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.

Totally agree. It's not that men don't want children. The biological drive isn't that easy to switch off, not across a species. Sure, there are some that actively don't, but I wouldn't say that's the root of the issue.

It's that some of them will only weather a certain amount of inconvenience when it comes to raising those children. That applies to general grunt work but also financially providing. That group want to pass on their genes but not to be responsible.

They probably do want children but with a woman who will be nearly completely responsible for those children - with the physical and mental load. A friend’s brother, always wanted to get married and had have children. And he got those things, a lovely wife, 4 gorgeous children. But what hasn’t changed that much is his party life style. He will still go out on a Friday night, come home trashed, have a hangover for the entirety of the next day. Same on any family holiday or festivities. He frequently goes away on lads holidays, and long weekends with his mates. All of this without his wife, because she can’t because she is looking after their four children, and the home, with the occasional help of her mother. He does love his kids, and when he does take them to the park, or similar, everyone gushes at what an amazing, hands on father he is. And yet, it’s all his wife work. She’s essentially a single mother but takes a lot of the credit. I have heard comments at how “maternal” she is, which I sometimes think is used to justify just plonking all the responsibility of raising children on the woman. But women being “maternal” is fundamentally just taking care of your own child. Surely “paternal” means exactly the same thing - just taking care of your own child.

It's because as a pp said, men don't have the same affinity with their children. They don't carry them for 9 months or push them out of their bodies. In evolutionary terms men are designed to proliferate their seed but not to stick around afterwards. I've also found over the years (I'm 67 so knocked around a bit) that men very easily compartmentalise their emotions in a way that women really don't understand. So if they've "gone off" the mother the children will be tarred with the same brush. Likewise, if they find a new partner they are able to close the previous chapter in their lives quite happily, including the children. It's also partly because they are selfish, again in a way that women will never understand. They put their own needs and wants first and, at the end of the day, children do not facilitate this.

Lots of men want kids but don't want the work hence my ex partnering up with someone who'll do the shite bits before doing 30%

If it WAS your dad, I'm really, really sorry! He was one cold fish! Ugh!

Because there are too many women ready to take on these hapless men. If woman were more choosy they would not be attracted to such men, then men would be forced into being more responsible or be alone. There are too many women that believe "the script" that men churn out.