Just a rant about how blatantly unfair this is for women?

If it helps, I for one think he’s a useless, responsibility avoiding twat. Anything less than an official 50/50 on time and 50/50 on child related costs is basically not good enough imo. If women can work while having their kids 100% of the time then men can manage having them for 50% of the time.

The USA removes passports and driving licenses for non payment of cm, we should do that.

Since the government is determined to tackle child poverty (resulting from the 2 child benefit rule) through encouraging work, forcing men to pay half the nursery fees would be a good start. The fact that so much of childcare in this country depends on private nurseries is a major problem, especially given the extent of state provision in more civilised Western countries.

This has been done to death on here. Why don't you pop on the single parenting or divorce or relationships thread and see how many women were in years' long relationships and / or married and were blindsided when the man ran off with ow when family life all got a bit dull? I'd love to see stats on how many single parents were in an established relationship of saying 1 year + when child was conceived..I bet it's far more than 50%.

Dodging child maintenance should be treated as tax fraud. The CMS has some powers (it should have more), but never seems to use them. The reality is that a lot of resident parents are forced to claim benefits because of a lack of maintenance, so it effectively is tax fraud by the non-resident parent.

I also think it's insane that you get to pay less if you live with other children. Isn't this a society that tells people all the time that they shouldn't have more children if they can't afford them?!

This.

Completely agree OP.

Errors… Teachers DO NOT judge single woman , working their arses off to provide for their children. There’s a LOT of sympathy and support.

30 years ago I worked with a woman who shacked up with an absolute low life. I couldn’t believe it when she spouted out that they had moved from Wales with no forwarding address so that he couldn’t be traced to pay maintenance!!!!
Five years later he had done the same to her.
Where I am going with this is that this story is from 30 years ago and NOTHING has changed!!!!
They should be publicly named and shamed, their wages/ benefits tarnished and jailed for non payment. It’s a national disgrace.

Well said. I think it's sad that we have been convinced for years that women get the 'privilege' to stay at home and run the house, while men do the supposed tough job of going out to work and earn the money.

They all seem a bit sheepish now we have cottoned on. We were getting the raw deal all along!

Absolutely this! Couldn’t have said it better!

You get judged in a totally different way to the dad as well. On his half a week off, he can do whatever and see whomever and not get the third degree…
The mum on the other hand, constantly gets reminded that she is a mother and judged for who she is dating… even if she never introduces that person to her children!
Teachers make snide remarks at you for missing one school event, even though you’ve been to all the others on your own
We can never do anything right!

Absolutely agree

the bar is so so low for men I don’t understand how we have got here

This is a very good point that I'd not considered before.

Well said OP and yes we need to organize and get political reform. Not paying for your children should be a criminal offense, punishable by huge fines or prison. And neglect by fathers should also be criminal and punished.

These societal attitudes - low standards for men and no respect for single mothers and all their hard work - feeds into a society that values women less. It's part and parcel of a bigger picture where VAWG isn't punished.

We really do need change.

Well done to all the single mothers actually caring for their children. It's unbelievably unfair that the fathers aren't forced to be responsible. If it was anything else -underpaying taxes for example - it would be cracked down on hard.

This is so sad and frustrating to read. Men are gross.
With only a few exceptions.
😑

I had to read that twice op- to make sure I didn’t write it.

im so with you.

my ex utterly refused to pay. He emptied his account and does cash in hand work as he ‘doesn’t want to give me a penny’ - That’s ok then
he owes the kids £5k but I doubt I’ll see that money

The cms do have the power to go into the NRP accounts and get money and they do take action which could result in being forced to sell assets, confiscate the passport or put them in prison

The whole 'single mother - irresponsible drain on society' narrative annoys me.

I agree, and it’s such a partial narrative when you consider public spending as a whole.

Single mothers are characterised as a drain on society when other sections of society that necessitate much higher levels of public spending are not seen in this way. Take the prison system for example, which costs a massive amount of money to run. And it is overwhelming men who commit crimes and are in prisons. Yet nobody ever talks about the massive drain men are to the prison (and justice) systems.

Being fucking furious and getting enough people together to force political reform.

Nope. That’s the tired old narrative that keeps men off the hook. Stop saying it.

They should hound these men. Not let them stop working and absolve themselves of responsibility. The US takes their bloody drivers license and then jails them if necessary. What doesn’t the UK care? Does Labour have any proposals in regard to sorting this travesty?

Let us start with those men in public life or who earn over a certain amount, say higher rate taxpayers. Including a former Prime Minister.

You're 100% spot on.

You chose to have a child. If you were daft enough to go into motherhood not expecting to do it entirely alone, whether that’s because DC father died or was an arsehole, that’s your fault. Always expect to be a lone parent, if you expect anything else you’re a fool.

100% correct. I’ve always said that if I hadn’t fed/housed/clothed etc DS then I would be considered awful and he’d be in care. Ex-husband did none of that and never even paid maintenance but that’s fine 😡 I was literally left holding the baby whilst he swanned off to his new life. He actually owes me thousands of pounds but I’ve got no chance of seeing it and the CMS don’t care it’s so unfair.

I know there are exceptions, but the impression get from a large number of men is that they're not particularly fussed about having kids anyway. I could be completely wrong, and I'm sure many will jump on this saying 'none of the men I know are like this', but it's a vibe I get. Many kids it seems are born because of accident followed by reluctance, or because the woman has a desire for them and it's more of an appeasement.

Totally and utterly agree.

however, knowing all of this it is even more important to drill it into our daughters the importance of having full security before having a baby. It won’t eliminate the chance of being left a single mum (before you come at me saying you were married 10 years and be still left) but statistically it VASTLY reduces the chance of being a single mum if the woman ensures she is utterly belt and braces with contraception (or of course no sec before marriage as was always the norm) and doesn’t have a baby without a wedding first.

I know this will be unpopular opinion but it seems an obvious way to give yourself the best chance of not ending up in the situation of OP.

won’t come at me saying it doesn’t always work I KNOW THAT I’m just talking statistically.

No one could blame you for having moments of bitterness OP. The different standards are insane!!

My ex tells anyone who'll listen that I don't 'let' him see the kids. I've tried for years to force him to parent! Well, not even parent really, but just care for them every second weekend and pay the child maintenance due. He earns 132k a year to my 52k a year but tells the boys he has no money and the money he does have he needs to spend on his girlfriend as 'that's what you do in a relationship' but it's ok because 'mum has more money than me'.

Any second I'm not with the kids is seen as selfish but he was dad of the year having them a few nights a fortnight. He has to work you know! At one point he said he couldn't have them during the week because his work weren't flexible but then he didn't want them on the weekend either because it's too expensive to entertain them.

He's obsessed that anything he spends money on doesn't benefit me, so anything at his place must stay there even a $1 toy autistic DS became attached to. He used to send them home naked rather than lend them some of his (hand me down from his sister) clothes.

Honestly the very low standards fathers are held to is abysmal, and blaming single mothers is horrendous. 'But you chose to have kids with them??!!'. The kids are here now, BOTH parents should be stepping up but no let's piss on the one who's hung around picking up all the slack.