System reduces fathers to mere providers

ONE can only hope — probably in vain — that the sentiments expressed recently by Dr Martin McAleese, while visiting Barnardos’ ‘Da Project’ in Dublin, are taken on board by the incoming Government.

He said that “to reduce a father to an absence or just a sum of money is to ignore the potential he has as a benign stabilising influence in his child’s life”.

Unfortunately, the massive body of family legislation envisages no role for fathers other than as financial providers for women and children.

The Barnardo’s Da project may in some small way support the more active inclusion of fathers in child-rearing. However, its potential is undermined by State policies and legislation designed (successfully) to marginalise and financially impoverish fathers.

There is little point in preaching about the value of fatherhood to a man who has been banished to a one-roomed bedsit, legally designated as ‘the inferior parent’ (because he is male), forced to take on a second job to pay the family home mortgage as well as his rent, and impoverished because he must continue to carry all, or most, of the burden of providing financially for the family.

Taking the ‘soft’ approach, as Barnardos are doing, rather than confronting the real reasons for the marginalisation of fathers, ie, State policies and legislation, is futile and may even contribute to the exclusion of fathers from their children’s lives.

Frank McGlynn

Amen

St Anne’s Resource Centre

Railway Street

Navan

Co Meath