To not believe no dad is better

And you think that’s better than say a sperm donor or a one night stand you can’t ever contact again?!

Can you imagine what this child is learning about relationships - about how it’s okay to let the people you love down, that that’s what it means to be ‘someone’s world’. It sets a low bar for what they’re going to accept in their future relationships.

Yeah but I didn’t say that. I said it’s shit having no dad, and it’s shit having an unreliable dad. Both are shit.

Well probably best not to take what other people say on threads as gospel, because it will entirely depend on the family and circumstances. For many families, just not telling them that their dad is coming isn’t going to work.

How do those threads deal with the fact that you may not tell them, but chances are their dad will?

OP don't base it on what other mums have said, base it on your children. Talk to them about it, and ask how it makes them feel. If they say it's nice to see their dad every few months that's fine. But if they find it unsettling because you can't give them advance notice, then tell your ex that. He needs to know if his behaviour impacts the children.

I would say if he's completely absent, you still need to do the work to help them deal with this. It's not like an absent dad is good. It's just LESS bad than one who breaks their hearts fresh every week/month/year.

Everything you described - the inconsistency, the rejection and unreliability ARE forms of abuse - emotional and physical neglect don't need to be intentional but they have significant and long lasting impact on children.

A crap dad would be one who you see regularly but feeds you pot noodle every visit and shoved you on your tablet, forgets to pack up your stuff so you don't get it back until the next time you see them.

It will be completely dependent upon so many factors. What the dad is like, how often he comes and goes, what the mum is like as a single parent, whether there are other family members around.

My dad died when I was a toddler. I've spent many years wondering how my life may have been different. He sounds like a wonderful man, but he also had severe mental health problems and an active hars drug problem. Could my life have been better for him just being in it? Or could I have been exposed to things which would steer my life off course? There's simply no way of knowing.

What I do agree with is that is it helpful for children to have good male and female role models and support in their life. I didn't have any male figures in my life and I feel my life was poorer for that.

Well, it's not good advice. To suddenly and erratically spring unexpected visits/outings with Dad on children with no warning would be very destabilising for most.

Fathers need to stick to consistent schedules; if they can't and constantly fall through, then they shouldn't see the child. Children need emotional stability.

Of course no Dad is better than an abusive Dad, same for a dangerous abusive mother, the longterm impact of bad parents far outweighs an absent parent.
It is no fault of the children, I’m sorry your children are suffering from their feckless father.

I tend to agree op.

It can be hard to come to terms with an inadequate father, but at the same time, kids gain something from knowing their father.

If he loves them, even if he is inadequate, they recieved thf live but see something important about the limits of just love.

If he's kind of a self centered twat, that's very hard, but I think what kids see is better than what they imagine, in that case. Because once they get to their teens most kids clearly see that they are not the problem, the twat is the problem.

If they have nothing to do with him, they can imagine dll sorts of inaccurate scenarios.

You are confusing the word "better" with "good".

Of course children with an absent parent suffer. It is NOT a good outcome for them to have no dad. There will be trauma, and emotion, and confusion that they will have to navigate, hopefully with the help of their mum.

But the suffering, and the ability to manage it, is, in most cases, likely to be easier and better than the suffering and ongoing pain they will feel with a father who is inconsistent, or unkind (but not abusive) or whatever.

The former allows the child to deal with that trauma and manage it and move on from it in a relatively consistent, straight(ish) line. The latter is a constant push-pull, confusion, hope-to-despair pattern that is very hard to navigate and deal with.

I had a very inconsistent and unreliable dad. He used to let me down more then he didn’t. Wouldn’t show up when he promised he would etc. it’s left me with huge issues around rejection and abandonment and done more harm than good. I would have preferred him not to be around as these issues affect me still now

I had a neglectful and unreliable father, and a sexually abusive stepfather.

No father figure at all would have been highly preferable.

I have no dad and never had a step dad. I have almost no male influence in my life growing up, until I had male teachers in secondary.
I believe this statement was true in my case. I had a happy, stable childhood and knew I was loved and wanted. Several friends had half in half out dads, were constantly moving between houses, had new partners and their children introduced on a. regular basis, and it was crap by comparison.

Having had a crap Dad I disagree
One of the worst things for me was the inconsistency and never knowing which version of him we would get on any given day
I used to hope that my Mum would leave him so we could have a nice stable life without him
Looking back my life would have been better with no Dad, although given that it was some time ago there would have been a certain stigma attached to that I imagine- would have been worth it though

Simplistic rubbish. I swear, how did you type that with a straight face? So how does that work when the dad himself says them he'll be round on their birthday, or at the weekend? And they do that. They love to see their little faces light up. They aren't there when the children are crying themselves to sleep.

No you are wrong entirely. Missing out on something you SHOULD have altogether is significantly preferential to repeated emotional battering. You learn to live with the status quo but if you can never get your bearings because you are constantly built up and let down or constantly made to feel neglected, unwanted etc ... wondering what exactly about you makes you so undesirable.
If you have never known your dad then you know that they didn't abandon YOU because they didn't know you.

Why dont you concentrate on your specific situation, and not generalise about everyone else’s?

You can’t generalise OP.

My Dad left when I was 2, worked abroad for a few years, then came back and visited every other weekend until I was 14. He then met wife number 3, who didn’t like kids, so he stopped coming.

For me, it was better than nothing. I was happy to write to him instead, and whilst I felt sad I didn’t see him, it was still better than nothing.

My brother didn’t cope well with the rejection at all. It contributed to his depression and suicide. From my brother’s perspective, it would probably have been better to have never known my Dad at all.