Sir, - While I agree with John Waters that the law as it stands is biased against unmarried fathers, I do not agree with his perception of the situation.
It is a fact that women are lone parents frequently because men have failed to take responsibility and not because they have been banished from their children's lives. In any situation, if one person has to take the greater share of responsibility it is inevitable that resentment does build. That does not mean any mother has the right to deprive her child of his right to a relationship with his father, no matter what her feelings on the subject. But we can try to understand why so many do. And men do have the solution to this one.
John Waters places huge emphasis on men's "rights" to their children. My view, as a single parent, is that it is the children who have the rights and the parents who have the responsibilities. In a legal sense, of course the position of the unmarried father should be protected. But ultimately it is our children who should be safeguarded. Is there a law that can legislate for human emotions? And it is human emotions and human frailty that cause the problems and doubtless will continue to do so, no matter what law comes into place.
It may be a lack of conviction in their worth as practising fathers that guides so many men in their choice to abandon their children. It may be undiluted selfishness. It may be that they are actively deprived from contact with their children. Whatever the causes, our children suffer.
Children do need fathers. They need fathers who won't panic and run when they are faced with unplanned pregnancies. They need fathers who will fight the odds to stay involved in their children's lives beyond sporadic contact. Very importantly, they need fathers who will support their mothers in the day-to-day work which is lone parenting. Above all, they need fathers who will take responsibility for the choices they make and who will come to terms with their own sense of loss if they have become "absentee" fathers and who will not attack to the left, right and centre instead.
Children are individuals. What will suit one child won't necessarily suit another. No law can take the complexity of human nature into account, in any real way. "Love" turned sour is a powerful factor which should not be allowed to taint our children's lives; yet it does. It requires huge sacrifice and advanced maturity to overcome this hurdle.
Perhaps Mr Waters could give us a lead on this one, instead of venting his spleen on "women beyond the law". That might be the way forward. - Yours, etc., Kay Davern,
Arbour Terrace, Dublin 7.