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.

It’s basically a return to old-fashioned family values (updated for 2025). Two parents, married, with societal expectation that at least one will be working a job and at least one will be thinking about keeping the home clean and kids fed decent food (and balancing the working/home elements of life between them as they see fit, but doing them!). Using contraception outside of actively trying to conceive children in the above scenario. Societal pressure to broadly support your own family financially and raise your children nicely. Some element of guilt/shame if you don’t - horrible words but they are natures way of enforcing healthy norms in every mammalian pack/herd group.

We’ve had a massive pendulum swing due to contraception/abortion provision and the rise in welfare state and improvements in maternity care which means having babies and having sex is far less of a risk for women and so they are doing it with shitter men. General rise of permissiveness in society, anything goes, let people live, has reduced any stigma to any action expect the most heinous, meaning shit men having babies and then fucking off, rinse and repeat, without any fear of societal repercussions. Massive positive changes too of course in increase of freedom for women and permissiveness in society, but that’s not for this post.

I do think the pendulum will swing back again in due time and reports and organisations like this are part of that process. But not all the way back as women’s freedoms and legality of same sex marriage etc is now enshrined in law, thank goodness. It’s sort of two steps forward one step back in societal evolution?

A lot of the problems co exist with poverty and as such I am not totally convinced it’s the ‘lack of a male role model’ (given that there aren’t extensive numbers of boys born to lesbian couples who have these outcomes.)

My teenage Grandsons have chosen not to see their dad.. when younger they would and hide from their Mum how nasty he was.. hitting them/ shouting at them.. it all came to an head when eldest was 11 ( now age 20) and told his Mum what had been happening and he doesn't want to see him anymore.. hence for last nine years.. 3 happy young teenage boys.. who are very close to their Mum and want for nothing.
He never contested the boys decision at all.. 🤷‍♀️

I recently sat on a PX panel for the first time and the child was from a very “respectable” and two parent home. I’m aware of course that my sample size is nowhere near big enough to form an accurate picture yet but they were just not “the type” that people think of in relation to appalling behaviour.

So are you encouraging your sons to be teachers OP? Or is it for other men to take those roles?

That's just emotive with no actual significance, though - almost every single person aged 11-70 has a 'smartphone' (ie, not a Nokia from 2007) by now, whether they live with their father or not.

Society can't make up for the lack when you're essentially talking about the same group - if they're absent/inadequate/uninterested fathers on the whole, they aren't going to be suitable for being mentors/teachers/whatever. And, unfortunately, it also opens up opportunities for malign individuals to have access to vulnerable children.

Nearly half of married parents split up by the time the child is 14 (43%). So marriage doesn't solve the problem.
The problem is with people never being in a relationship (ie one night stands) and the dad's having no involvement. Also with parents in a relationship splitting up and the man deciding not to be involved / not being able to be involved.

All of your solutions involve men choosing to work in schools, nurseries and other volunteer roles rather than something that women can fix.

I’m surprised that men don’t dominate sports coaching roles already (especially for teams that are for boys) but that may be because my kids (both sexes) have mainly had male sports coaches.

I understand how it may be difficult for men to pick jobs like nursery nurse because parents can be horrified at the thought of a man doing nappy changes etc but that struggle will not be as massive compared to what the women or people of colour went through went through to become the firsts in their eventual fields.

A lot of the problems co exist with poverty and as such I am not totally convinced it’s the ‘lack of a male role model’

I don't agree as I grew up without a father as he died very young. As a result we were poor. It was the role models that my brothers had, in the community, that made them determined to escape poverty and have a better life for their families. You can escape poverty, if you have health, but need to be shown how its possible.. getting a job.

Too many boys are failed at school by forcing academic studies whereas many would thrive in the apprenticeship route, that worked well for so many years. The boys I know who are in the study, are raised by single parents, but have not had a career path since 16 so drift into the drugs culture as can't find any career openings. The lack of work experience caused by strict allowances for under 18s isn't helping as no one gains experience of working.

I agree with this. The uncomfortable truth is that not all men are bastards, and not all women are saints, which seems to be the picture painted on here all the time. And I say that as someone who grew up without a dad.

There is also the fact that some women now actively choose to go it alone, for multiple reasons including that they never met the right person and the biological clock is ticking. I think we have to ask difficult questions about how the child will feel growing up in an environment which by design does not include the father. I well understand the urge to have babies, but sometimes just because we can, doesn't mean we should. I feel the same about babies born by surrogate, tbh.

I think we are being naive at best if we think that plonking some men in primary schools is going to solve the issues outlined in the BBC article.

Male mentors work with small groups of eight boys at a time, teaching them about healthy relationships, anger management and what makes a good dad

This actually concerns me as nothing in the above is something you need to be male for. So if the boys are accepting it from men, but not women, why is that?

Unfortunately the answer is due to respect for men and not for women, and why is that?

Because women have to do the sort of work that doesn’t really demand respect.

And re permanent exclusions - how many of the children without a father were also being raised in poverty? Thats the problem here, but it’s easier to try to appoint men (no matter how badly suited to the role) to female dominated professions rather than to actually deal with poverty.

That’s silly. Smartphones are so ubiquitous that you could argue almost anything is less likely than smartphone ownership.
Boys are more likely to have a smartphone than have eaten lunch today (currently 12:23pm)

Are boys without dads less likely to have other males in their life ? Eg uncles, grandads, stepdads…

Not sure if this anecdote is true everywhere but the ratio of male to female teachers was much better at secondary and the male teachers were as likely to teach English as physics hence my kids leaving secondary without the sexist ideas of feminine/masculine subjects.

Humans have lived in poverty since the Industrial Revolution. Poverty in the UK in 2025 looks very very different to poverty in 1955! Some might say we’ve pretty much eradicated true poverty, it’s just that we’ve changed the definitions. This epidemic of fatherlessness is a new problem.

sometimes the dads just don’t want to be in their kids lives.

Ds and dd1 dad was great growing up, even though we split when they were little, we’ve always co parented amicably and he did a lot to shape the way they are today. Once they reached their mid teens he started to lose interest, started another family and lost interest, he barely sees them now.

Dd2 and 3 father, abusive twat, we spilt seven years ago but I’ve done my best to encourage a relationship between them but he really lost interest again when he got back with one of his exes (he had previously had dc with her.. then he had twin boys with her and completely cut our two out of his life, blocked them on everything and told them he was busy with his new family. Nothing I can do.

my wonderful dh, took on my four as his and was a great role model then died.

we have no other family, no grandparents, uncles, or family friends that are male. Ds really struggles with having no male role model in his life and now he’s in his 20s I think he’s a bit lost.. he works hard but struggles with relationships.

my dds have no male role model at all but there is a lovely male teacher at school who goes above and beyond for dd3 and it shows.

its NAMALT but the majority of those need to step up and take a hard look at themselves.

I don’t profess to be an expert but I do know enough about social history to know that gangs, crime, violence and other societal ills have certainly been around since the Industrial Revolution - the plot of Oliver Twist is a case in point!

Then in the post war era we had Borstal and other corrective institutions. I was born in 1980 and can remember when single mothers were treated as the source of all social problems in the late 80s and 90s, following high rates of divorce.

Poverty isn’t a new thing and neither are the problems described in the article, unfortunately. Of course it changes appearance; we don’t have the artful dodger in his finery picking pockets on London streets but we do have gangs and drugs and knives. And while many of these boys will come from fatherless homes it isn’t the fatherless homes in itself causing this, it’s something deeper.

It’s so boring that the default reaction to this sort of thread is NAMALT/ women are bad because we blame men/ it’s up to us to help fix this issue. The problem is women not being selective enough about partners? Pffft: again, that’s blame-shifting.

The report quite literally says the problem is males’ absence from their children’s lives. In the vast majority of cases the reason for this absence is a choice made by males. Death of a father is relatively much rarer and obviously tragic. The idea that women commonly prevent men from being involved in their children’s lives for no good reason is unevidenced and frankly ludicrous.

Being a good parent and a good role model involves being willing to sacrifice your own interests for those of others, as well as being a 'do the right thing' sort of person. Some men seem able to do this, but too many of them get on a 'dominate & win at all costs' trajectory in life and never get off it.

Can we say generally, straight men, if left completely to their own devices would
a) want to have sex with many women
b) not particularly want to commit to any one woman
c) not take any particular interest in any of the resulting children

and that the reason that up until now that hasn’t been how society generally operates is because of societal pressure exerted by men, women and institutions who rewarded monogamy, gate kept sex and children and shunned/shamed men and women who had sex and children outside of marriage. And that is remove the rewards and the shame element that many men (NAM obvs) might start to behave as they would naturally prefer to. Who wouldn’t?

I agree with this. Some cultures are very forward looking, and tend to be the first to make societal change. They are dynamic countries who aren’t afraid to make big changes and the population generally supports it.
Other countries are extremely traditional and change will be very slow, or even backward looking.
Countries in the middle ground look at how the forward countries are getting on and have time to learn from their mistakes.

As you say, your sample size isn't big enough.
2 out of the 20 or so kids I have dealt with at a PX Panel had 2 involved parents so if I had only seen those 2 I might think the same as you.

If boys behaviour can be turned around with a male in their lives, maybe society needs to be kinder on stepparents and not treat women who have children with more than one dad as sluts which isn’t an accusation thrown at men with children with more than one woman.

I am in no way blaming women for mens bad behaviour BUT it is possible that some women can make better choices.
As a PP said - get married before having children, only procreate with a man who has a steady job and wants to be a father, don't have children by multiple men.
I don't criticise any of those things on moral grounds and I know its not always possible to tell before its too late but its about giving kids the best start possible

The desire to dominate tends to be raw and immediate in men (compared to women) and they are prone to experiencing psychological distress if they are in any way out done by a woman.
They could cope with being family men when they could be reasonably certain that their greater earning potential meant that women had little choice but to subordinate themselves to them and their wishes.
Now that women outperform men academically and have much better access to well-paid employment they no longer have that certainty of being able to dominate the household. Many of them find this difficult to tolerate and they react by trying to sabotage their female partners.

Yes. This.
Women are doing enough and trying to make men realise they need to step up. They'd rather flounce off and not have their lives inconvenienced.