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

Once a women marries a man already with children the step children appear to have live in a 'box' and only pop out when it suits, until the next child comes along then the original children are an inconvenience 'he is mine now and does what I say' it's all really weird and as usual the children suffer

But realistically, what man 'tricks' another woman to have babies, when they have no interest, are useless fathers from the beginning and then leave? Absolutely they should be paying their share, but it's simply not true that the man in the relationship is pressuring to have the kids. (Except in an abusive relationship where he may want to trap the woman). Genuinely not trying to be argumentative, but I don't think people are being honest and until they do, this will continue.

But that's why MN is so hypocritical. It's very unfair to stepchildren, so from that perspective if you're the second wife it's absolutely ok for the father to be a shitty parent to his other kids

The US has it's faults but fathers can't even buy a donut until they have paid their alimony.

Accountability. It's starts there.

Absolutely agree with the op.

There are countries where daycare is heavily subsidized.

This means that ALL children, regardless of class or economic situation have access to well managed, regulated daycare. Good food. Regular exercise. Language acquisition. A learning system. Socialization. Play. Etc

Because of this, it enables women (and men, but let's face it, men are usually higher learners so return to work and leave women at home as primary care givers) to return to work. Which means they retain their independence, and financial stability.

WHY are more women not protesting against the daycare system in the UK???

Why not??? It's completely detrimental to women.

(And children also in some cases, as there are a lot of kids who fall by the wayside who are not placed in the education system until aged 4).

It’s such a shame, we need to educate us women on how not to accept this neglect.
it’s a huge long term imbalance. Not only from the men that walk away from their responsibilities but also some men that stay with partners and kids are still not picking up or sharing the load.
A lot of women are left without support to keep building on their own working life, career and financial earnings.
They are not left with pleasant choices but to keep going and in the end they can feel like a failure amongst partners that have kept building themselves.
I would have appreciated to have my own earning, confidence and liberation but instead have to appreciate that I fall under my partners protection from his financial achievement since we started family life. Sadly there have been occasions where he has remarked negatively directly to me about why I haven’t built myself as there are many other women who have after having kids ect

The whole "Fathers for justice" thing was responsible for a lot. Mothers have lost every single bit of agency they had.

I agree. Men's input to fathering is seen in terms of "anything is a bonus".

It's grossly imbalanced. When they walk out of a family, the mum is invariably left to pick up the pieces.

The law should be more balanced.

To the posters who believe all of us that have ended up as single mothers are to blame for our own downfall what about our children? We aren't asking for sympathy for ourselves we are simply outraged that out children suffer because of these men. I would guess none of us had children knowing they would be emotionally abused and financially disadvantaged by their own parent. I'm not really complaining about the impact being a single parent has on me, I'm more concerned by the impact it has on my children.
I have an older child and I co parent with her father with few problems, we are amicable and he pays maintenance of a fair amount consistently and also splits the cost of anything additional, we work together to parent her. This shows me it is possible to end a relationship and still be able to Co parent effectively. This also lulled me into a false sense of security as i wrongly assumed all men behaved like this. My ex husband has sadly shown me the other side of how men can be and since that has happened I've realised it's probably more common than it is to have a decent ex. Ultimately all I care about is my children's well being and I find it very sad that their other parent doesn't feel the same way about them.

I’m in my 50s but my mum was a single mum from when I was 4 years old. She worked full time from when I was 18 months old. I was at nursery full time. My nanna picked me up from nursery and school always.

My dad lived across the road from the school. I didn’t have a key to get in to his. Nanna fetched me and kept me until mum got home at 6pm.

Dad paid mum £1 a week for me and my DSis.
Some people might think £1 was a lot in 1976. It wasn’t. A jelly sweet (cola bottle) was 1p so he basically paid her the equivalent of 100 cola bottles for 2 children for 7 days. That was for all clothes, shoes & food. No after school clubs or activities as they weren’t a thing.

When he took us on hols he stopped paying the money. Dad bought us both a coat once but wouldn’t let us bring them back to mums and eventually gave them to our younger half brothers.

Generally, it is absolutely true.

The uptake of shared parental leave is poor.

This isn’t true. Plenty of men take the shared parental leave in my industry now (financial services).

Who are the 5% who think you are being unreasonable? The men who don’t want to pay for their children?

I’m with you, OP. I have an ex who won’t pay a penny and I don’t dare go to court as I value having so much more time and don’t want to lose it. So I just pay. I do find it very interesting how upset he gets if I mention on a school what’s app group or to our child that I pay all the school fees and expenses. I would encourage women to speak about this and shame them as much a possible. Truth is a complete defence to defamation so they can just suck it up.

I was very shocked on a previous thread where a stepmum said that her husband had his children (from a previous relationship) every other weekend and one evening a week and that this was "enough".

Couldn't believe that. Don't think her husband's ex would agree that he was doing "enough". And I'm not sure the children would agree, either.

(As a separated dad, it would kill me to only see my daughter that often).

I totally feel your pain OP. When I separated from my exH he totally opted out of all parental responsibility only seeing our children if/when it suited him. He then dragged us through the family courts once I refused to support his adhoc parenting and attempted to gain sole custody. He lost and hasn’t seen them for six years. He stopped paying child support and only began again once I took him to court. He has done absolutely nothing for our teen DDs. These men are just deadbeats …

Yes why is the narrative not absent, selfish fathers.

So why did you choose to have a child with a man like this?

If your salary is under the £100,000 threshold you should be claiming 85% of the nursery costs through UC. That would cover 4 full days of nursery per week with most nurseries.

Shouldn't all 50/50 child care maintenance include the actual costs of childcare?

I think she's currently setting a terrible example.

She's pregnant with a man she's known less than a year, and has blended families with him. The worst thing I saw her say was how well her kids were taking it and how wonderful it all is because really, they're just little adults (WTF).

Her content and podcasts are just so negative about parenting. Even before divorce.

I think her new reality, with her well off new partner and blended family is very far removed from everyone else's reality in this thread. But that won't stop her monetising it in some way. She was a co-parent for about 5 mins.

I'm not entirely convinced she single handedly changed the flexibile working legislation, but she certainly likes to make people think she did it alone.

I'm sorry, I'm not usually so negative about someone but I wouldn't trust this message with her. I know it's not a race to the bottom, but I really don't think she represents the majority.

My friend has a Disney dad in an ex partner. She worries about the kids thinking he's the fun one, but I'm pretty sure that eventually, maybe not right now, but in time, they'll see him for what he is. And they'll see what she had to do. I think as long as you keep things civil as best you can, then they'll draw their own conclusions.

On a society level I angry because unhappy or stressed families impact their children who are friends with mine.
Personally I refuse to nod and smile at Disney dad anecdotes. A rare trip to Thorpe Park is nothing compared to the daily school run.

Yesterday I called out my mum, who found it amusing and indulgent that my newly single 50 year old brother couldn't clean a bathroom. 35 years too late on that one. Thankfully he never had kids but he has consistently not pulled his own weight in all long term relationships. Apparently mummy's little prince is not to blame. Just bear in mind that this fresh to the market bachelor could be your colleague or boss at work. It infects the whole of society.

Oh no why not? Must be something I've missed, I've only seen the outskirts of the flex appeal that's finally come into action.

I’m not sure that’s relevant to whether a dad should be required to take responsibility for his own child. Plus I don’t see any women here playing the victim, they’re all sticking around and taking responsibility for their decisions by raising their kids the best they can. Which is exactly what the dads should be doing.

There’s a baby/child and it exists because of both parents - both parents have responsibility for the baby/child and it doesn’t really matter what the decision making process to get to that point was.

It doesn’t matter if the mum ignored lots of red flags, the dad was there happily providing his sperm at the point of conception and any children resulting from that encounter are equally his responsibility.