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

This is all great in hindsight but life doesn’t go that way. It shouldn’t be socially acceptable for men to be able to create families and walk away often in the most destructive manner whilst contributing bare minimum for their children. I know I’m reading a few comments of mothers doing this but it must be less than 5% judging by the comments on here.

You are right though it’s needs to be in schools or somewhere for women to get that having children is a 50% chance of going it alone but how it normally goes is you meet a guy think they are amazing and would never hurt you until one day they do. Even being married doesn’t stop it being shit being a single mum.

The worst part for me is just feeling like I’m looked down on whilst he isn’t. How it is so emotionally draining at times and I how I feel I need to have this energy and enthusiasm like I’m some sort of CBeebies presenter of cheerful gratefulness to have children I raise by myself. 😂

Why should we have to? That's the point. Why are we charged with the duty of compensating for male inadequacy?

It doesn't, so get off Fantasy Island and join the real world. Most of the time you don't find out how useless they are until it's too late. It's easy to seem like a good guy when there aren't many responsibilities and stressors. They start to show their true colours when the first child arrives. They may not be useless enough to leave them for it yet, plus you're too frazzled by raising a child while holding down a job to do much but get through the day. Then more responsibility comes in the form of another child and the man gets worse. Each new responsibility brings out his essentially worthless nature more and more. He becomes increasingly lazy and nasty. He cheats. The marriage breaks down. He's not hiding who he really is any longer because he doesn't care about keeping the relationship. Then once you split up, he's giddy with his freedom from responsibility and takes every advantage he can.
This is how it normally plays out.

Stop acting as if the world is teeming with good, reliable men and we can all have our pick of them.
Wake up and face reality.

If that's the reality, then marry before having children and never give up work. Have children knowing you're by yourself and make sure you can afford them.

The reality is that if you want children (and most women do) you are going to have them with somebody who is likely to be little more than a sperm donor when it comes to parental responsibilities, no matter how "nice" he seems. So the only way to avoid it is to not have children at all.
Stop acting as if the world is teeming with good, reliable men and we can all have our pick of them.
Wake up and face reality.

100%.

He sent them home naked?🤯
He's a lunatic!
Just when you've heard everything about these disgusting deadbeats, you hear some new horror.

I never had family support and although a mortgage free home owner it has always been a struggle. A bit easier now ds is working full-time and paying household money to me monthly. Plus I stopped running a car a year ago once his extra curricular activity stopped. I am lucky in that I work at home.

Those spoilt by family support generally come off better financially.

Apparently single parents have historically been the group that is more prone to poverty than any other demographic. No doubt due to their exes not paying enough maintenance and in many cases none at all.

Totally agree. It's a joke.

We need our legal system to stop supporting Disney Dad syndrome.

I’ve been going back to this thread a lot today. It’s truly depressing seeing how many women are in similar situations. I don’t know how we change this.

I had my exes mother sending me emails a few nights ago about how generous her son is for going through a solicitor to sort things spending lots of money on legalities and not taking their advice to cast us out of the family home and how I should basically in a nut shell be grateful and if anything how awful I am that he will be paying the mortgage whilst I now pretty much solely raise our children and when I make a dim more then the essentials I’ll be paying the mortgage on his house anyway whilst he will have the best of everything and the luxuries of life whilst avoiding all the hardships of parenting all together. How I will be signing something with the first paragraph stating to respect his privacy and especially new relationships. Within a few months I should be happy and stop being negative that he left us for the women he cheated on me with it’s insane I have had to bite my tongue for almost a year, ignore the nasty emails.

Within two weeks of her son leaving with his ‘breakdown’ aka affair she was here saying I needed to sort my daughters lisp out completely ignoring the elephant in the room and that what her son had been doing was so much worse. She is fine was due to her age at the time but goes to show what people say any school anything like dentist, doctors school clothes will always be on the mother and even another mother will also expect this of you 9/10 times. I have a business and now a part time job too but that means nothing to him working. He can’t do any school days as it would be too much on him and his family whilst I have no family support.

I feel angry for myself and others I’ve read on here. I’m hoping the anger goes soon still early days for me and seeing others a few years on letting go of what I’m feeling now gives me hope.

I am grateful my situation isn’t worse financially I’m really sorry there are mothers on here receiving peanuts it’s an absolute joke.

I haven’t done a Christmas as a single parent yet what do you guys do to make it easiest for your kids?

No no no no no no no

It's not up to me to have raised my girl to recognise a good owner of sperm.

It's up to men to step up in their parenting and finances, and being made to step up if they don't do it willingly.

DDs dad was a pretty decent dad and husband until his mid life crisis kicked in when DD was about 10. I "chose" well. His choices since that point have made him lose his daughter.

Total agree with the OP, Disney dads have no clue the cost of raising children and also the dent on our career not to mention all the mental load.
But yet it's always single mothers who are blamed and slammed for everything.

Did you read the OP?

Why did you not agree to a 50:50 custody arrangement?

It’s not the norm and it’s not socially acceptable in the same way. You know that.

IMO when women have children they are seen as a liability to employ. When men have a family they are considered more reliable - they need to provide.

bloke in a bar / on a beach sipping cocktails. Strapline: my kids cost me nothing - because you're picking up the tab.

I love this

Men get away with it because they can. Women struggle to cope and often end up claiming benefits to survive - which means 'society' is left to pick up the tab.
I don't think that putting feckless dads in jail will help - they'll just say it's decreased their earning power further and end up paying even less (if it's possible to pay less than nothing ...).
I think we need to make not paying socially unacceptable - and there must be ways to do it.

My favourite would be doing community payback - if you owe £100 then that's 5 hours unpaid work, sweeping the streets, removing graffitti, picking litter - whatever, whilst wearing a hi viz with 'feckless father' emblazoned on the back.

Also, how about an ad campaign? - bloke in a bar / on a beach sipping cocktails. Strapline: my kids cost me nothing - because you're picking up the tab.

What else might work?

Indeed. In the main, children make men more entitled and inadequate, not less.

Also... and I've said it a few times so apologies for repeating myself...

Most men are inadequate fathers. Very few pull their weight fairly.

It's a question of degree. Are they inadequate in the sense of not knowing the names of their kids' friends or letting their partner bear an unfair share of the mental load? Or in pissing off with another woman, grudging every penny spent on their kids and never seeing them?

It's a spectrum of inadequacy and "should do better", not a question of "adequate"/"inadequate" in most cases.

What we're really saying to women is not "don't choose an inadequate man" but "choose a less inadequate one".

I'm not sure I follow you exactly, but it depends on your ex's salary. A parent on min wage would be paying £2800 a year maintenance. A parent on median uk male wage would be paying £4500 a year in maintenance (both for 1 child, no reduction due to contact).

I reckon my kids cost about £6k a year for the basics - accommodation, energy, food, clothes, birthday and Christmas presents. So at a basic level, CMS should work out somewhere near half.

And what really annoys me is when the feckless absent fathers then decide to come back into their children's lives when they are older expecting to be welcomed (and often are) with open arms by their children despite having effectively abandoning them at the start of their early and vulnerable lives.

Exactly this - I made a similar point about the man being able to beetle off but the woman is neglectful if she's less than perfect.

Imagine how it would be if this were reversed and women would be the ones walking away (which they almost never would), there would be outcry and there would be goodness knows what in place - immediately - to make them support their children financially. No excuses and no leeway either yes

Sadly I don't think many men at all evolve past their teenage years. But we should expect them to. And it should be seen as utterly shameful and pathetic that men are not doing this and arent embarrased!

But when everyone excuses them or congratulates them on the bare minimum calling them a good dad for showing up once in a blue moon. They get let off the hook. Whilst everyone continues to blame women who are literally keeping the world turning picking up the slack.

They need to face consequences.