To ask why my dad attracts women with dodgy sons?

[Deberny]

My father has had 3 wives.
He has one son: a real chancer. Definitely has a history of very petty crime and violence.

Second wife had at least once son involved in burglary, violence and general sponging.

Third wife has at least one son who's a junkie sponger.

He's basically had 30 years of dealing with ne'er-do-wells.

He's quite a mild-mannered man, not violent, professional, hard-working.

Am I sheltered, or is this kind of normal?

(I left home 30 years ago btw, not much contact for various reasons, not my life at all!)

Is he attracted to particularly vulnerable women?

I know that since my parents divorced, my mum has taken up with a string of ne'er-do-wells/wastes of space and as much as it frustrates me, I know that it is because she has low self esteem/confidence and she is confident that these men could never find anyone better and so won't leave her.

I don't think that's normal. I don't know any men that fit that description.

The women seem fine but I don't know them well.
They are all quite 'respectable' as if that makes a difference.
Come to think of it he has always had the view that once kids grow up, they can bugger off and he can get on with his life. He's extremely pissed off that none of his wives sons seem to agree

Oh come on, he's obviously not that great if he's been divorced three times. It's probably some kind of similar relationship psychological thingy in that the women are used to crap men and your dad is a bit of a crap man, as were their exes who fathered their children. People who are great dads don't usually end up with troubled children, so the fact that his bio-son is a bit crap too corroborates this. Sounds from your second post (about kids buggering off, even when they've obviously had difficult childhoods i.e. inc divorce of their mothers, and for him to have no responsibility to them once they turn 18) like he's not a very kind or responsible man. HTHxx.

It sounds very much like my own assessment of the man
(which explains why I don't know any of them very well)

To be fair to him, the other dodgy ones were adults at the time he married their mothers: wishful thinking on his part that they'd just melt away, I think (that is rather a nasty side to him, been on the receiving end of the 'you're off my hands now' conversation a few times).