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Diva
updated 24 Dec 2010, 09:20
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Fri, Dec 24, 2010
The Straits Times
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Watch out, defaulting fathers

THE happy news is that it will be easier from next year for women to seek and enforce maintenance orders against ex-husbands for regular support payments to them and their children.

The sad news is that the tougher measures Community Development, Youth and Sports Minister Vivian Balakrishnan announced are needed at all. What happened to the once widely accepted notion that it is a man's responsibility to take care of his children and their mother, even after his marriage has ended?

Nobody wants to go back to the bad old days, before the 1961 Women's Charter came into being, when a man could have more than one wife, but at least then he met his obligation of providing for his 'extended' family.

The question is related to another: Why are more and more marriages ending in divorce?

 

NEXT: >>More marriages end in divorce

 

readers' comments
Agree with what macy54321 had written. Many dads are deprived by their ex-wives of access to the children, such barbaric acts should never be tolerated. While the focus is always on errant fathers not paying and how mothers and children suffer, what has MCYS done about those cases with errant mothers stopping the children from seeing their loving fathers? There seems to be no focus on the real best interest of the children, which is to ensure that they are not deprived of the love of one of their parents. (Btw its not always fathers who are deprived, some mothers suffer such ill-treatment too.)
anyway, here's a Singapore father I know who is going through such a turmoil, he has a group on Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=128445290045#!/profile.php?id=100000511793639
Posted by alfredch on Fri, 26 Nov 2010 at 10:57 AM
Magenta, i like u comment, but how women can be protected by law/women chartered? he has not been paying maintanen since 3 years ago.. prior that also pay as when he like! macy54321 father luv kids? can't deny, but if the luv cause hurt? do u call it luv? the kids scream, crying till vomitting? u call luv? after meeting, back home motion/urin on pants, cry in middle of night? do u call luv? little hand being hold by So call PROFESSIONAL/well Train VOLUNTEER WORKER till turn "PURPLE", if i wasnt present, the little hand had gone forever! u may thing I am a crazy woman make up the storey! but yes that happen to my young boy at that time was bearly 3 yrs old, now he is 8 but once under stress or I canned him. ha...his going to motion on pants again... and its stink! worse i .....
Posted by chienxin on Tue, 23 Mar 2010 at 10:22 AM
to be fair, i think most man would be willing to pay for it, as long a sthey too have assess to their children, they love their children as much as their mums, except he doens't love their mum anymore. The stupid and bad thing is this mums are screwing the childrens brain, brain washing them against their husband. On one hand they say they give birth to their husbands children, but on the other hand the children belong to them. Lets face it, would you be paying money to rent a house but not even allowed to step into the house?? Over time this mum's hope to erase the father from her childrens life, so .... who in the right mind would want to pay rent and not be allowed to even have a fair share of the childrens time?? There is very highly likelihood or brain poisening on .....
Posted by macy54321 on Wed, 17 Mar 2010 at 17:36 PM
watch out defaulting fathers, the law is coming after u... better not hide your assets... they should also introduce caning for men guilty of hiding the assets..and those mistresses should be stoned alive...
Posted by Magenta on Wed, 17 Mar 2010 at 13:30 PM
Yes, I support every inch of the new regulations. It is time to make the men pay... men like JN. Smicko with your sicko comments, it is no wonder there are such high default rates.. because people like you walk out on the family and think that the women, because they are working, should bear the sole responsibility of raising unwanted children..while they go on and sow their wild oats... propagating more problems. It is time to let the law get tougher with such imbeciles aka men. Making them bankrupt is the only way to prevent them from mischief...no mistress would want a man without money.... better crawl back to his wife and kids.. and yes, wives should be given sole custody of the children if it could be proven that the husband is the one who strayed! But make them pay for it! Make it a crime.. throw them .....
Posted by Magenta on Wed, 17 Mar 2010 at 13:28 PM

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