Thread by @Info_Aus

My son's father moved in with his new girlfriend 2 weeks before I gave birth right after he 'donated' his sperm to me to you know, stimulate labour. Men are generous to a fault.

This was way back when the gov was literally just introducing the Child Support Agency. Father told me if I went thru them I'd never get any child support. Gov told me it would be better than court. I never got a cent from CSA till I lobbied gov to introduce a compulsory minimum.

I only got $40 a week for the 8 weeks either side of the birth but only because a feminist legal service (who knew local circumstances) took the father to court. CSA gave me zip till my son started working! Then only $5 per fortnight?

I've never quite figured out if it is $5 a fortnight or a month. After what we both went through, I suspect it makes us both want to vomit to even think about it.

I lobbied for a compulsory minimum because every year I'd get that same letter saying the father owed $0.00 to my son because he had other dependents (or something). The $5 we eventually got didn't really rectify the injustice. Not in my mind, anyway.

Due to homelessness, I rented a room in a share house 35k out of Coffs at Arrawarra. I had no transport so I had to hitch in & out of Coffs climbing up & down the HWY out of trucks while pregnant.

I convinced the father to drive me home after an ultrasound which resulted in painful kidneys. There was an accident on the HWY half way home slowing traffic. The father wanted to leave me there on the side of the road & make me hitch home so he could make his next appointment.

Thankfully, the traffic started moving again. I've never forgotten that though. Not that things improved once he dropped me home.

Everyone thought he was such a 'nice' man. It's sad to realise that if a man isn't beating a woman to death people think he's a fcuking hero.

I get the feeling at times people imagine that I became a single mother because of an accidental pregnancy but that wasn't the case at all. Perhaps people imagine it because they think it explains to some degree the way I & my son have been treated.

I had to come to terms with there being no logical explanation for what happened. I remember feeling very hurt that society allowed that man to behave that way as much as I was hurt that he would do it. I expect he made his excuses & it isn't like anyone ever held him to account.

I went to him once asking for transport so I could get my son (still a toddler) to medical care. Son was an acute asthmatic & my girlfriend was caring for him up in the mountains. He wouldn't even help me then. I had no right to bother him.

I didn't even have a telephone in those days, with a sick baby. Talking about it now it sounds like the dark ages lol. No internet, no car, no phone. Walking everywhere with a baby or the bus. And they weren't the kind of buses we have now. It was the 90's lol.

We had to fold up the pram while holding the baby & everything else, have the right $ out & our concession card and carry it all on board without help. I always remember that when I see women rolling their prams on board with kiddie still in place. I mean they even LOWER the bus?