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.

Women often struggle to express enough milk because the presence of the baby is part of what causes the letdown. And there's no cleaning of bottles to deal with if you breastfeed directly. Granted, plenty of women struggle to BF, but for those who don't, it's more convenient than expressing. It's hence understandable that women will do most of the feeding in the first year.

Those parenting patterns set up in infancy persist throughout childhood only if you let them.

I think it's more likely that those parenting patterns persist unless they're challenged - which I guess is what I did. And I think the stats that show women doing the majority of caring (with or without a split) bear my view out.

I'm really saying no more than this is an unconscious bias of society and pointing towards an important way it comes about. Yes, anyone can surmount it, but you have to choose to do so.

Mmm dont think so.

Aah poor howard lives in the mumsnet world where women are victims of a patriarchy. 38% of kids of divorce are forced out if their dads lives. To support child alienation and abuse is disdisgusting howard. So sad you can't be educated. Continue in your brain washed bliss if ignorance while 1.2 million boys live without dads .

Fact is 38% of kids after divorce are forced out of dads life. 2.4 million kids . . Patents with care are mums who chose to push out dad . So sad. . Don't worry mumsnet will delete this truth as it doesn't fit their feminist narrative

This is an extremely offensive comment you have written claiming all men are abusers and child abandoners. Your comment was not deleted because mumsnet is a vile feminist man hating sphere. Fact is 38% of kids after divorce get forced out of dads life. Dad can get a court order but when mum ignores it court will not enforce. You will be happy in that alienation that abuses each of those 2.4 millions innocent children . Mumsnet is a disgusting place

38% of dad's lose contact with kids after divorce. Mumsnet posters would have you believe that 38 % of men are heartless. Reality is the mums push dads out. In vast majority of cases. My comment will be deleted. Doesn't fit with the mumsnet bubble of lies.

@WhenYouSayNothingAtAll did not say all men.
That 38% - where do you get it from?
MN is disgusting. Yet here you are.

Sure thing champ. My only experience of life is mediated through the pages of Mumsnet.

Meanwhile back in reality I've known a lot of parents in real life, both male and female. I was also a member of Families Need Fathers for a while. And the reality is that the majority who aren't in their children's lives didn't get forced out, they walk away. Sure, they might talk a good talk about how their "psycho ex" isn't letting them see the kids but when you dig in to it what they mean is that they want to be able to drift round to see the kids whenever they've not got anything better to do (and/or they want to impress their latest girlfriend by playing dad-of-the-year), and the mother insists on a schedule because the children have lives as well.

But keep telling yourself the lie that the 38% of fathers who don't see their children have been forced out by evil women. After all, whining about stuff and blaming women for everything is what the red-pilled manosphere excels at.

And yet your comments are still here, @Caps34.

If fathers want to be in their kids' lives, they need to do two things:

• be proper fathers, helping with homework and feeding nourishing food during their week with the kids and collecting and dropping off on time with all the stuff the kids need ready to use the following day.
• not abuse the mother of the children via the kids.

You can't play nasty tricks and expect mums to tolerate that, nor can you be a Disney dad and expect the children's mother to enable you to do the fun bits and leave the boring messy bits to her.

My dad played this nasty little trick on my mum. He had a washer, a tumble dryer, and central heating. My mum had a washer, no space for a tumble dryer, and no central heating, and he knew this. Handover was Sunday evening. The divorced mums on this thread can already see where this is going...

He would send us over with wet school uniform, knowing that she couldn't dry it in time for school on Monday without sending me to the launderette with it (so he was willing to waste two hours of his DD's life to get at his ex)and spending loads of money, and then refused to move the handover time earlier or dry the uniforms in time. She always sent us with clean dry uniforms.

He stopped doing this when the launderette was shut one Sunday evening, so Mum couldn't dry our uniforms. She sent us to school in mufti with a note explaining why she had had to do so. He stopped because her note had exposed his behaviour to our schools, making him look bad. And of course, he stropped because she'd refused to cover for his poor behaviour.

And he was one of the better ones.