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.

yes actually it IS hard to understand how people would think having a dead beat dad for your kids is lucky, he may as well be dead! not sure where the luck is in that. if i wanted to raise kids alone i would have used a donor. i didn’t have kids with the intention to raise them alone. it is not a good thing he doesn’t bother with them. people having rubbish or abusive exes doesn’t mean i’m lucky. luck is having a decent involved ex that cares about the children.

I wonder if it's men who aren't really involved in the intense caregiving of the first year or two, they somehow fail to make that bond?

The ones that left all the feeds and nights and nappies to the mum because she was on maternity leave and see their role as just providing and disciplining not caring.
For some reason then the relationship with the children is just an extension of the relationship with the mother and the fathers easily transfer that relationship on to the next girlfriend's kids.

Unfortunately there is some truth in the ‘women love children; men love women’ saying.

Society especially in my IME, working class society hold men to very little of no standards. If they’re not beating you up and down the street, then they are a good man. Could be emotionally abusive, cheating, absent due to work, hobbies but none of that matters of outwardly they stay with their families.
Men have to be called out on their behaviour.

I suppose i9t is biology, as it is with most if not all mammals.

Anyway, I am glad to say that both my brothers have been/still are great dads. No talk of baby sitting their own kids for instance and they both changed nappies and cooked for their kids, chauffered them about, went to school plays and concerts etc.

My DH does more than 50/50 of childcare with our daughter, adores her, and says that if we ever split he'd want as much time as poss - but we'd probs go for 50:50 custody.

Lots of Dads adore their children. My granny was also abusive to my mum & siblings so it's not as if all mums love their kids either

I think a lot of the ‘but my DH loves his children’ miss the point a bit. It isn’t that they don’t love their children, it’s that the love is through you as the mother. If that bond with the mother is severed it affects the relationship with the children too. It shouldn’t but it does.

This. Women (not all women, I've seen some terrible mothers through my job) tend to put their children first, before themselves. My EH could not fathom that now he was a father he had someone else to consider.

It’s partly because there is a lot more expected from the mother, than the father, when it comes to child rearing, and as a result they feel that they don’t have to be involved as much, and always expect the woman to be the main child care provider. Look at the language we use everyday, when it comes to dads, and what they do in the family. “Oh what an amazing father, he’s taken his children to the park!”. What, I take my kids up the park every day, no one’s told me that I am an amazing mother? Or “you are so lucky, he’s helping you with the kids!”. What, he’s their dad. He’s not helping, he’s doing his job as the father. Or “ is hubby babysitting tonight?. No he’s taking care of his own children. And so on, expectations for the dads are so much lower, and they get praised for doing the bare minimum. Maybe this makes it easier for men to walk, as the expectations are so low for them, and that the woman are automatically, and always the main care giver.

Oh think it must be something in primative dna like wandering off to ensure the gene pool isn't small?

@OneDandyPoet Indeed.

For many men the relationship with their children is dependent and tied to the relationship they with the mother. Men don't face consequence for lack of involvement. I know a woman who a children with a violent and absent father, however, the should would bring the children to visit their grandfather and his wife. This grandfather has lots of different children with different women and was never involved in any of children. However, you will often find him posting his grandchildren on Facebook and him saying how grateful to have legacy and how his genes will live on etc. This man was no where to be found when his own child was going through a mental health crisis. And his wife is a strange woman to marry a man with so many children. Men behave this way because there is no accountability and a lot men viewing fathering as passing on their genes.

This is true. I have talked many times on here about how DH travels for work alot, cumulatively about 3 months of the year. I am home with the DCs one of whom is very high needs. Last year i was abroad for work for a single week. DH had one neighbour bring a casserole around and was invited to dinner with the DCs another time with another neighbour in order to help him out. NoOne has EVER suggested they help me out. I have never asked for help, and neither has DH who is as bemused by it as I am.

Very true, as a mid wife told my Gran when my mum was born "the cows in the field make better mothers"
My Great Aunt, who i never met, buggered off in the 1940s, leaving her husband and my Grandparents to bring the children up.

A close relative raised his DD on his own after his partner died, but someone else i know, in a similar situation, handed the child to the grandparents and went shagging, women threw themselves at him in sympathy, plenty of married ones too, has a new family, has little to do with his original child now.

I just think that our society raises expectation on to women and yet has very low expectations of men, the adversarial nature of divorce doesn't help either: another friend of mine had to fight tooth and nail to get joint access to his son, the courts just took the mothers word as God and his as false.

Having said all of that, my Dad fucked off abroad when i was 6, (thank God) never seen or heard from him since and jolly glad of that too, he was a cunt & i hope he died a very painful death.

I wonder if those early days and months are absolutely key here? 🤔. Makes complete sense to me that men that aren’t bonded to their kids can just walk away in a way that men who have spent valuable time caring for their babies, cannot.

Perhaps? Apart from the actual birth and breastfeeding, a woman is no more in the know on how to take care of a human infant, than a man, and yet the men themselves are kind of shooed away, and told that they just don’t know how to change nappies, that they can’t hear baby in the night because they are not evolved to hear its cries, that they don’t know how to properly bottle feed their child, that they are not able to look after a child properly for long stretches of time, because they know, they are not evolved like this and are not able to multitask. Unlike women, the mothers, who apparently can multitask, whilst looking after baby, house and husband, with hardly any sleep. This is further supported by the traditionalist and religious views on a woman’s role in the house and as a mother; “this is what women were born to do”, that they somehow are biologically imbued with the know how in rearing children just because she popped out a baby. It’s such nonsense and has excused men from just doing the job as fathers, properly for millennia. A child needs both parents to equally bring them up.

Also have to remember that until recently, if a couple weren't married and the mother died, the father had no parental rights.

My relative had to go to court to get these, as other family members tried to claim them.

He said to once "its womans world bring up kids, they claim everything for themselves"

My eldest actually once said "If he just died, our lives would be much easier. We could grieve and move on."

He does 'breadcrumbing' then craps all over them again.

Hence their choosing to see him infrequently. He's done a great job of being a shit dad.

I think it's much better in the Nordics where men have ti take parental leave or lose it. They get a chance to properly bond with their babies/toddlers for an appropriate amount of time. Most uk men take a few weeks if that off.

I thought my ex was a good dad but since we split, I’ve been shocked by how he’s been able to compartmentalise his life.

I’ve come to the same conclusion as pp that he sees parenting and nurture as my job and as he pays maintenance (an actual reasonable amount), that’s where his responsibility ends unless I chase him for specific help as if we were together. When we split he said all the right things about wanting to see the kids but he’s prioritised his new life and I suspect that he feels no guilt because he turned up to contact and paid very reasonable maintenance. I don’t know if he ever thinks about the fact that he knew his kids friends, what the kids like and dislike but now they are basically people that he used to know who have grown up. From the stories that my kids tell, he seems to treat them the same age as when he left when it’s been over 10 years and they are grown adults.

My ex was good when we were together. Then did very little for 3 years. Then he found a lady who can't have kids. Moved in with her and does 30 percent. He happily gets her to drop our child off at school on Wednesday and doesn't contact me or check he's OK til school pick up Monday. He does a little during school holidays but his partner always has to be off to help. Weak man. Funnily enough his mother walked out on her family.

This is spot on. Men know that their ex will carry on regardless and that society will accept the situation.
My brother is a seemingly nice enough person but has frequently not seen his kids for long periods of time. He knows he can come and go in their lives with no consequences. He likes the dc but cannot commit to the responsibility of anything regular. He puts his career, social life, holidays etc first. The wider family accept this.
His ex does a great job in my opinion but is the one judged as a young single mum! I imagine she would have loved the chance to put her self first and again but it isn’t possible.
I think their situation is sadly common and wildly unfair.

I think often men dont want children but they do want sex

This does work in reverse too, lots of women consider themselves the primary parent and absolutely expect the DC to be with them married or divorced. The family court expects 50/50 custody and many women think that's wrong.

I agree it's both biology and cultural/societal expectations. The bar is so very low for men indeed.

Why do we allow them not to financially support their kids at least? Even if they don't choose to see them. It makes me angry that so many men leave their kids in poverty and expect the state to step in when they should be taking responsibility.

I don't know any mums that have left their kids but plenty of dads who have done. My friends ex has a brilliant excuse for why he can't actually do anything useful like pick the kids up when ill from school. Wait for it ....... 'he works'. Because all of us mums don't have jobs to go to.

As a society we should treat dads that don't fully financially support their kids they way you'd test them if they told you they drink and drive. Most 'nice' people wouldn't want to associate with someone who would admit to that - and yet happily engage with men who are open about the fact they don't see/ support their children!