Why does it seem that so many men don’t care about their children?

[heirloom]

Time and time again I read scenarios where men just drop out of their children’s lives. I can’t fathom how they can care so little about their own children? For example after a divorce, spending years as their father, and poof! Off they trot, rarely or never to be heard from again.

Well I think society plays a part with how fathers are viewed. My ex isn’t involved at all fully absent doesn’t see our children but people have told me how “lucky” I am that he isn’t involved (I say people but it’s always women telling me I’m lucky he isn’t around) like it’s a positive thing? 🤔

Look at how much child support is owed to the main parent/children in this country and you’ll know everything you need to about how society views single parents and one parent children.

I forget the figures but I read ages ago how many children would be lifted from living in poverty if child support were paid as it should it be and it was (for the lack of a better/stronger word) upsetting.

And that’s without looking at how single mums are spoken about but the absent dads… not vilified. The other way around… single dads are hero's and the absent mums are torn apart.

Sorry for derailing the thread a bit there op but as the child of an amazing single mother I get a bit annoyed about the whole issue!

No you make excellent points.

I looked up the CMS stats and they are:

31% pay nothing of what they owe
23% paid something but not the full amount owed
46% paid over 90% of what was owed

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/child-maintenance-service-statistics-data-to-march-2024/child-maintenance-service-statistics-data-to-march-2024#paying-parents-and-the-collect-and-pay-service

Thankfully a good percentage of me do care about and love their children but it does seem that too many of them don't and it is a horrible thing to contemplate.
Your post reminds me of a section on a radio show I heard decades ago in the 90s, where a man was being interviewed because he openly admitted that he did not love his own children. I can't remember much more about it because I was so sickened by that and his blasé, callous attitude as he was talking about them. He had no shame whatsoever. I was also baffled by the the interviewer, a woman, as she seemed to be too soft with him. I thought she should have challenged him more.
Ultimately, I thought he was a horrible person but very much an exception. With experience I now think men like him are not as rare as they should be, and that's frightening to me!

Open a dating profile and put on there you’re not willing to dating men with children and you’ll see how many men don’t love their children. Numerous men had a version of ‘I technically have children but I don’t see them or give their mum money so it’s like I don’t have children’. If you reply to say you’re not interested in men who have children they’ll usually follow it up with a chorus of ‘my wife tricked me into having them so really I don’t have children because it wasn’t my choice’. Yes, ‘them’, they were tricked by their wives into having more than one child.

I think some men want the benefits, and maybe the kudos, of being fathers but without the hard work and level of self-denial that mothers have to be able for. The "Disney Dads" and the ones who regard their children as mere extensions of themselves rather than unique human persons who need to be loved and cared for selflessly.

Because men are innately selfish, they primarily think only of themselves and do what suits them above any and everyone else.

I think a massive chunk of hormones and socialisation.

Going through the menopause is revelation in his your nurturing levels drop and suddenly it's much easier to be selfish! Also helps if your DC are older teens and above.

I think men feel a lot more like that throughout parenthood.

In my experience Dad's aren't pushed out. They refuse to step up then play the hard done by innocent party when the relationship breaks down.

I think a lot of men didn't particularly want children in the first place. At best they were ambivalent. Children were seen as an occupational hazard of being in a long term relationship/marriage.

• Because they allways put their own needs first
• Because society allows them to do that. It is always expected that the woman will pick up the pieces and raise the kids
• Because some men just don't want kids but go along with it to please their partner, so when the relationships ends, they have no reason to pretend anymore
• Because too many women still have kids with men who have already shown themselves to be totally useless fathers with a previous family.

For most men there are no consequences to walking away. I'm sure there are mothers that would walk away if the same was true for them.

Yup, children are just an outcome of wanting sex.

I also think this. When men walk away, most of the time they know their DC will be extremely well cared for by their mother...I do wonder if more women would walk away if the father of their DC would provide comparative care.

There's a broad spectrum, but I think these men have less access to understanding and connecting with the emotions of others, and the primary focus is their own emotion. Or have an inability to express or explain their own emotions. Maybe the first group are more self, less other, while the second group are 'I'm not good enough, I'm not wanted, they will be better off without me'. I'm thinking about empty nesters - I know from experience Dad's who feel it deeply, but don't make any effort to stay connected. It's expected that the other will make the effort. I think it's biological, on a broad spectrum, so we can't over generalise, and maintained by culture.

I am in my 50s. I have known 2 women who walked out on their kids. 2. And i used to be a divorce lawyer so spent my days dealing with family breakdowns. The sort of societal horror people had for the women was quite extreme. But men doing it rarely if ever attracted comment.

I think at the end of the day alot of men are just arseholes. and they are allowed to get away with it.

It wasn’t my dad was it ? 😂

I wonder how many decisions to conceive were really thought through and considered by both people in the couple, or were more of a "whoops"?

Not that it excuses men from taking responsibility, either for contraception or their children. And I'm sure there are plenty of examples of deadbeat dads who were properly involved in the decision to have children.

Society makes it far too easy for men to walk away, particularly financially.

ugh I'm blinded by apostrophes. And anecdotal irrelevancies.

Is that hard to understand with how shitty ex-husbands ruin women's lives by asserting control, whilst carrying on being shitty fathers at the same time?

Nearly half of all babies born are ‘surprises’ (it varies by country but that’s the worldwide figure). However, when people say their baby was a surprise it’s often not that big a surprise when hearing what happened eg there was a thread on Mumsnet a while ago about why you had your first baby and a lot of the ‘surprise’ babies were conceived through a lack of contraceptives or lack of knowledge around contraceptives such as the husband doesn’t like the feel of condoms, the wife was on the pill but had the flu and 2 months later she finds out she’s pregnant. Those anecdotes are often followed by something like ‘my husband wasn’t happy at first but I couldn’t go through with an abortion’. Then if the husband in that situation leaves society is supportive of him, usually with the phrase ‘if a woman can decide to have an abortion why does the man have to be forced to be a parent’.

I think a lot of men agree to have children to 'keep the little woman happy' and to keep their free housekeeper, cook and bedwarmer.

When a marriage ends, they aren't bothered, they just move on to the next potential house keeper.

I think initially there's a bit of 'proving their equipment works' as well.

All the biological essentialism on the first page just serves as an excuse for inadequate and neglectful fathers.

It's socialisation. If society held men accountable they would step up. Women are not naturally more caring, selfless, or empathetic.

Because they can.
Society permits it (supported by weak legislation) and vilifies mothers who do the same.
Whilst also vilifying single mothers.

Lots of people regret having kids and if they had a time machine might change that decision.
For men it’s like they actually can go back in time and pretend it never happened.

We’re really not helping women by telling them they’re genetically programmed to be martyrs.

I can think of literally dozens of dads who have abandoned their dcs as soon as their relationship with their dcs' mother ends.

I'm 61 and I only know on one mother who abandoned her children.