Father & Child Magazine Issue #40
Babies & Movement; 5 Ways to do a Better Job; Young Musicians, Shared Parenting? I Wished; Kids Need Grand-Dad Too; Who’s Looking After the Family?; Taking on Government Departments.
Contents:
- 5 Ways to do a Better Job Some handy hints for organisations that should be working with fathers, but aren’t.
- Young Musicians Where is the boundary between encouraging to learn and pushing to perform?
- Shared Parenting? I Wished. Murray Bacon tells the story of his own uphill battle to be an involved dad with his sons.
- Kids Need ‘Grand’Dads Too From our archives: the story of a retiree who was a welcome sight when hanging around a Playcentre.
- Who’s Looking After the Family? Pre-election feature on what parties have in store for families.
- Parenting: Babies and Movement
- From the Grassroots: Taking on Government Departments
Editorial
Cool Times
It’s a cool time, we are in the news everywhere, Brad Pitt has twins, being a dad is the ‘in thing’!
NZ’s famous soccer captain Ryan Nelson was in Christchurch, ostensibly to show off his first baby, before jetting back to Blackburn and then off to Bejing, playing his part for our Olympic team.
Apparently Pippa, from TV One’s Breakfast News, liked our New Babies Edition, we must be cool!
Fathers have actually been given a hearing by the Families commission. After many years of simply swallowing taxpayer money, Peter Dunne’s baby has found a whole two days to devote to fathers.
Hopefully at least, any new fathers advocates and leaders get to share their local knowledge.
But when will service providers who ‘work with families’ involve all fathers? When will midwives insist on both parents getting ante-natal support?
Why is our solo dads research denied funding? Why, in Auckland, is our teen dad support plan (with ChangeWorks and Health West) having to apply for special funding? Many teenage mother support schemes are funded and running.
Meanwhile, in Christchurch, we are still chasing the courts for a keen dad, whose partner moved up to Auckland with their 7 yr old boy, but then refused or disrupted his contact ever since.
Not for the first time, Harald is wondering how we will meet ends unless funding improves. Who knows, up in the rarefied air of Auckland politics, there may actually be a sympathetic philanthropist or a politician willing to front.
Then another dad, whose school aged children were recently left with him at very short notice, and who are living in a van, will be able to get help from a support group like us. Hopefully Johnny can help him find a warm flat before the next cold front hits the South Island. Otherwise, for one father at least, it will be cool, all night!
Warm Regards
Brendon Smith
