Define Nuclear Family

Ken Thompson and

Dr. Groth studied at Franklin and Marshall College and Duquesne University, and completed his PhD at Fordham University. He is the author of three books, and co-editor of Engaging College Men: Discovering What Works and Why, chapters in five books, twenty-six articles and fifty book reviews in nineteen different peer-reviewed journals. He is past editor of the International Journal of Men’s Health co-founding editor with Diederik Janssen of Thymos: Journal of Boyhood Studies. Professor Groth will be in Australia soon to present at the Australian Institute of Male Health and Studies’ first Male Studies Symposium in Adelaide in June, at the Adelaide Convention Centre, where his topic will be ‘The Boy is Father to the Man’. As part of his presentation, he will speak about the state of the nuclear family, in particular the missing father and the effects of this on boys’ lives. Not taking it laying down however, “Tom” has embarked on a personal mission to warn an unsuspecting community, of the destructive practices employed by the divorce industry, and tells of the tactics he is using to expose such practices. Well worth listening to, especially for all those who are at a point where perhaps they feel there is nowhere else to go, and that there is nothing they can personally do.

With interesting comment by:

Ian Purdie and Ray Lenton.

When the ‘Social Inclusion’ Minister Tanya Plibersek MP spoke in Parliament last week of her disappointment at the “meowing attack” on her colleague, she followed with “As the Minister for Social Inclusion, I don’t think it’s right that half our population should feel excluded by this type of language.” The hypocrisy of her comment however, defies logic in the face of her enthusiastic support for the sexist language of the blatantly gender divisive and bigoted, annual ‘White Ribbon’ campaign. This multi-million dollar taxpayer funded campaign, of  ‘Social Exclusion’, which excludes half our population and serves to stigmatize them all as violent abusers and sexual predators, is vigorously promoted by this Minister without the slightest concern or empathy for the underlying damage it inflicts on the nation’s decent fathers, sons, brothers, male partners and families.    It is therefore not surprising, that so many people vigorously object to the spectacle of hateful, openly sexist, Government sponsored, scare campaigns, which appear to be ideology driven and seem specifically designed to drive a gender divisive wedge into the debate. Most thinking Australians consider such campaigns to incite hate, social division and exclusion, rather then promote social inclusion and harmony.  The Violence and Abuse victim community and their supporters, comprising all men, women and children, now looks forward to an apology from the ‘Social Inclusion’ Minister, for her sexist language and behaviour in relation to that campaign, and hopes such gender discriminating campaigns in future take account of all the available evidence, and presents any and all such evidence in gender neutral terms. Furthermore it is hoped that in future, misleading and selective cherry-picked advocacy research, provided by cherry-picked advocacy researchers in support of such campaigns, is better scrutinized by our elected representatives for accuracy, quality and soundness, in order to better protect the community from the subsequent damaging outcomes of bad policies.     The question must be asked what the underlying motives of this Government are, when such gender or race hate campaigns are allowed to establish such a foothold and flourish in a modern society, which claims to pride itself on being socially inclusive, multi cultural and anti-racist. Surely only a balanced and truthful approach can provide for a sound and reasoned outcome and lead to better policy development.     While Men’s Health Australia and the Minister both agree that child abuse and Family Violence are real, Men’s Health rightly question the alleged need to throw away due process in order to protect children from abuse and violence. They correctly point out that it is impossible to protect people from both abuse and false allegations of abuse at the same time as is proposed in the amendments, especially since each of them are considered abuse and cause immeasurable harm to the lives of the victims.    George Christensen maintains that “what is inside this Trojan horse, the malicious code that will infect society, is an attempt to undermine equal access for both parents. This change would invite the court to ignore the requirement to consider the second pillar—the benefit to the child of having a meaningful relationship with both parents”.   The broader definition includes as violence such things as repeated derogatory taunts. Under the proposed definition, much of what happens right here in the parliament would be construed as violence. Also included as violence is this little nugget: ‘preventing the family member from making or keeping connections with his or her family, friends, or culture.’ Under this broad definition, a parent could not prevent a young teenager from spending 20 hours a day talking to friends on Facebook, for fear of being accused of family violence”. “What happens when a parent acts in a way that a reasonable person would describe as good parenting? What happens when a father says to his 13-year-old daughter, ‘No, you can’t go to Julia’s party because there will be alcohol and no adult supervision’? I will tell you what happens. An upset teenage daughter talks to a vindictive mother, who then claims the daughter is a victim of family violence—and it is their right under this definition. Another child loses the right to have a meaningful relationship with her parent. Under this definition, a parent would be too scared to ground a child as punishment for bad behaviour, for fear of ‘depriving a family member of his or her liberty.’   While the rest of his Parliamentary colleagues prance about like frustrated show ponies, desperately chasing media attention to feed their inflated egos, George Christensen is scrupulously researching the subject matter of his Parliamentary responsibilities.