Families Commission Seeking Increased Paid Leave for Dads

The Families Commission wants to extend paid parental leave to include four weeks for dads. Families Commissioner Gregory Fortuin defended the call for extended leave,

“Fathers think they could do an even better job if they could spend more time with their children. The main barrier to fathers sending time with their kids is work, which illustrates the need for flexible workplaces.”

Fortuin gets it right when he talks about the need for flexible workplaces and I couldn't agree more. But how the heck can you have flexible workplaces when you've got a myriad of levels of bureaucracy dictating to the employer and employee exactly what can and can't be done, and how to go about it, in intricate detail.

Maxim takes a shot at the their arch-nemesis,

While Dads spending time with their children is crucial, the policy is unaffordable and promotes the idea that we value something by putting a dollar figure on it is not a healthy attitude to parenting. Worse, they imply that parents should do what they'll get paid for.

Tripping employers up with more red tape will serve only to affect their productivity and ability to employ more staff. If hard-working business-dads are working over-time to keep their company going as a result of having fewer hours put in from their employees due to this paid-parental leave, then their children are going to suffer. Lets get rid of the Families Commission - all they are capable of doing is coming out with tired old socialist solutions to societal and family problems which run far too deep to be remedied with another few briefcases of tax-payers' money.

Bad Govt. Department Just Got Better

The Families Commission is another one of those superfluous government departments which sticks a dirty great suction hose into the Government's slush fund of tax-payer dollars, and delivers relatively very little. Not only this, but the commission is necessarily obsolete, seeing as our country currently has the laws in place that necessary to ensure the well-being of families. However dark, foreboding clouds sometimes have a silver-lining...

Family First NZ is welcoming the appointment of child advocate Christine Rankin and Parents Inc’s Bruce Pilbrow as Families Commissioners. - Press Release, 12 May 2009

Sue Bradford is not happy however, as Christine Rankin and Bruce Pilbrow are pro-family, and opposed to unnecessary government intrusion into family. She complained on her Twitter, page,

Shocked by news Christine Rankin has been appointed a Families Commissioner - major threat to their good work, about to do media release.

Hahaha. I don't like the Families Commission, but I like Christine Rankin on the Families Commission!

It looks like Stuff's political editor Colin Espiner is upset too, as he has the spade out, attempting to dig dirt on Christine in his article by making an amateur lists of bullet-points which he seems to believe are reasons why she should not have been appointed.

Hat tip: Big News

Arkansas: Homosexual Adoption on the Way Out

The Family Council Action Committee of Arkansas have been very busy, collecting signatures on a petition proposing the following amendment to the laws of the State,

An Act Providing That An Individual Who Is Cohabiting Outside Of A Valid Marriage May Not Adopt Or Be A Foster Parent Of A Child Less Than Eighteen Years Old

They've only had to collect 61,974 valid signatures, however the rules governing the collection of signatures on a petition are much more stringent than they are here in New Zealand. World Net Daily reports,

"A ban against unmarried couples becoming foster or adoptive parents is scheduled to appear on Arkansas ballots this fall – and some say the measure is geared at denying homosexuals the chance to raise children. The Arkansas Family Council Action Committee submitted 85,389 of the required 61,974 voter's signatures to place the proposal on the Nov. 4 ballot, according to Associated Press reports. Family Council President Jerry Cox said getting the proposed act on the ballot is a significant step for families.
"Arkansas needs to affirm the importance of married mothers and fathers," he said. "We need to publicly affirm the gold standard of rearing children whenever we can. The state standard should be as close to that gold standard of married mom and dad homes as possible."
In 2006, the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled against a state policy preventing "gays" from becoming foster parents. The Family Council reacted by acquiring enough signatures to place the initiative on the Arkansas ballot...."
Click here for the rest of the article

This is a fabulous improvement on Arkansas law.  The last thing a foster child needs is to be brought up in a home where he has two dads or two mums.  The Family Council Action Committee lists three reasons why they believe that foster care children should not be placed in homes with individuals who cohabit with a sexual partner.  The two key points are in bold.

1. Children in the Arkansas foster care system and children in need of adoption are among the most vulnerable in our society. They desperately need to live in a home with a mother and a father who are married to one another. Five thousand years of human history, common sense, every major world religion, and scores of scientific studies agree that the best place for a child is in a home with a married mother and father. If the State of Arkansas is going to create families through adoption or foster care, we owe it to the children to create the best ones possible.
2. The Arkansas Adoption Act will increase the number of homes for adoptive and foster care children. Adoptive and foster care children need good homes and the best way to find those homes is to make people aware of the need. Any shortage of foster homes or any shortage of families willing to adopt can be attributed to the fact that married couples are not meeting this need. As the Arkansas Adoption Act is discussed and debated it will highlight the need for more homes and result in an increase in the number of good homes for Arkansas’ most vulnerable children.
3. This act seeks to blunt a homosexual agenda that has used the shortage of adoptive or foster care homes in other states as a means of advancing their social agenda. Laws have been passed in eight states that support the homosexual agenda when it comes to the adoption or foster care of children. Arkansas has no law to prevent homosexual adoption. Homosexuals are adopting children and this will continue until a law is passed. A lawsuit filed by the ACLU and supported by homosexuals resulted in an Arkansas judge overturning state regulations banning homosexuals from serving as foster parents. The Arkansas Adoption Act addresses this issue as well.

Congratulations to the hard-working canvassers from Arkansas who have put so much time and effort into getting this proposed piece of law onto the ballot for November this year.  Another point of interest, "in 2004 the Family Council successfully passed an Arkansas constitutional amendment banning gay marriage". (WND)

Family First calls for Informed Consent on Abortion

Family First comments on the recent ruling by the High Court on the Abortion Supervisory Committee, in the following press release...

Family First NZ is welcoming the comments by a High Court judge that the Abortion Supervisory Committee has been applying the abortion laws too liberally and has failed to adequately supervise the work of certifying consultants.

"The Committee has ignored the original intention of parliament and because of their lack of supervision and inaction, this has effectively led to abortion on demand," says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

"As a result, approximately 18,000 abortions are performed every year, and since 1991, the number of 11-14 year olds having an abortion has increased by 144%. The number of abortions for 15-19 year olds has increased by 74%. Each week, almost 80 teenagers have an abortion, and represent almost a quarter of all abortions performed in NZ."

Ironically, at the same time as almost 18,000 abortions were being performed in NZ last year, adoptions totaled less than 90, according to the Adoption Option Trust.

"Abortions being performed at greater than 12 weeks has increased by 220%, despite all the pictures and scans we are seeing showing the fetal development of the unborn child," says Mr McCoskrie. "These images are obviously being kept hidden from some of the women seeking an abortion." "The high numbers of abortions (despite all the supposed safe sex messages and availability of contraception), and now this ruling, confirms that the Abortion Supervisory Committee continues to fail both women and the unborn child."

Family First NZ is calling for a law which requires informed consent (including ultrasound) for all potential abortions, and counselling to be provided only by non-providers of abortion services. Parental notification of teenage pregnancy and abortion should happen automatically except in exceptional circumstances approved by the court.

Family First is calling for the current law to be ammended so that women are given sufficient information, and are required to view or listen to their unborn children via ultrasound technology. Currently - as the High Court has found, abortions are being dished out far too liberally - with approximately 99% of abortions being performed because the mother was - or would "suffer psychologically". Informed consent would significantly lower the number of abortions (currently around 18,000 every year in New Zealand).

The Dreamer

I watched The Astronaut Farmer the other night. I can't say that I had expected it would be much good. I haven't seen Billy Bob Thorton in many other films - but he certainly shone in this performance. A driven man, Charles Farmer dreams of one day orbiting the earth in the rocket he is building in his barn - his life's work. The US Government is opposed to Farmer's project - "space-flight is only for us". But as Bruce Willis says in a surprise cameo role "16.2 billion dollars in this year's budget alone", "for what?" returns Farmer, to which Willis responds "for what, who cares for what - for whatever they want..." An excellent point I thought.

Early in the film, Charles Farmer withdraws his children from the local school, and starts up the Farmer Space Program. With lessons in the morning, and work on the rocket in the afternoons and evenings, this is project that the whole family is able to work together in. Needless to say, Farmer's wife is not all that happy when she finds out, however the family sticks together through thick and thin - respectful children and a trusting, long-suffering wife make for a change from the usual "Hollywood-family" drivel.

Definitely worth a watch, though you may find yourself rolling your eyes at times, as scientific or rational limits are ignored - for the sake of the story. The comparitive lack of swearing and the wonderful family relationship make this film a good choice for a Saturday evening with the whole family. I have to say, it was the home-educating and personal-responsibility themes that got me.

Dolls

nice dolls.

I do not give too much of my time to thinking about dolls. However the subject came up in a conversation - specifically, Barbie dolls. Mum taught me from a young age that Barbie dolls were not good. Not that I wanted to play with them as a young boy, but we saw them in other people's homes, and on shelves down at the mall. My sister never had a Barbie doll - save one given her by her aunty - and hastily dispatched of soon after Aunty's visit.

The Barbie Dolls range was one of the first to introduce to little girls, the concept of playing with, and dressing up grown-up women. Without getting too specific, it is obvious at a first glance that certain features, or dare I say it, dimensions of these Barbie dolls are provocative and unrealistic. I find it hard to believe that parents allow their children to play with these coquettish dolls. Isn't society bad enough as it is without handing our young girls little "supermodel-dolls" to play with?

Then you've got Ken of course, and a whole wardrobe of clothes for your little girls to dress the well-toned body of a grown-up male doll. It's really not a very pretty picture. Just as bad, in my mind, is the all too frequent occasions that one sees an abandoned Barbie doll, lying on the lounge-room floor - all it's clothes gone, and toussled, matted hair.

A blog post written by Doug Philips of Vision Forum in September 2007 comes to mind. I will include a couple of excerpts from his well-written article, below...

"One of the most iconic symbols of childhood play is the doll. Dolls have always served an important role in culture, primarily in preparing daughters to be mothers. At the heart of doll play are two important concepts: identification and imagination. For example, the baby doll in the hands of a girl is a tool that helps her to identify with motherhood. The dress-up doll at her bedroom tea party allows her to imagine her own future role building a culture of hospitality for her family. With the historical doll a young lady both imagines and identifies with the adventures of girlhood past. The point is this: dolls have traditionally played an important role in the social and intellectual development of young ladies.

Dolls as a Tool of Cultural Revolution

Humanists, including feminists of various stripes, recognize the power of play in shaping cultural identity and gender norms. Because doll play has historically been so closely associated with a distinctively Christian understanding of the roles of men and women, the feminist tactic usually takes one of two forms: The first approach is based on the notion that sex-specific play, education, and role modeling are inherently oppressive. This approach seeks to discourage role distinctions by encouraging both parents and manufacturers to accept more of an androgynous and gender-bending approach to the toys. Under this model, parents should not assume that dolls are for girls, or that toy soldiers are for boys—and neither should manufacturers or their advertising agencies.

If I am fortunate to have any children, there's no way they'll be allowed Barbie dolls, or anything even remotely like them.

"cheap and nasty"

The Family

The two dolls chatted as the six-year-old girl looked on. Different dolls they've got these days. The two Barbie-esque dolls sported little clothing, and a professional tan. Entirely immersed in her imaginary world, she reposed on the floor, in the departures lounge of Christchurch airport. Her four-year-old sister ran restlessly here and there, climbing up onto one of the blue chairs and then complaining about something, perhaps that her sister was playing with dolls, and she wasn't. Something small like that, like little children do. Early forties and grey hair balding, Dad sat, all but dead to the activity around him, filling out slips of paper and slotting them into the passports for each member of his family. Mum leaned back in her chair, nodding occasionally at her youngest daughter, enjoying her few moments of relative rest. It's not everyday you see the dad organising stuff. The two matching backpacks lay on the ground, and it appeared that each of these was full of dolls and a blanket.

Mum got up and walked the few paces into the center of the lounge to throw something in the rubbish-bin. The youngest girl followed, and in the long, drawn-out fashion well-known by mums all around the world, informed her mother and the everyone else in the room, that she “needed a drink”. “I'm thirsty Mum”, she complained. Despite her desperate, heart-rending plea, her mother patted the child on the head as she walked back to her seat. Dad was still busily writing away, the very epitome of orderliness.

Muffled words came over the loud-speaker, would passengers in seats thirty to eleven please board now. Mum and the two girls got out of their seats, the girls crouching down, and Mum crouching down behind them, pointing over their shoulders at something interesting at the back of the room. What are they looking at? A middle-aged flight-attendant was walking up the high-durability carpet towards their end of the room. Big sister skipped off to play with her dolls again as Mum had a word with the four-year-old. “When we get on the plane, people aren't going to be very happy if you're screaming”, she warned her.

Back at the seats now, Dad wrapping up his task, and Mum pulled Teddy from out of one of the bags. Moth-eaten and thread-bare, patches of fur missing, the large pink teddy-bear was hardly brand-new. Head and limbs coming off with just the string inside holding them all in one piece. Masterpiece. Dad stacked up the passports and dropped his parker into his shirt pocket. Mum ensured that the girls had all their dolls and blankets tucked into their backpacks. The girls had a brief discourse over whose backpack was whose. The family was mobilised, and with mum and dad in the lead, the two girls took up the rear-guard as they headed for gate 19, somewhere behind those postered room-dividers. Teddy held on tight to the little hand of the four-year-old girl, and as the family disappeared around the corner, waved me goodbye.