Where are the fathers in these stories?

Oh this story has really stuck with me. She was a local mother. Oh the father was just an archetype narc asshole. The chutzpah he had to even speak out, as if he had something to say, something important, 'as his father', to add to the situation he himself was the very architect of! Fathers like him are criminals walking free.

You’re absolutely right - all the shit single mums have to put up with and the moral judgements - when THEY are the ones who STAYED/were abandoned, along with the children! (And were most likely treated like garbage and left in the lurch by their partners and husbands). So unfair.

Not surprised.

It’s an accepted norm that a man will leave, little is done about it nor is he particularly judged. Yet, if a woman decided to do it, she is judged way worse by all. Regardless if a woman stays or leaves, she is going to be blamed in some way.

I absolutely agree OP and hope lots of people complain to BBC, its very biased reporting.

I had an argument with a man on FB on a right wing page who was spouting "If you can't feed em don't breed em" argument. I pointed out that life isn't black and white and that circumstances can change due to redundancy , illness and men up and pissing off and leaving women in the lurch .

At a period of great stress my partner said he could just leave and help out when he could etc, and I said not if I left first.

He was gobsmacked. The thought hadn’t occurred that I might be the one to walk out the door and just leave everyone myself. (I wouldn’t)

Suffice to say the topic hasn’t be raised again.

Have you seen Katherine Ryan's bit on the praise she'd get if she were a man?

Yes and single dads looking after children on their own with no wife or partners are seen as hero's . I can remember once in my local rag an article praising a single dad on benefits on his own with 3 kids as a superhero . Hello 👋 women are doing this too day in and day out .

But that's exactly what the article is saying. The only was she could get help was by leaving her child at school so SS had to do something.

How awful that it is Lowe's to get to that point

Thanks, I did not know that. But still, it’s an incredibly low bar for him as an absent parent… ‘We will overlook your parenting responsibilities because you are already serving a long jail sentence!’

I remember that the judge thanked the boy’s uncle for bringing him to court - which is probably fair enough - but again it seems that absent fathers get overlooked or forgiven, substitute father figures get a lot of kudos whereas mothers are just expected to get on with it and are shamed if they don’t meet the required standard.

Well, no shame needed because I read the story and my first thought was the same too - despite years of working in a profession where I needed to be socially aware. It was only after a pause that I thought: ‘Hang on, what about the father?’

Yes.

Some act as if men don’t lie, pretend or put up a mask and don’t reveal themselves til much later or change their minds once a baby comes and even more so when there are issues beyond the parents’ control with said baby. Plenty of men want the title of father but don’t actually want to be a parent with plenty of people making excuses for them and shaming women for not having a crystal ball.

Too many stories where men have come out to be a certain way blindsiding people that have known them longer than their own spouses with a handful of people who met the person once or twice saying they thought they were off but didn’t say anything.

I think largely it's that mothers are much less willing to see their children suffer and go without than fathers are. The number of men who put their own needs and wants before their family's needs is quite large.

All the absent parents just say is you get benefits and me paying CM doesn’t change your benefits. This is how they justify it.

That was me in the 90s and 00s. ExH managed to wreck my life, ruin me financially from which I never fully recovered, build a career as he was a once a fortnight Disney dad, yet I was the one who was villainised and blamed by society.

Should journalists ask these questions?

A child with complex needs puts an enormous strain on a marriage and people are much more likely to seperate it's not a case of it being obvious a man would leave or not be up to it.

I don’t recall what the statistics are, but parents who have disabled children are more likely to have a relationship breakdown.
in my experience women are expected by society to be the main carer.

I have a teenage DC with complex needs and regular hospital and therapy appointments. There have been a number of times that my husband has taken DC to an appointment and the Dr or therapist will then call me to update me. It NEVER happens the other way around when I take him in. The thing that irked me the most was when his paediatrician wrote in her clinic letter that I’d been working and not taken leave during the school holiday… it felt as though she was calling me neglectful however I work part time so I was around but the bit that wound me up was that my husband and his working arrangements were not mentioned!

looking after a child with complex needs is relentless between the physical care and the high levels of admin required there are no days off.

i often think about the news story of that mother who killed her child. If I recall correctly it was during COVID when respite care had been disrupted for many families and I’m sure many were feeling that level of despair.

Also this.

Dh and I are similar, exacerbated by different parenting styles. In our case, and I suspect many others, I've found it easier (but not easy) to accept that dd needs a different type of parenting, an understanding that her more destructive behaviours are a result of her difference and struggling to cope than wilful naughtiness. He had a very strict upbringing, so he cannot let things go and choose his battles. When he's told to fuck off dickhead by dd, he's furious and wants consequences, which invariably make things much, much worse. Parenting a nd child is often counterintuitive to the things you're told in parenting manuals. We've discussed divorce, multiple times, but I've always been clear that if that ever happens, he'll still be doing 50% of the parenting. And then I worry that he "won't do it right" with dd and end up causing more damage. I wonder how many of these single women feel the same. Mothers generally do tend to have more patience, understanding, ability to change etc.

Add into the mix that when you have a nd child, you're more likely to have at least one parent who is also nd, it makes for really challenging family dynamics. Often nd parents (especially those who are impulsive as a result of undiagnosed adhd) struggle to coparent effectively. There is a huge lack of support for parents and families trying to navigate pathways, access appropriate counselling (which more often than not costs money) and essentially deal with a really shit situation.

Divorce in our case feels like the wrong decision, for pretty much all of us. Dh and I love each other, we generally support one another (despite our different parenting styles). But boy, it's really hard sometimes and I can understand why parenting a disabled child splits up so many couples.

I do find I have next to no sympathy for men like this. Who pop up to tell the press how devastated they are by the death of a child at the hands of its primary carer and typically her new partner but my first question is “but where were you?”

I am not blaming women for men’s terrible behaviour I am blaming women for their own choice to select a terrible man to procreate with (in the circumstances in which that occurs - which, in the case of absent fathers happens a lot).

There are a ton of fatherless homes in my community and most of the time Stevie Wonder could have seen that was going to happen. Even now my oldest niece is raising her daughter with very little input from the father and the only thing I am shocked by is why people are shocked. It was obvious that was going to happen and I realised that after seeing his photo (never mind meeting him.)

Social care funding was massively decreased under the conservatives. I work in social care and seeing the fallout from conservative underfunding has been like watching a slow serious car crash. Local Authorities met less and less EHCPs, with families struggling beyond belief.