A father-son bonding session planned by a North Island primary school was cancelled after a single mother demanded to be included.She is probably still defiantly claiming the high ground.
Two "Band of Brothers" seminars were arranged by Matakana School to help fathers get more involved in their sons' lives, and as a forum for dads to share their issues. One session was for dads and another was for fathers and sons.
A solo mum wanted to attend but was told she couldn't because her presence would inhibit discussion. She was told a mother and son seminar was planned for later in the year.
"We really just wanted an opportunity for the guys to open up and chat, and they wouldn't particularly want to do if there were females around - which I think is understandable," said principal Darrel Goosen.
The woman's son was welcome at the second seminar and the guest speaker offered a specific session with her and her son but she continued to insist on attending, Goosen said, so the school board decided to cancel the event.
This bothered me though:
Psychologist Sara Chatwin, from MindWorks, said in today's society - where almost 50 per cent of Kiwi households are single-parent households - the session should have been promoted as a parent-child affair.
"I understand where the mother is coming from. The implications are that that child will feel incredibly left out if they are the only child without a dad who is going to a seminar like that."
Since when were half of NZ households single parent? Try 18 percent of all families, or 30 percent of families with dependent children (and possibly declining). When someone can't even get factual information correct I'm disinclined to listen to their personal opinion. And unsurprisingly, what she says next is in fact silly. If there are so many single parents, but the event was open to their children, the child wouldn't feel left out. And nobody was barring the father from attending even if he is estranged from the mother.
This mother sounds like someone with a lot of baggage who unfortunately isn't making life for her child any easier.
4 comments:
And nobody was barring the father from attending even if he is estranged from the mother.
Have you met any of these types? The father is the last person they'll want hanging out with the kid. The mother in question doesn't so much as admit that the kid even has a father - she demands that she gets to turn up to the father-son event as though the kid were the product of parthenogenosis or something. The school should have told her fuck.
There is a "type" for the other part of the child-making equation?
I figure if you didn't want your son's father at the father-son thing because he's a deadbeat and a bad influence, you'd just ignore the event, not turn it into an opportunity for an obnoxious political statement.
It is of course possible that the father is dead or is avoiding his duties by by skipping the country etc, but widows tend to be better at facing reality than this woman.
I misunderstood your "type" as referring to the father - not the mother. Got you now.
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