Lads need dads - the Lost Boys report

[osotroo]

I read this BBC article and it struck a chord. I couldn't see a thread on it here, so thought I'd start one:

BBC News - Lost boys report: Young men are in crisis due to fatherlessness - BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjd3jlee33yo

I have two boys, who are lucky to have a wonderful dad. I know many mumsnetters have sons who are not so fortunate, whether through bereavement, abandonment, relationship break-down, violence, or personal choice. In many cases, no father figure will be better than the default option. But what can society do to compensate? The obvious answer is more male teachers, more male sports coaches, and other activity leaders that can provide positive role models. What really saddens me is the "all men are bastards" attitude that is so common on these threads, because believing that can only make lives worse, not better.

I have done research champ. I've yet to find anything that supports your conclusions nor do they reflect my real-world experiences.

But given that you're not interested in anything that doesn't 100% support your wild-arsed accusations that appear to be borne out of nothing more than the MASSIVE chip on your shoulder, I'll leave you to your whining. I'm sure the red-pilled manosphere is much more interested in your paranoic pity party than I am.

[citation needed]

Do you want to go back to the days of kids being molested? Because that's what safeguarding is there to prevent.

Men like this should be mandatorily sterilised.

Well, telling women to develop perfect clairvoyance hasn't worked, has it?

@Dabhochh children have rights - to have a relationship and / or be supported by their parents. IF a court deems one of those parents incapable of being a positive influence in their child's life, they will not allow contact. I DO agree, that if contact is ordered it should be enforced BUT I have read plenty of case studies of children below the age of Gillick competence (12) clearly expressing their discontent at going to Dad's where they have no bed, no care given, just dumped in front of a TV or left with a step mum or step sibling. This is an area that courts can have limited input in a way that will actually match the circumstances.

I would ask you to consider this- being a single mum is HARD. You are juggling a job, or living on not very much in UC if you cannot work due to childcare. Everything is on you. Its not a status that most women take on lightly. If a woman has decided to go it alone and chucked out the dad, there is usually a pretty damn good reason. Maybe your group of men need to have a really good hard look at what they were doing prior to the relationship breakdown. Were they kind, affectionate, helpful, an equal partner? Or did they come in from work and assume that their part was done? Did they, like one bloke on here last week decide that crisps and chocolate was an adequate shop for his family's dinner? Did they assume that any time they put a wash on they were "helping" the mum rather than just participating in their own household? Did they keep up their own time consuming hobby and avoid being left to look after the kids alone so the mum could do likewise? Did they assume that their money was THEIRS and not family money if the mum was providing thousands of pounds worth of childcare and cleaning and domestic services? I'm genuinely asking.

Mothers don’t just force fathers away for no good reason, rare time a mother might be that way but the chances are the fathers that are forced out are forced out for a reason.

why the new woman got pregnant so quickly.

When a man and a woman have sex, the man's sperm fertilises the woman's egg and the resulting zygote can implant into her uterus. This can happen after just one act of intercourse.

People are stupid and take risks when they are horny, such as barebacking. Or the woman isn't very good at remembering to take the Pill. Perhaps the man says "I'll pull out" (which is moronic anyway, but hey) and doesn't. It's startling how much ignorance there is about contraceptives and reproductive biology more generally.

Nearly half of women can't point to the cervix on a diagram of the female reproductive system. Do you think that these women understand Pearl indices and other measures of contraceptive effectiveness? And almost all these women went to school in the UK...

Men lie about their pasts, and so the next woman is suckered in.

"you do not want to get pregnant with a man who doesnt care if you get hit by a bus"

Louise Perry

It benefits women too. My building society would lend me four times my salary to buy my house, whether I am marries or not. My mum's building society, when she was first married, would lend a woman one quarter of her salary.

I like being able to buy a house whilst female.

A PP commented on women having low self-worth and tolerating crap men because of that.

"Women, it's your job to fix everything" will contribute to that, along with all the media messaging that tells women to value ourselves by our looks and be sexually available to men.

Oh FSM, who lit the F4J bat(shit)signal?

As a child of divorced parent, I can assure that the family court was very much of the view that my father had rights to be in my life.

Many women who have been battered by their children's fathers have posted on the Relationships board about how the family courts prioritise fathers' access so highly that they will put the women in danger of further abuse to make that access happen. It is rare that a man is kept from his child.

You do realise that DV is a common reason for divorce and that at any moment in time, 7% of women will have been on the receiving end of domestic abuse in the prior twelve months?

That might explain why some divorced women don't want the father to see the kids...

Tell me about it.

Dad was by no means a "Disney dad". He had 50:50 including overnights. Yet, he didn't take us clothes shopping, school uniform shopping, or shoe shopping. Despite being 50:50, Mum still did 100% of making sure that we had clothes, including the clothes we kept at his house. It's like he thought that some kind of clothes fairy made clothes and uniforms appear. Mum also managed our dental, hair, and routine doctor appointments.

And he was one of the better ones.

But what I’m saying is there is usually a reason fathers are forced out. You seem to be ignoring the fact that most fathers willingly abandon and are more set on pointing out how awful mothers are. I do not have an endless faith in all mothers at all

I agree, my kids dad doesn’t see them (through his own choice) and it shocks and saddens me how many women tell me I’m “lucky” or they wish their ex didn’t bother, could understand cases of abuse but when I ask them why I get told because they don’t want to “share” the kids / want them all to themselves or get bored and lonely when they are not around 🙄

I suspect men who are simply unreliable individuals aren't the major reason for this.

I saw this article two years ago:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jan/24/mum-watched-me-correct-my-husband-then-sagely-warned-me-dont-become-the-expert-in-the-baby

I think it makes a very good point.

When DW and I had kids she immediately made herself the expert. She had to be in charge. Important decisions were made by her, often without any consultation with me at all: she just knew best. All this just happened. There was no discussion.

I had to fight her for my right to parent. it caused lots of rows because she wouldn't let go. I think there's a lot of this about. In fact I think it's rife, and I expect every woman involved is convinced she's right.
I'm not a shrinking violet and I asserted my right successfully in the end. But I think most other men would have backed off just because it was too hard.

And where does this end? If a relationship ends, so does the man's parenting, leastways on anything approaching an equal basis, hence the current situation.

Don't be the expert in the baby!

@TomPinch did you read up on sleep training, weaning, development, discipline methods, potty training, brands of wipes / formula / nappies? Did you have a similar level of knowledge of your baby's habits and preferences and routines? I don't disagree that sometimes mums can be a bit marytrish and overbearing but in many cases it will be because they have actually looked at all this and may feel they are coming at it from a position of superior knowledge rather than just an opinion based on what their mother in law has suggested to her son.

There were things she knew more about and there were things I knew more about, as is normal with things generally. You have concentrated on babies (I guess because of the focus of my link) but it didn't end there. It went some way on into their childhood.

The issue was that DW felt absolutely responsible and this wasn't because of any shortcoming on my part.

If you have a man who then concentrates on his job to provide for his family and by necessity lets his DW be the expert, the pattern is indelibly set. If the relationship breaks up, out goes the man, and the mother takes on all the burden.

You are ignoring a key biological factor: breastfeeding.

All the shared parental leave laws in the world (and the byzantine rules for actually sharing parental leave could be their own post) don't enable a father to lactate and feed his child. Result: the mother takes the majority of the time off and does most of the child care during that time, to the tune of an entire full-time job's hours. This is not conducive to men becoming experts in how to care for their infant children.

I was not the expert in breastfeeding as I couldn't do it. Nor was I the expert in expressing milk, for the same reason. But I guess I was the expert in thawing it out and bottle feeding.

I accept there are things that only women can do, but they are limited and only when the child is a baby. My point is much broader than that though I will also accept that those specific things may set the mother up to be the expert, and that is something to beware of.