to think a lot of men don’t actually want children as much as they say they do?

Whoever decides to leave first has the option of resigning from parenthood.

Everyone i know parents equally and chores equally but it probably does depend on where you live

My experience is the opposite, he wanted it, I had to be convinced to go along with it. We now have a 7 and a 4 year old and I still have my career, he went freelance from his to be the main caregiver for the school run etc. We did shared parental leave. People don’t understand it and feel he should get a ‘proper job’. He still earns a decent wage freelance and if that was a woman on a part time wage no one would bat an eyelid.

Someone said upthread that women don’t get the luxury of resigning from parenthood when it gets hard and I agree with that.

I've never come across a single instance in my life where parenting is truly shared equally. Even in custody arrangements that are ostensibly 50/50 - it's in time only.

It's illegal to pay women less for the same job. Women do cluster more in lower pay occupations but that's not quite the same thing. Childless women tend to earn more equally, then the motherhood penalty kicks in after kids often, not before.

My kids’ Dad left me with DC1 I was pregnant with DC2 for a much younger coworker.
He now has a toddler and they have just had an early miscarriage.
I can’t work out what category that puts him in.
He knows having kids is hard work but has gone on to have more.

I’d hadn’t a clue before DT’s were born - no one does

I think it's taboo to say it (so you hear it less often) but there's an awful lot of mothers who are uninterested in their kids too. I don't think it divides by gender tbh

Does any new parent have a good idea of what having a baby is really like? I certainly didn't and neither did DP.

I would imagine a lot of men like my DH say they want kids without having the slighest clue what is like.

I think lots of men do want children. Becoming a father gives a man more status. They just don't want the work that comes with them.

Perfectly understandable, I'm sure most women don't want the work either. We do most of it though it though, regardless of whether we want it.

TBF I think neither men nor women really know what's about to hit them with the level of work having children involves.

If a man was brought up with a mother doing all the parenting and a dad going to work and having a bit of fun with the DC at the weekends, they're idea of parenting is likely going to be carry on as normal with a bit of fun with DC at the weekend. So I wouldn't say they don't really want to be parents, just that they're expectation for the division of labour is likely to be very different to what most women would expect today.

DH wanted DC more than I did. I didn't want them at all at first but did eventually change my mind though I also know if I had married someone who didn't want DC then it wouldn't have been a dealbreaker either.

I'm glad I have DC but it wasn't a must for me. It was for DH.

Obviously yes. But as documented on here most men don’t initially present as arseholes.

Abuse/neglect/disengagement tend not to set in until a woman is captive.

If men advertised the fact they were feckless or unfaithful from the getgo they would never have sex.

If a dad is so useless after the first child why keep on having them

And why don't parents have discussions and set expectations before conceiving

The idea that you can “spot the bad ones/good ones” has always been smug, victim blaming nonsense.

Sometimes red flags are ignored or mistaken for something else. I do think women need to own the consequences of their decisions. Especially when they have more children with men who have already shown they are shit fathers.

Absolutely.

The idea that you can “spot the bad ones/good ones” has always been smug, victim blaming nonsense.

But it also takes as it’s starting point a set of assumptions about male/female relationships which is old fashioned and pretty depressing: that the man’s role is as a passive, uncomplaining provider who has to shut up and bankroll a woman who will prioritise having children over her partner’s wellbeing.

That model is less and less relevant today. For example as a sole breadwinner parent for many years I would have had no use for a man who wanted to bankroll me. (I would actively have avoided one.) And a man who doesn’t want children isn’t automatically an arsehole.

This is why working and having your own income is the only genuine guarantee for women who want children. A good, reliable and committed man is a massive bonus but it shouldn’t on its own ever be the premise or the guarantee for having children.

I think we need to be more honest about the fact that for women that do feel the drive to have babies a significant proportion of them will be doing so with rubbish dads. The fact that there's a shorter time limit on fertility for women doesn't help either.

I've seen lots of threads that blame women for choosing the wrong men and claiming that it's possible to work out who the bad ones are based on prior behaviour. I'm not always convinced that this is true or that there are enough of the good ones to go around anyway.

This

Usually they are expected to do both (as is the mother often).

But while working mums are expected to come with earning plus primary care responsibilities men seem to struggle with the idea of combining them.

Most of them understand in theory that its no longer acceptable to work eight hours and bugger off to the pub while their partner works and manages the domestic load. So even the most regressive bloke nowadays seems to be capable of programming a washing machine or taking the bins out when asked to do so.

But they still seem very bad at the project management element of child raising and still mainly default to assuming that the mother will do the thinking and planning. I think a lot of them think its more than they signed up for. Hence the “mental load” debate.

I'm lucky in that my parents were equals when it came to both wanting and then caring for me and my sister. If anything, my dad was maybe even the more involved parent, as he was the SAHP in the early years as he was dyslexic and only qualified as a labourer type jobs where as my mum was more able to do better paid/skilled work. My dad is the absolute best parent in the world (mum sadly passed in 2010) he's actually carer for both of us, nothing is too much to ask, he adores us and would do anything for us.

Compared to friends i've had with shit or even totally absent dads, it makes me sad they'll never have the relationship experience with a father that i do.

I'd say it's nigh on impossible for men to want children in the same way as women do.

There's not the biological feeling or the societal pressure.

That's not to say they don't make good fathers when it happens, but I reckon the number of men that actual definitely want kids matches the number of women that definitely don't.