1. The love that dare not speak its name (Bob Geldof)
The love that dare not speak its name
Bob Geldof Speaks Out On Fathers rights (UK Channel 4 documentary)
Arsey Park, sunday lunchtime. … Watch the single men with their children drag themselves through the false hours and a frantic panic of activity. …The build up … the whole week anticipation … and then the excitement of being with them. … Time dripping to fast … Decane … Every second measured and weighed in the balance of loss. …loosing … going away and fading. … Everything must be crammed into this space. … Live in an hour. Love in a measured fragment of state permitted time. …Feed the ducks ..again. … Macdads and McDonalds … where else do you go ...
Bob Geldof: “When my wife left me almost 10 years ago now, I was bereft. I had loved her and now our love had gone. And while at the time I didn’t understand what was happening, one has to except it. What bewildered me and made me greavestriken, was that not just she, but my entire family went away from me. So why were my children gone? Those things that were the best of us. Why couldn’t I be with them like I had been for all their lives?”
“I went to the law to try and be with my kids 50% of the time. But like most men who go to court, under the family law system in our country, I was left feeling criminalised, belittled, worthless, powerless and irrelevant.”
I had entered a world, riddled with bias, prejudice, discrimination and hypocricy. A world where - under the guise of justice - children were stripped of their fathers, fathers of their children. This has to change!
Bob Geldof: “Going into the court, litterally opening the door, a well meaning clerk passed me by, and he tapped me on the shoulder and he said: “Good luck Bob.” And I said: “Yeah, thanks mate.” And he said: “Listen, can I give you a bit of advise?” And I said: “Yeah please.” And he said: “Whatever you do, don’t say you love your children.” I was taken it back, that was the sole defense I had…defense is the correct word … and I said: “Why not.”And he said: “Well, the court think it is extreme if a man articulates his love for his child.””
“I was on tele one night and I mentioned something about this. And over the next few month I received what amounted to seventy plastic binliners full … of lettters. Now, people know me for almost 30 years now, and in all my time with the Boomtown Rats, or Live Aid or whatever, I had never received that amount of Bob Geldof England type mail.”
I had no idea there were so many of us out there, destroyed by this system. I had unknowingly struck a cord with tens of thousands of fathers, grandparents, partners. All of them robbed of their children.
A father: “I often drive in the area where I beleave she lives … just in case I might see them. I don’t take any further than that, I am not even sure I would recognize them when it comes to it.”
Another father: “I am keeping aside cards and anything else … for the one day when she will come and see me …she will. … I would say: “Here … this is what I have done.””
A grandmother: “The one thing that I couldn’t buy is not seeing my granddaughter enough, you know. I couldn’t buy it. I mean it is dreadfull, it is really dreadfull. But it is the double pain, it is the pain of my son and my granddaughter’s pain. And it is anger. And the whole thing is just pain and hurt. And all the mixed emotions that you go through. It is dreadfull, it really is.”
Every year what the government calls “only” 15.000 cases go to the family courts. In just 7% of those cases are men allowed to live with their children. The courts reduce the rest of them to sunday fathers, dads who can only visits their kids in the weekends. And they are the lucky ones. Four out of ten fathers loose touch with their children, forever. What is going on? Why are we allowing this state sponsored child abuse? I can’t stand all this unneccessary pain.
And so long that I think it is usefull I will keep telling my story, even to the most unlikely or politically influential audiences.
Bob Geldof: “He said to me: "Whatever you do, don’t say you love your children. The court think it unhealthy extreme if a man articulates his love for his children."”
This stuff is important to all of us. One in four of all children now live in oneparent homes. Educational standard amongst children of divorced couples are at an all time low. Children who grow up without fathers, are five times more likely to be unemployed and three times as likely to get involved in crime. 80% of all social housing is for single parent families. And family breakdown cost the taxpayer at least 15 billion pounds per year.
These are the social and economic values of fatherhood … the emotional value is beyond calculation.
Bob Geldof: “I am not a TV presenter, I am not a journalist, I am certainly no legal expert. And family law is not my field of expertise. But it is certainly my field of experience.”
We have all had enough. Fathers take the streets, climb cranes, resort to ever more extraordinary means to bring attention to their plight. Even the prime minister and Buckingham Palace were targeted. The frustration boils over. And membership of the many support and campaign groups is growing by the day.
Jim Parton (Families Need Fathers): “Why are you doing it?”
Matt O’Connor (Fathers 4 Justice): “I do it because of a fundamental motivation out of injustice in my experience. With the hands of the family courts. And I am doing it for my two children.”
Jim Parton (Families Need Fathers): “So all these thoroughly decent nice guys, love pourring out of them for their children, they quite clearly done nothing wrong, and they got involved in this surreal court system, out of which there seems to be no escape.”
Tony Coe (Equal Parenting Council): “The injustice is so vial, and so contrary to the best interest of the children, of which it is suggested that it is all supposed to serve, that you just got to do something about it.”
Jim Parton (Families Need Fathers): “It is so unfair, what happens to thoroughly decent people, that you can’t actually stop, till the job is done. “
The roots of this pain, this destruction of the soul, lies in the system hidden behind the high walls of the family courts, which decides the fate of our children. Perversely in a democratic society, these courts operate in total secrecy. There is no way for us to find out how judges make their decisions.
Alan Levy QC (family barrister): “I do think we ought to know what is going on. That is one of my hobby horses. I think the family court is far to secret.”
Bob Geldof: “But it seems to be this absolute reactionary force, the family courts. Not one will speak to us. Not one … will speak to us. Not one. We have asked them all. Not a single member. Not out of the services, out of the social services, not out of the experts. Not one. This is a nonsense.”
Bob Geldof Speaks Out On Fathers rights (UK Channel 4 documentary)
Arsey Park, sunday lunchtime. … Watch the single men with their children drag themselves through the false hours and a frantic panic of activity. …The build up … the whole week anticipation … and then the excitement of being with them. … Time dripping to fast … Decane … Every second measured and weighed in the balance of loss. …loosing … going away and fading. … Everything must be crammed into this space. … Live in an hour. Love in a measured fragment of state permitted time. …Feed the ducks ..again. … Macdads and McDonalds … where else do you go ...
Bob Geldof: “When my wife left me almost 10 years ago now, I was bereft. I had loved her and now our love had gone. And while at the time I didn’t understand what was happening, one has to except it. What bewildered me and made me greavestriken, was that not just she, but my entire family went away from me. So why were my children gone? Those things that were the best of us. Why couldn’t I be with them like I had been for all their lives?”
“I went to the law to try and be with my kids 50% of the time. But like most men who go to court, under the family law system in our country, I was left feeling criminalised, belittled, worthless, powerless and irrelevant.”
I had entered a world, riddled with bias, prejudice, discrimination and hypocricy. A world where - under the guise of justice - children were stripped of their fathers, fathers of their children. This has to change!
Bob Geldof: “Going into the court, litterally opening the door, a well meaning clerk passed me by, and he tapped me on the shoulder and he said: “Good luck Bob.” And I said: “Yeah, thanks mate.” And he said: “Listen, can I give you a bit of advise?” And I said: “Yeah please.” And he said: “Whatever you do, don’t say you love your children.” I was taken it back, that was the sole defense I had…defense is the correct word … and I said: “Why not.”And he said: “Well, the court think it is extreme if a man articulates his love for his child.””
“I was on tele one night and I mentioned something about this. And over the next few month I received what amounted to seventy plastic binliners full … of lettters. Now, people know me for almost 30 years now, and in all my time with the Boomtown Rats, or Live Aid or whatever, I had never received that amount of Bob Geldof England type mail.”
I had no idea there were so many of us out there, destroyed by this system. I had unknowingly struck a cord with tens of thousands of fathers, grandparents, partners. All of them robbed of their children.
A father: “I often drive in the area where I beleave she lives … just in case I might see them. I don’t take any further than that, I am not even sure I would recognize them when it comes to it.”
Another father: “I am keeping aside cards and anything else … for the one day when she will come and see me …she will. … I would say: “Here … this is what I have done.””
A grandmother: “The one thing that I couldn’t buy is not seeing my granddaughter enough, you know. I couldn’t buy it. I mean it is dreadfull, it is really dreadfull. But it is the double pain, it is the pain of my son and my granddaughter’s pain. And it is anger. And the whole thing is just pain and hurt. And all the mixed emotions that you go through. It is dreadfull, it really is.”
Every year what the government calls “only” 15.000 cases go to the family courts. In just 7% of those cases are men allowed to live with their children. The courts reduce the rest of them to sunday fathers, dads who can only visits their kids in the weekends. And they are the lucky ones. Four out of ten fathers loose touch with their children, forever. What is going on? Why are we allowing this state sponsored child abuse? I can’t stand all this unneccessary pain.
And so long that I think it is usefull I will keep telling my story, even to the most unlikely or politically influential audiences.
Bob Geldof: “He said to me: "Whatever you do, don’t say you love your children. The court think it unhealthy extreme if a man articulates his love for his children."”
This stuff is important to all of us. One in four of all children now live in oneparent homes. Educational standard amongst children of divorced couples are at an all time low. Children who grow up without fathers, are five times more likely to be unemployed and three times as likely to get involved in crime. 80% of all social housing is for single parent families. And family breakdown cost the taxpayer at least 15 billion pounds per year.
These are the social and economic values of fatherhood … the emotional value is beyond calculation.
Bob Geldof: “I am not a TV presenter, I am not a journalist, I am certainly no legal expert. And family law is not my field of expertise. But it is certainly my field of experience.”
We have all had enough. Fathers take the streets, climb cranes, resort to ever more extraordinary means to bring attention to their plight. Even the prime minister and Buckingham Palace were targeted. The frustration boils over. And membership of the many support and campaign groups is growing by the day.
Jim Parton (Families Need Fathers): “Why are you doing it?”
Matt O’Connor (Fathers 4 Justice): “I do it because of a fundamental motivation out of injustice in my experience. With the hands of the family courts. And I am doing it for my two children.”
Jim Parton (Families Need Fathers): “So all these thoroughly decent nice guys, love pourring out of them for their children, they quite clearly done nothing wrong, and they got involved in this surreal court system, out of which there seems to be no escape.”
Tony Coe (Equal Parenting Council): “The injustice is so vial, and so contrary to the best interest of the children, of which it is suggested that it is all supposed to serve, that you just got to do something about it.”
Jim Parton (Families Need Fathers): “It is so unfair, what happens to thoroughly decent people, that you can’t actually stop, till the job is done. “
The roots of this pain, this destruction of the soul, lies in the system hidden behind the high walls of the family courts, which decides the fate of our children. Perversely in a democratic society, these courts operate in total secrecy. There is no way for us to find out how judges make their decisions.
Alan Levy QC (family barrister): “I do think we ought to know what is going on. That is one of my hobby horses. I think the family court is far to secret.”
Bob Geldof: “But it seems to be this absolute reactionary force, the family courts. Not one will speak to us. Not one … will speak to us. Not one. We have asked them all. Not a single member. Not out of the services, out of the social services, not out of the experts. Not one. This is a nonsense.”
posted by Peter Tromp (Fathercare) at Tuesday, October 10, 2006
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