themselves on fire (in this country at least) is not stable though. No matter how desperate.
while of course fathers’ rights need to be changed, there’s plenty of deadbeat dads out there. It would be ridiculous to suggest otherwise sadly.
Perhaps if we had a welfare system that encouraged rather than discouraged the involvement of fathers, it might help.
Cheney in a desprate bid to steal candy from a child foolishly crosses the street in his wheelchair getting his long black cowl caught in the spokes..menwhile a coked out ex presedent Bush is snorting Bolivian Gold of the dash of his Super Hummer SUV..halarity insuse as Ex Pres and Ex Vice Pres meet again in Evil Basterd Splat a Hallmark movie of the week
It’s not the welfare system that needs to change so much as the family law system, Jo.
I still resent the term ‘deadbeat dads’.
If a court bars you from seeing your kids on the basis of a made-up accusation of drug use or paedophilia, that cannot be sued about because of the in camera rule, and will take a year or more to disprove (guilty till you prove yourself innocent), but simultaneously takes a third of your wages to fund your ex’s lifestyle, then it’s understandable that you might decide to walk away from the whole situation.
I didn’t, but I can understand why others felt forced to.
Mothers have been left holding the baby in this country for generations, and it’s no picnic bringing up children if you do it probably.
But times are changed now, and any father who wants to be involved with their kids, even if they don’t want to be involved with the mother, should certainly be given access to their own children.
But any mad fucker who sets themselves on fire, supposedly cos he can’t see his children, should never be allowed near ANYBODY’s kids ever again, lest he pass on the stupidity gene to others!
As for the coat dilemma, let these maniacs buy their own coats!
I think his cause was at least more noble than that fuckin eejit from dundalk (or was it drogheda) who did it for football.
I wouldn’t argue with any of that, ofcourse, JC. And no, it’s not a term I’ve ever used.
There’s still plenty of men out there walking away from perfectly reasonable access agreements too though, and it worries me that activists like yourself lose sight of that because of the other stories you know of and your own.
I do know it works both ways though.
There’s nothing noble about trying to be a martyr!
Much good he’ll be to his children now!
Why can’t Irish people do it the Irish way?
Self-immolation is something people in Buddhist cultures like Vietnam do really well, and they always succeed, i.e. they die, unlike the half-arsed amateurs in Europe who, literally, play with fire.
If an Irishman really wants to top himself in public, the right way to go about it is to deep-throat a sawed-off shotgun.
Either that or just persevere with his struggle for justice through the usual legal channels.
Hey Jo.
That depends on your definition of ‘reasonable’ access. I’ve yet to encounter a scenario where actual shared parenting on an equitable basis arose out of an Irish family law court. I’ve seen parents come to it via their own negotiations or mediation, but never from the courts.
Btw, I’m not an activist. I’m just a stubborn fucker who wasn’t going to be hounded out of my kid’s life.
The actual activists on shared parenting issues (including grandparental access) are Parental Equality – http://www.parentalequality.ie.
I think it’s more about the extreme horribleness for everyone else. Forces them to acknowledge the situation.
When my father was a child, he and his brother had to go live with his mad, violent father, who had routinely beaten and terrorised them since they were toddlers. Because children were still essentially the property of their father then and he discredited my grnadmother with great ease.
Times have swung to far in the opposite direction, I suppose.
It’s a pity there’s no money to really keep it individually child focused.
Hey Soapy !
Missed opportunity – why waste a good coat when you could add a few politicians to the bonfire ?
On a more serious note – I’m not sure the RC Church can be blamed, except on principle – same sort of access problems happen in the UK. And it is incredibly frustrating for the father. Would anybody blame a mother for going a bit nuts if her kids were taken away from her ? It’s strange – on the one hand Fathers get stick for trying to avoid their responsibilities yet on the other when they do it’s very easy for them to end up being denied access.
Apart from spurious claims of abuse – impossible to disprove and mud sticks – if the mother says no then that is it. Yopu can spend a fortune through the courts and if she still says no there is very little can be done – if the mother refuses to accept a court order and refuses to pay fines there’s no way she’ll be imprisoned.
Again,no one’s disagreeing with that.
Yes, a mother who lights herself on fire should not be given access to her children.
I’m one of the ones who ended up frustrated and walking away. It ended up as a choice between fighting and not seeing my daughter, or just plain not seeing my daughter.
The usual scenario at the time was that I’d come back from London on holiday to find there a barring-order against me for something I’d allegedly done while I wasn’t even in the country.
In the end they moved house, and I never found out where to. Galway or Cork.
During last summer, I was eventually able to meet my daughter again, and my 2yr old grandson. You’ll never guess how…..
-Facebook!
PS
15 years.
15 long years, during which I met someone new, and had 2 more kids. I separated with their mother too, but see the kids every single day.
Oh, and I met my older daughter face-to-face, not just on-line.
Jesus, MB. That’s a horrific story. I’m just glad for you that you were able to reform a relationship with those kids of yours albeit so many years on.
My heart really goes out to you. I wonder how women like your ex live with themselves, and how they sleep at night knowing how they maimed their children’s development.
I knew I was beating my head against the wall pursuing things, so I just got on with my life.
I’m glad I did, because I have two more beautiful children.
Their mother is completely different, and although we no longer live together we still see each other every day. She’s still my girlfriend. We love each other, but live 5mins apart. Works out very well for us and the kids.
A happy ending, but it was a long time coming.
Plus I got to shag loads of English/French/Italian birds on the way, so I shouldn’t complain.
I’ve a warning for all unmarried fathers-to-be. Get the ring on your woman’s finger before she gives birth.
Failing that, get yuor name on the birth cert and get the mother to sign a guardianship agreement in front of a lawyer as soon as possible afterwards.
That way, if you do split up subsequently, you’ll still probably not see much of your kid if the mother decides against it, but at least you have a tiny amount of rights (and your child has some rights to a father) rather than having fewer rights than whoever she shacks up with – man or woman.
http://skinflicks.blogspot.com/2008/04/dads-have-fewer-rights-than-lesbian.html
What about if someone spontaneously combusts in front of you?
Keep yourself out of the flames?
Hey Monkey Balls. Just in the door and reading those comments you left.
I had a Dad who was very distant on a emotional level but the most reliable and dependable man on all other levels. He never really drank, he came home from work at 5.30 every single day and …
…oh Pizza’s here.
JC; I mean do you throw the jacket over the person or not? Dilemna
Life is life. A coat’s a coat.
I’d save the life.
Sorry not to be witty. But you are discussing a life and death situation.
Surely the answer is to close petrol stations from opening during peak hours of self-combustion. After all, I’m led to understand that closing offies has solved your under-age drinking problem?
heh
Naughty.
JC you do know we’re listening and reading your comments. It is this blog after all.
Maybe I just have more coats than most people. Or perhaps I’m less invested in them.
I’d still save the life. Under the third degree burns, it could be a fit chick, after all.
You’d have months of fun rubbing in the emollient creams on her tits.
(will that do?)
That’ll be all.
I was going to say something. but it would be deeply unpopular.
So I am going to watch a dvd instead.
Rob, you big tease.
Maybe if we had a Socaial Welfare system that did not pay for immature people to have kids before they could afford them/properly care for them there would be less problems. I’m sick of paying for all your wee kiddies and listening to your whining about your ‘rights’ to your children or how hard you have it as a ‘single mum’….fuckin’ freeloaders the lot of you…..
Headline in tomorrow’s papers;
“Gluestain uses lower case, still having problems spelling “Social” though”
I see he got a great deal on full stops and needs to get through as many as possible while they’re fresh as well.
GLUASTEAIN, what happened to you?
-You’re right!
‘Round my way young girls see it as a career choice.
Get pregnant = Get a council house.
Unfortunately, for a lot of them it’s the only way they can see out of a bad home-life. Most of the time it doesn’t work, but I can’t think of a better solution.
You can’t condemn someone for being unfortunate.
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/gardas-son-guilty-of-killing-traveller-1636784.html
Monkeyballs – I don’t condemn anyone for being unfortunate, but I sure as shite hate someone demanding I pay for their stupidity and apathetic attitude – to say nothing of the dossers on the dole and the parasites that leach of the tax payer….
Hey Rob and JC – i might drop the ball occasionaly on the keyboard but I bet I could buy and sell the pair of ye!
never understood the auld self-combustion form of protest. As a father of 2 from a broken relationship though I am fully aware of the problems that face some fathers who dont get the access they crave. There are mad laws out there that give fuck all power to the dads regardless of their input to the childrens life..
Gluaistean said “Hey Rob and JC – i might drop the ball occasionaly on the keyboard but I bet I could buy and sell the pair of ye!”
FOR SALE
Two slightly used Bloggers, some peripheral damage but still useful in an emergency. No reasonable offer accepted!
to say nothing of the dossers on the dole and the parasites that leach of the tax payer….
Anyone that was on the dole a few years ago was a dosser because there was work there for anyone who wanted it. That isn’t the case now. There are people getting the dole now for whom it is the biggest humilation of there life. But what choice do they have when they’ve kids to feed?
Maybe someday it’ll happen to you Glueface
Oi, cumstain. Buy and sell me? Don’t make me larf. It’s patently obvious that you live in the back of a Hiace van.
Oi, cumstain. Buy and sell me? Don’t make me larf. It’s patently obvious that you live in the back of a Hiace van.
definitely works in a dole office or is a school guidence councillor
Peader – did I SAY that all signers-on are Dossers??? Nope – I did not.
According to this; http://tinyurl.com/bgfnxb
the ‘burning man’ was wearing a blue hooded top.
Who is it that we all know who wears a blue hooded top?