In part, this is a terminological point – I have found that in some cases, simply being able to label an arrangement as “Shared Residence” instead of “Residence & Contact” has been really helpful – perhaps because if the acknowledgment that there are two parents each with an equally important caring role, even if the number of days/hours each spends is different. I’ve found this has worked well in a number of cases where there have been ongoing contact issues, and the amount of time the children are spending with the NRP is nowhere near equal (alternate weekends and 50% of school holidays, in one case)

The ‘contact’ parent seemed able to relax feeling they were recognised as having equal importance as a parent, and the primary carer in having the time the kids spent with each parent defined. There does seem to be considerable variation between different Judges as to whether or not they are willing to make orders in this way when the arragnments are “really” residence with contact.

I’m interested to see that your video depends so heavily on old ‘batman’ footage. I thought the new campaign was rather trying to move beyond that and to distance itself from the bad boys in favour of dialogue with the people in power?

PS In what way do you think father’s and mother’s are treated unequally in respect of child benefit? Both have to pay if they are the non resident parent, although clearly it affects more men than women as more mothers are resident parents.

I think, however, you are missing something.

For most fathers in the fathers’ rights movement the fundamental problem is that our former partners are determined to eradicate us from our children’s lives, this isn’t always immediately the case after separation, and often starts when they begin a new relationship.

The next problem is that the courts and the family justice ‘system’ (short-hand for a large number of different bodies and agencies) are only too happy to go along with this.

Most fathers have some vague idea that the problem has something to do with feminism, and so they use one of feminism’s weapons against it, which is the insistence on equality. These fathers don’t actually want equality, but they don’t know what else to demand, and don’t understand that equality is a specifically ideological concept, and not one that is ever achievable.

Some fathers’ rights outfits (like the New Fathers 4 Justice) are still blindly demanding 50/50 division of children’s time after separation. Fathers 4 Justice never called for this (not least because it is so easily parodied – remember Falconer’s CD collection?) and called instead for fathers and mothers to be treated equally under the law. That is rather different, and is not the case (e.g. parental resonsibility, child benefit, etc).

F4J recognised some time ago that a new and more creative debate needs to be held on this issue, and our new campaign reflects this.

Should you want anything to go with that glass of wine, Lucy, you may like to listen to this: