Father's Day Newsletter

This issue focusses on Father's Day, with news of two Scottish events and a range of comments about fathers from prominent Scottish personalities, including three of our new MSPs.  Next week we will cover some interesting recent conferences and research results.

That doesn't mean that nothing is happening on the policy front.  At Westminster the Shared Parenting Bill promoted by Brian Binley MP received its second reading, while at Holyrood the new committees met to discuss their programme for the coming year.  FNF Scotland hopes to raise various issues during this session.

And on Father's Day we issued this response to David Cameron's comments comparing "absent fathers" to drink drivers.

David Cameron's comments will have rung very hollow indeed on Fathers Day of all days to the many men (and their extended family) who get in contact with FNF Scotland not because they are absent but because they are excluded - often for no greater reason than that they are inconvenient to the mother of THEIR children who treat contact as a tap to be turned on and off as they feel inclined.

We always encourage these dads not to give up and to focus all the time that it is their kids that count. However it is often dispiriting that the public stereotype, contrary to what Mr Cameron suggests, is already to regard fathers as a group as suspect after separation who have to 'prove' to a range of professionals that they are worth a role in their children's life.

We regard our dads and the efforts they make to remain fully involved with their children, to use Mr Cameron's word,  as "heroic" against the institutional obstacles that work against them. We invite Mr Cameron on his next visit to Scotland to meet with some of them who can explain for themselves.