POFUsers.com - Plenty of Fish Users Forum

edit to add: apologies I wrote a book!
..............

ahhh...personal lives showing here....
it's a challenging subject, as it forces one to let go of pride and accept help...and to not feel guilty,
all the while knowing you also are judging those who are 'taking advantage' even more than you.

sigh...

stress - i had no idea that is the law now there...20 years ago when we got our divorce
(and it was amicable), there were no such rules that we knew of...no child support or alimony
was awarded because my ex was unemployed at that time...the only few years in his adult life he had no work...
so I got the house which was way too expensive to maintain, but somehow I kept it up enough for the next 10 years.
he rented a tiny one bedroom cottage and our children would spend weekends with him....
there was no limitation on the size of where he lived...or if there was, no one told us about that law,
so it never became an issue.

i'm so sorry it was enforced for you....here also, even without benefits, I would hear it all the time
from single fathers from dating sites (when I used to meet them).....they are really fed up
with losing everything in the divorce and paying so much in alimony and child support that they
can't afford anything but a house share, or less...while the mother and children's lifestyles have changed little.

I don't think society has it right when it comes to marriage and divorce....I think it's backwards...
I think they should make it much harder to get married, much easier to get divorced,
and really keep the focus on making these traumatic changes the most humane and caring for the children....
and to that end, it still comes down to the essence that it costs a fortune to survive these days...
whether in one x two parent home, or two x one-parent homes.

I was thinking about this thread on my way to work today and it occurred to me....
there is no more middle class.....only the rich, ultra rich, poor and ultra poor.
with such an imbalance, I can't see enough change coming that would ease the burden on those needing
the state's help...and for those who try to do it themselves, here foreclosures and bankruptcy have become
more and more 'acceptable'.

one more thought to Summer...regarding the mess in your home when you return....i understand it's annoying,
but i ask you to consider what it's like for some or many single parents - truly single parents where there is no father
or mother to be with the kids....to share loving them...to share time with them....to be another loving
and guiding force in their lives... I ask you to consider what life would be like without their father in the picture
at all and maybe your view might alter just enough to realize the mess in the house is manageable and maybe
a small price to pay for the fact that he loves and wants to be with his children. to me that is a blessing
(speaking from one who has been the only parent for my youngest for the last 16 years).

a right to children? yes....it is the natural way and is inbedded in our genes to perpetuate the species...
but we have got to learn how to deal with our adult relationships so they don't create so much disharmony...
so our children (and we) don't lose sight of what a loving adult relationship is....or so I believe.

one more thought to Summer...regarding the mess in your home when you return....i understand it's annoying,
but i ask you to consider what it's like for some or many single parents - truly single parents where there is no father
or mother to be with the kids....to share loving them...to share time with them....to be another loving
and guiding force in their lives... I ask you to consider what life would be like without their father in the picture
at all and maybe your view might alter just enough to realize the mess in the house is manageable and maybe
a small price to pay for the fact that he loves and wants to be with his children. to me that is a blessing
(speaking from one who has been the only parent for my youngest for the last 16 years).

I do see it as a small price to pay but you don't know my ex husband his own hygiene is so poor it affects my son and now he is showing signs that he is copying his father's habits. My ex husband can go a month without washing and he never brushes his teeth and he wears the same clothes all of the time. I have tried to politely broach the subject with him even buying him new clothes but he always falls back into the same habits. I do appreciate there are other single mothers who's ex's don't bother to see the children as my ex did it for 2 years he didn't bother with them.
My concern is that my ex husband deliberately allows the children to make this mess and it's not something I want to see them growing up to have as a habit. I am not a neat freak but there has to be certain rules like putting rubbish in a bin and putting plates and cups in dishwasher but he does none of this, if you saw how his house is you would understand what I mean. He lives in a shared house and I wouldn't let an animal live like he does let alone a human being all I ask for is a little respect to my home and belongings, instead he encourages our son to play with the gazebo poles and now we have damaged poles and lost poles so our once very nice and expensive gazebo is useless and I am not a fountain of money from which I can afford to randomly replace things that he allows the children to damage. I feel strongly that being clean IS very important as it distinctively is connected with health. To live in a dirty house means germs and considering my eldest daughter has almost no immunity because of her disabilities this again is why I feel so strongly about having a clean house. My home isn't spotless all the time, I have 3 children, but I already have a hard enough time keeping ontop of it without my ex husband adding to it.
The point I was trying to make was merely that I would find it easier if the council were to offer him housing assistance so that the children would be able to go and stay with him and there it would be upto him how he lives as it wouldn't affect me.

Is there a universal right for all women / all couples (gay or straight) to have children?

Nobody has a right to children.

I don't agree with my government (Ontario) funding IVF treatments for every Susan, Jane, or Michelle.

For example, I know of a morbidly obese woman in her mid-40s who wanted to have a child with her new man. Taxpayers paid for her IVF treatments, which didn't work and I am glad. People with health issues, especially middle-aged ones, should not be eligible.

Steve123 wrote:

Is there a universal right for all women / all couples (gay or straight) to have children?

Nobody has a right to children.

I don't agree with my government (Ontario) funding IVF treatments for every Susan, Jane, or Michelle.

For example, I know of a morbidly obese woman in her mid-40s who wanted to have a child with her new man. Taxpayers paid for her IVF treatments, which didn't work and I am glad. People with health issues, especially middle-aged ones, should not be eligible.

There are countries who give financial incentives to encourage there population to have children,so presumably they feel that the long term financial benifit is worth that investment?
How can they adequately police who are and who are not eligible for IVF funding as a strict and fair guidline ?

Who is to say that dysfunctional couples have more right to have children or IVF treatment simply because they are "healthy" over "unhealthy" mid aged people who have health issues,but would make bloody good parents?

Stress Free wrote:How can they adequately police who are and who are not eligible for IVF funding as a strict and fair guidline ?
Who is to say that dysfunctional couples have more right to have children or IVF treatment simply because they are "healthy" over "unhealthy" mid aged people who have health issues,but would make bloody good parents?

i originally posted this thread after hearing about how much it was costing the National Health Service to fund IVF treatments to allow people to exercise their "right" to have children, but the answers took an entirely different course to my expectations.

However, i have just come across an item that made me think about IVF again.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/edito ... ma/?page=1

It seems that
* Men often have low fertility due to a genetic abnormality on the Y chromosome and this will be passed on to their IVF sons, perpetuating the need for continuing treatment across the generations
* Women also have chromosomal defects that contribute to their inability to conceive, defects that are passed down to the next generation
* These defects can be detected with simple blood tests but at some (US?) clinics these tests are not being offered or are being turned down by the eager couple
* One study showed that in the Netherlands 80% of couples who were told of the risk of transmitting these defects continued with unmodified IVF treatment

i ask again, in the age of IVF-assisted conceptions, does every couple / woman have the right to have / bear children?

.

Should the fact that science CAN do something mean it should? It's an interesting concept belinda, biologically the points you've made would mean that faulty genes naturally don't reproduce to make other faulty gene, evolution at it's best. So strictly speaking if someone can't have kids it's nature's way of saying it isn't meant to be, and therefore science shouldn't mess with something that possibly Mother Nature knows better. Isn't that the same with all science and medicine though? Should we all be left to die rather than have operations and drugs? For me it's a very thin line; biologically no those people should understand that nature is telling them something, just like someone has to when a baby miscarries (been there, before someone jumps down my throat for being insensitive), but because the option to have a baby by IVF is there now emotions are allowed to come into the equation which then changes the question slightly. It's then changing it to money, social status, intelligence etc.

Look to the source of a number of the genetic changes we're experiencing. Testosterone, sperm counts and sperm viability has been drastically reduced since the introduction of the birth control pill and the use of hormones and chemicals in agriculture. Synthetic hormones are in our food chain and are making/have made changes in our biology. If unaltered, we could become extinct in some generations further along.

ItsMargo wrote:Look to the source of a number of the genetic changes we're experiencing. Testosterone, sperm counts and sperm viability has been drastically reduced since the introduction of the birth control pill and the use of hormones and chemicals in agriculture. Synthetic hormones are in our food chain and are making/have made changes in our biology. If unaltered, we could become extinct in some generations further along.

This has become very apparent to me even though I have never looked into it. It is a time when my oldest daughter (30) just had her first baby .... yea yea yea I am a grandmother !!!




Yeaaa But she did lose her first baby to a miscarriage, and I am shocked at how many women have lost their pregnancy and or are having so much difficulty getting pregnant.

Our day it was think about having a baby an voila

the world is messed

On the point of housing,and children.On seperating the parent leaving the family home in the uk is not afforded any assistance at all by local council because they are deemed to have made themselves deliberately homeless. So not only have they suddenly lost the roof above there heads and living with there children,but they are hindered from having the kids for overnight stays unless they can afford to privately rent at least a two bed roomed property.
The government and councils do not consider it important to help children through seperation issues by helping there abscent parent from having quality time together or shared responsibility.
At the time of seperating I was earning well over the average working wage and yet I could not afford to rent a two bed property privately in this town with my other outlays to consider.

I felt totally shafted and at one time I even considered us getting back together just for the sake of it seeming the better option!

My situation is slightly different. I stayed local, rented a flat. Had to take the ex to court for proper access but wanted Shared Residence. No barrier to that other than the bias of the system against dads. 3 years later I am still in court and the ex has had no sanction whatsoever despite breaking numerous court orders.

I am not allowed my daughter overnight or any more in the holidays. I have no record of anything other than being an experienced step dad and father.

The system is a disgrace. Even when you do do everything you can to live close to your children, want to support them. the woman says no and pretty much she is free to keep saying no.

The courts sanction the dads because they want to be seen to be doing something.

What all this means is the state doesn't even let responsible parents take care of their own kids. Raol Moat got his kids.. and I can't get mine overnight !

Now given that something like 3/4 of children in the UK now grow up in single parent family/step family. Imagine how big this issue is not only for society but the economy too. The state isn't even willing to require a father to take care of their own kids if the mother contests access and is prepared to keep doing so.