to wonder why men are almost always the non-resident parent

[womblesofwestminster]

Yes, I know I could win an award for most clueless person, but please humour me.

Why is it that when parents separate, it's almost always the mother that the children live with and who has to do the bulk of the mundane parts of the childcare? While daddy gets to pay a cash sum each week, pursue his own interests most of the time and then be Disney the rest of the time.

Doesn't sound like a good deal to me.

Yes, he has remarried - my DD has a brilliant stepmum.

Why?

LOL I'm a stepmum silly.

It's the stepmum that's a fantastic parent

LOL I'm a stepmum silly.

It's the stepmum that's a fantastic parent

I'm sorry, I'm missing the point.

I'm also a stepmum, but I don't take credit for my DH's parenting, and neither does my DD's stepmum take credit for parenting DD.

DD's Dad has always been brilliant - he kept me sane when she was a toddler long before we split and has always been totally committed and excellent (even when he was suffering from MH problems during our divorce, he was deperate to protect her from emotional harm).

As I have explained earlier in the discussion, it would have been really easy for me to relegate him to the role of "weekend Dad"; my own legal advisors were shocked that I agreed without question to 50:50 even before he had permanant accomodation after leaving. At that point, DD's stepmum wasn't in the picture; he was a single Dad as much as I was a single Mum.

There is no "biology" at play - both parents are equally capable of raising DC's; they do it differently, but history shows that it doesn't damage DC's for life if they are raised entirely by their Father, or indeed, another male relative.
Of course, as others have said, the reason that more Mums are primary/resident parent could well be because of social expectations like yours!

It's not about making it easier for the dad, contact isn't about being nice to the dad, it's about the child's right to a relationship with his/her father, and making it as easy as possible for the child to do so

That is why some rp allow contact with a nrp who has been abusive. In some cases it might be better for the child to know the reality of their other parent, in short doses. Otherwise there might be a danger that as a teen they may have a fantasy about their absent parent, who their nasty rp (who makes then tidy their room and other cruel things) has kept them from and they may run to them with open arms.

It is not an easy decision when you are dealing with low level abuse.

In addition women may be scared of being seen as the kind of spitful ex who would withold contact, as discussed upthread. There is often no evidence of abuse or the abuser makes counter accusations. Women who get in these relationships are often people pleaser types who are desperate to do the right thing and keep everone happy.

Lundy Bancroft is very good on all of this.

No biology at play, oookay then lol

Excellent post MumallTheTime. I wonder if we raise boys to value their role as fathers, in comparison to their sporting achievements or career successes.

I'm shocked at so many of the posts on this thread. Not mumsnet finest moment.

I've never seen such hatred and distrust of men in real life that I have on mumsnet.

Well, it sort of rumbles along in the background quite a bit ime, even from female posters who utterly deny this phenomenon and how they don't hate/mistrust/have a skewed personal opinion and then, when invited to,such as here, it tumbles out.

SAHD here who does the vast majority of Childcare including all night waking etc etc

Ok. Tin hat on and here we go...

I understand the emotional aspect of this thread and the personal experiences of many of those posting, however, many of the posts on this thread have been a little shocking. There is a high level of generalisation and unhelpful extrapolation of poor personal experiences to cover "men" in totality.

The majority of fathers love, cherish and care for their children. You know they do.

Happy mums don't tend to post on forums about how lovely and supportive their partner is - in the same way as few people come on AIBU and tell the world how much support they get from their MIL. I love reading the MIL threads. Mine is bloody marvellous.

Clearly I know more dads in this position than mums as I'm involved in dad's groups etc. However...

Of the divorced PARENTS I know from my DS1's class:

1x 50/50 father of 3. Stunned when his wife left for another man. Would have 100% if he could.

1x 100% - EXW left and not interested. Works full time and still does all school drop offs and activities etc.

1x 40/60 dad. Would do more if he was allowed. Also shocked when EXW left him for another woman.

In the wider community:

1x 100% father, EXW not involved due to MH issues. Half-blind DS has developmental issues.

1x 70/30 dad.

2x 100% mums with uninvolved EXP.

In my experience the fathers care.

It's refreshing to see some posts from women saying that they would want 50/50 or even NRP rather than the standard cliche of "only a woman can truly care for her children".

Don't base your judgments on the views of people posting on websites, however justified they are in their personal views.

Oh, and to the ladies talking about going on 'mixed' forums, I've been here for 7.5 years. MN IS mixed.

I know that this is a sweeping generalisation and that there are men out there that this won't apply to but in my experience with ExDp men are far more capable of 'out of sight, out of mind' than women. my ex hasn't seen his son in 3 months and hasn't made any attempt to contact him - he has gone through phases of this in the past. There is no way, if I were not the residential parent, that I could go even a day without speaking to him let alone three months!! Other people's exes have behaved in the same way.

Nice posts there dad.

Small vignette from today. Walking through a busy shopping centre this morning, there was a small girl about reception class age wandering about in front of me for about 2 mins. I was about to engage her to find out what was going on. Mother, about 10yards ahead, blithely unaware of girl til that point (anything could have happened) eventually turned around and shouted " Come on. Keep up!".

That little girl needed her hand holding as she walked but she didn't get it.
IF that was a dad doing that....'what a careless insensitive bastard, no idea about a child's needs etc'

I have not seen levels of paternal apathy chronicled on these boards IRL.

Its quite amusing that you can't have an actual conversation about this subject without it being really very obvious your not talking about all men.

And have all those doing the wahhhh you hate men thing never seen a thread on here when someone s perceived to be being differcult with the ex? They get flamed.

Well of course Sock, but when stuff gets posted like hidenhome has, for instance it's worth challenging. And it isn;t "wahhh you hate men" - instances of misandry on MN are few and for between. Given that males on MN are a vast minority (and probably committed fathers) it's quite apt to point out the differing POV.

I would love my ex to have the kids more , we separated 10 years ago and I worked really hard to keep a relationship going between them .It worked but now he has moved away and sees them once every six weeks or so.

He does love them, he really does but he has a distance between him and them. I am not sure if its him, biology or conditioning ? He has four older kids that he lost contact with for a number of years

I suppose he made the choice to move, however society enables it to be ok for fathers to be not very present in their children's lives ,society is a lot less tolerant of me doing this.

I really didn't want it this way for any of us, I have made the best of it ,my kids seem fine ,but it has been hard. Somebody has to be there and its me by default not design.

My DH faced the "move-away vs provide-for" dialemma a few years ago - faced with the option of a rel

My DH faced the "move-away vs provide-for" dialemma a few years ago - faced with the option of a relocation (on a lower salary making EOW neither practically or financially possible) or redundancy with no realistic possibility of finding another job of even close to equivalent salary but being available for contact with his DCs.

in hindsight, he thinks he made the wrong choice. Many of the tirades addressed to him by his DCs Mum refer to the reduction in CM she receives due to his reduced income. At least if she was still getting the amomoney, she might be prepared to tolerate half-termly contact between her DCs and their Dad.

This is only personal experience and I acknowledge that maybe I know a disproportionately large amount of irresponsible men, but thinking about it, in the case of the majority of couples I know personally with a child who split up, a large part of why the man left was because he couldn't take living full time with a baby/toddler.

Whether it's nature or nurture, I think the majority of people in today's society still assume at least somewhat traditional gender roles. My parents never split up, but I remember clearly being little and crying for my mum, not dad, if I got hurt, or had a nightmare. If my parents had split up, I would probably have been devastated if I had been sent to live away from my mum.

Its quite amusing that you can't have an actual conversation about this subject without it being really very obvious your not talking about all men

Isn't it.

I wouldn't expect to have to put a disclaimer in every post.

Not quite Amber, and that's a plaintive little postscript you have there. If any poster made the ignorant posts viewed here about women there'd be gaskets blown.

Well I didn't make any 'ignorant' posts, yet it would seem I still needed to be very specific about what I was talking about, even though anyone reading the flow of conversation, rather than one post in isolation would see what/who were being discussed.

Plaintive? Really?

Yes, the 'flow of conversation' doesn't excuse the rubbish being posted, unless the bar is being set so incredibly low by two or three posters and the rest just follow, that's seen as okay.
Plaintive, yes.

it was fairly obvious they were talking about their experances,anybody who was more interested in reading them in context as opposed to just to targeting generalisation would have realised that.

But then it wouldn't be quite so amusingly smug,would it.