Features:

"Warm fuzzies".
Magical moments between fathers and children.

Upsized families.
The pro's and con's of larger families. Hugh Joughin talks to a couple of Dads who chose to have lots of kids.

Mens forum.

Barnardos publishes teen dads book

Barnardos’s resource branch, 'Fair Centre', has published a book about teenage fathers by Massey University researcher Gareth Rouch. The book, called 'Boys Raising Babies', is based on interviews with 10 young men and tries to deconstruct the social stereotype of irresponsible young men.

Rouch expects the readership of his book to be mainly policy-makers or other social and community agencies rather than teen dads, because of the way it is written and edited. He is working on another resource targeted at the young fathers themselves.

In a letter advertising the book to agencies, the Fair Centre coordinator says “Perhaps one of the most disturbing tendencies in research policy and service delivery is to place the mother at the core of the family, with the primary responsibility for raising the child, while making the father a more unimportant figure.”

Father & Child Trust coordinator Harald Breiding-Buss welcomes Barnardos's new focus on teen dads and says the book reflects the findings of the Trust's own research on teenage fathers, which has first generated some publicity around the issue. “It is good to see Barnardos admitting that service delivery is mother-focused, as many of our clients have commented very negatively about this.”

Tamihere featuring at men's forums

Disgraced former cabinet member John Tamihere is doing the circuit on behalf of men's groups. He featured at a men's issues forum held in Auckland in April. The same event is being staged now in Christchurch.

Other speakers include Auckland men's personal development guru and author of the book 'Fatherless Boys' Rex McCann, Massey University's director of the Centre of Public Policy Evaluation Stuart Birks, and independent economic researcher Paul Callister.

When speaking at the Auckland forum, Callister pointed out that the sum of paid and unpaid hours worked is higher for men with children under five than for women, although the public perception is the opposite.

A former director of Lifeline, Bruce Mackie, claimed men are systematically being denigrated and that 'begins early in the lives of boys.” He said that in Britain children aged 9 or 10 were taught that the reason for war was the violent nature of men. “The boys sat crumpled, apologising for their existence”.

MPs vow to tackle male suicide

At a political forum staged by Christchurch's Men's Advocacy Network, MPs from four of the represented five political parties agreed that a gender-specific approach is needed for male suicide.

Only National's David Carter did not support gender-based health programmes, saying that programmes must be based on need.

Male suicide rates are 2-3 times that of women, and New Zealand is one of only a handful of countries where men under 25 commit suicide at higher rates than those over 65.