Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Yet another absent father blaming 'the system'

127 replies

ScarlettSarah · 04/03/2026 17:01

I'm tired of hearing it. That poor child. It's heartbreaking.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9v079zpmvmo

Yes, the dad was working away, but he knew perfectly well things weren't right with his estranged ex-partner, and I struggle to believe he couldn't have done more in this situation. As if a woman would be working away in those circumstances.

AIBU to be sick of hearing this sort of stuff from men, who are held to such low standards in parenthood? The other classic examples I can think of is when a child dies in the custody of its mother (and sometimes a stepdad) and the biodad is looking sad all over the news while when you dig deeper, you realise most of the time he wasn't doing what he should have done as a dad.

A man wearing a black North face jacket stands next to a teenager with grey trousers looking out to sea on a grey day.

My son lived in squalor with his dying mother - the system failed him

Leo came to Scotland for a better life but ended up living in squalor in a house surrounded by empty bottles and takeaway containers.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9v079zpmvmo

OP posts:
igelkott2026 · 04/03/2026 17:09

That has reminded me that I saw something yesterday about people going on some sort of register like the sex offenders' register if they neglect their child.

Does that mean if the mother neglects her child (eg going clubbing and leaving her baby in a cot at home) that the absent father will go on the register too?

LoveWine123 · 04/03/2026 17:07

I don’t know the full details of this case but I think both things can be true - he can be a shit father and the system also failed his son.