Mothers, fathers, children and the family heirarchy

Both DH and I are devoted to our DCs-but we have equal rights.

Exactly Ormirian-find out who you married first. Only have DCs
if he isn't a spoilt child and you love him to bits.
You get the partner first and he is central. Your DCs are a precious gift for a short time in your life. If you get it right they will come back all the time because they want to-and want their parents to have a loving relationship and not have the responsibility of the parent living through them.

I would die for my DCs, I wouldn't for my DH, that doesn't mean that I don't love him and he is the one I will be alone with for 30/40 yrs (depending on how long we live). My DCs will form stronger bonds with their partners and DCs than me-which is how it should be.
People seem to have no time for men.I have 3 lovely DSs, I assume that future partners are going to be with them because they love them to death and can't imagine life without them and any DCs are a spin off-not that they are a means to a baby and a minor inconvenience.

Lots of men feel left out when they become fathers and, IMO, mothers do well to remember that. I happen not to believe that children come first - children grow up and leave home. Your long term relationship is with your partner, not your children. Enjoy them, but remember that you are first and foremost a couple.

I think that generally mothers get custody and father is a weekend parent.I bet there are far more that way.

I'm not convinced about the 'generally the father moves out'

I think it's certainly the spin on it but I know at least 3 women who left the family home with the kids because they couldn't have afforded to keep it up on their income. And at least 2 where both parents moved out of the family home to new places due to costs, in both of those cases the mother and children have ended up moving around rented property with little security.

I don't think that's uncommon? I think it's probably only, erm how to phrase this properly, women from certain socio-economic groups who could afford to take on a dual income home either through their own salary or a combination of income and maintenance?

Of course our love for our DC never dies and it might for a partner. That doesn't mean that we don't set them free! We never control our DC, except as babies-by 'the terrible twos' they are exerting their will and personality. We can control our response, we can't control how they behave. They may think entirely differently, you may bring them up as a vegetetarian-there is nothing to say they will agree and follow-on any of your ideas.

I think that women get a good deal with separation-it is generally the father moves out. It is only now that father's rights seem to be addressed with joint custody rights.
I don't know why you would make the choice between partner and DC-it is almost as if there is only so much love to go around instead of it being infinite.
I promised to love DH 'until death do us part' and although I can see it it is conditional, hopefully I intend to be able to do just that.

In a blended relationship your DC comes first-it is a question of 'love me, love my DC' and if they can't do that you walk away. An adult can cope with heartbreak but a DC shouldn't live in a home where they are merely tolerated. I agree that you can't force love but if my DH treated our DCs differently from his step son I wouldn't have it. Fortunately he always says he has '3 DCs' and doesn't differentiate.

People know what their DH is like before they have DCs.Mine could cook, iron, sew etc and still does. He could change nappies, bath etc.

If people didn't have a DC until they had sorted out the work and parenting ideas they wouldn't have the problem.

I think that fathers should be equal and ideally if they separate they should have equal access. Put the DCs first and leave themselves out of it. It is at that stage that women think the DH should be the part time, visiting parent.

I don't know how you go from acknowledging that the relationship with your children is the closest bond you will ever have, to interpreting that as meaning that any mother who acknowledges that is destined to be a MIL from hell, Exoticfruits.

It's simply true what Sakura says; we love our children unconditionally but we don't love our husbands / partners in the same way; our love for our husbands may die one day, but our love for our children never does, even if our children turn out to be ghastly adults. Why are you uncomfortable about that truth? That doesn't mean we can't recognise that from the moment they start to become adults, we are far less important people in their lives, than they are in our's.

Mmm. Interesting. I didn't read Sakura's post like that.

I thought what she was saying that your relationship with your child is likely to be more long-lasting than your relationship with your child's father. Given the rate of relationship breakdown I'd have thought this was a statistical probability in fact, though I don't suppose there are figures available to see how many children are estranged from their parents.

On that basis, and given that the child/parent relationship tends to have more of an unconditional love element to it, perhaps it does make sense to treasure this relationship most. That doesn't necessarily mean you would expect your DC to reciprocate and put you before their own partners and children does it?

Then again, if you are in a happy, equal relationship then really you should never be in a position where you feel like you have to make that choice in the first place. I guess this is the most important point to remember about the whole argument.

How would this apply to blended families, which are increasing in number all the time? There are loads of posts on here where a woman is accused of putting her new relationship before her existing DC's happiness and things get even more complicated if she then has another child with the new man. That's not a rhetorical question BTW, genuinely wondering what people think of the dynamic in this scenario.

I think (unless I have misunderstood her) I agree that it is wrong to increase father's rights until we have made mother's rights equal.

How can we press for an increase in father's rights when we have not addressed those of mothers? I know we are not talking about separated families in this particular instance, but I think it is relevant to the argument. Women get a shoddy deal post separation. Not only have successive governments failed spectacularly to enforce child maintenance (3 out of 5 don't pay it) but the current govt is actively discouraging women for pursuing it by introducing charges to use the CSA. A feminist agenda would surely argue that this should be addressed before we start talking about father's rights?

Then again, I think one of the best ways to redress gender equality in the workplace at the same time as stopping men from abdicating domestic responsibility to their partners is by bringing in better paternity rights, and I think if more men were pulling their weight at home, relationships would improve anyway and relationship breakdown would decrease.

What does 'Women should retain full power over the kids' mean?

It means the problem MIL on here- who insist on almost being in the delivery room with DIL, who expect a key, will read post and rearrange drawers etc etc Read any MIL thread and you will find the problem with the woman who thinks she must retain her closest bond.

What does 'Women should retain full power over the kids' mean?

dunno exotic... you're children are your children for life.. and for many women it will be the closest bond they ever have with another human being

Of course they are your children for life but they will form closer bonds than you.They will have their own family and they will be be more important .Problems with MIL come when she tries to insist she comes first.

The thing that I want my DCs to have above all other is freedom and I don't want them thinking they couldn't move to Canada because I would be upset. (I would be upset but I wouldn't burden them with it).

The best you can do for them is live a wide, fullfilling life of your own and not make them dependent for your happiness.

I also think to myself.. there is no way women should give up the control they have over children until men start to throw us some crumbs first

The one thing that you should understand is that there is only one person in the world that you can control and that is yourself. Your DCs are people in their own right, yours for a short time. If you do the job of parenting well they will always want to see you.

Mine will always be 'my babies' and the bond couldn't be closer but they will have stronger bonds with DPs and their own DCs-they will and should come first. They have just such a strong bond with their father. There is room in life for lots of love, loving one doesn't take away from another.

I wouldn't have had DCs with someone who was 'going to throw me crumbs'(whatever that means) we are equal partners-the DCs are expressions of that love-the relationship was there before them and will remain long after they have gone from the central position i.e. out of the home.

But children are people, sakura, not just objects over which someone or other has power.

Children love having close relationships with their fathers, and every mother I have ever known has wanted their partner to take a proper role in looking after their children, including of course the shittier bits.

I also think it's rubbish to say, " well give up the children, then we'll give you some power.. you have to give if you want something from us.."

because it's women who are disenfranchised and subordinate and so the only way that position is going to change is if we demand our birthrights back... control over society, how it is run, the budget, our sons (the military) etc...

We're not going to bargain with our kids, sorry, not after everything men have done to us over the millenia and are still doing today.. killing their wives and kids left right and centre, wars, porn ,trafficking etc. Men are really the worst oppressors imaginable.

Women should retain full power over the kids THEY carried and gave birth to... that's the least men can do... if they try to make "deals" with women over their kids or pull these Fathers4 justice stunts then it proves they're not serious about women

I also think to myself.. there is no way women should give up the control they have over children until men start to throw us some crumbs first.

And quite frankly they haven't thrown us anything in the grand scheme of things.
If women are invested in getting men to share their children 50/50 then they might be in for a shock when they realize that society already thinks all fathers are heroes, even the ones who do fuck all, and all mothers are found wanting even if they're saints.

Women are going to hand over their children without any obvious returns ... men are still going to hold all the economic and political power in their hands, except they get the fun parts of being with the children too. It's win-win for men, and lose-lose for women as far as I can see.

Men would absolutely love to still have the sheer amount of military, economic, social and political power that they have plus the power to take away women's children when it comes to divorce because they "helped out"

dunno exotic... you're children are your children for life.. and for many women it will be the closest bond they ever have with another human being. All this stuff about women suffocating their children... well I've realized it all comes from male psychologists who have had a vested interest in severing the mother-child bond... because severing that serves patriarchy in a lot of ways.

So I think heterosexual pair-bonding and putting all this effort into working on the relationship is a waste of time... You might grow apart anyway, or one of you might meet someone else... and then you would have put years of energy into a man when you could have been having a blast with your kids or friends instead.

Kids leave, that's inevitable yes... but as long as a mother has other things in her life, such as fulfilling work, good friendships, then she won't suffer from empty nest syndrome...

Nothing wrong with putting most of your eggs in the "partnership" basket, but it shouldn't be frowned upon if a woman decides that her children are the No 1 priority in her life.

But maybe it does matter to the child? Or to the household running smoothly? If it's difficult for (taking a standard house situation JUST as an example) a mum who's returned to work after mat leave to get out to work because her partner who's now staying home 2 days a week won't take her advice based on her experience then it does matter to that family and to her directly.

Would he refuse to listen to more experienced workmates? Or a sports coach if he wanted to learn a new skill? Why will a grown man (or sometimes woman) then allow him/her self to ACT on feeling hurt and pushed out because their partner has more experience in this area? How do we deal with that issue rather than once again blaming women in general for it? (I totally agree about the parental leave thing, but don't think it's a magic solution)

You're right about that, ana - sometimes I did know better due to having figured out what worked. And the clever thing to do was not jump in that very moment with "NO! do it LIKE THIS!" (am not usually tactful) but to mention, in passing, later, "hey, something that worked well for me yesterday was..."

it IS annoying that you have to protect the ego with tact, but then, it's the same for me. DH has often been the one who knows something cool that I needed to learn, and I hate being told "Don't do it that way, he doesn't like it. He likes this way better" because it makes me feel like a fool and a bad parent.

Because of breastfeeding, when DS was very little I always had a magic way to stop him crying. DH didn't have that and so had to learn other things to do the same job - which meant that DH could swaddle, shush, sway and sing better than I ever could in the first four months.

The other side of the 'can't do it right'/incapable thing is that there sometimes IS a 'better' way to do things though.

If I started a new job, and someone else had been in sole charge of one task or set of tasks, and had a way of doing them all really smoothly - I wouldn't come in and take offence if they tried to help me by sharing what worked for them.

Which is different to both parents learning to parent from new. And yes, over time in a new job I might find that actually doing xyz works better for me than doing abc, but I wouldn't assume I knew it all from the start if I had no/far less experience.

blackcurrants - absolutely agree that lots of this phenomenon is down to the fact that there is no sensible period of paternity leave.