Women/ girls taking full responsibility children

[thereisalightanditnevergoes]

Just lying here and suddenly feeling very cross so need to vent sorry guys. Wondering if anyone else feels the same.

I got pregnant at 17 with my first child. I finished my first year of college then missed a year to look after the baby until he went to nursery and I then completed my second year of College (sixth form) The father of my child, on the other hand who was the year above me so had finished his college education as our son was born, moved 100 miles away to his first choice uni.

He'd come back every other weekend to "help out" but eventually this got less and less as he met a new bird at uni and sacked me and DC off (until a few years later this all got resolved and he now has a good relationship with DC but that's not the point atm)

My point being how Fucking unfair. I can't believe I didn't make more of a fuss at the time. How dare he move that far away when I had to sacrifice so much and it was simply expected. Surely we should of both took a year out and both looked after the baby for the first year?? I know a few other girls who have had similar situations and I just think it's disgraceful most boys/ men take no responsibility and they aren't expected to. sorry. Rant over. I don't think I'm actually being unreasonable but would like other people's opinions on this.

Obviously mother if the daughter has an abortion there is no baby to be a deadbeat parent to. So absolutely different. Once there is a live born child parents have a responsibility.

The other thing I find hard to swallow is that most people seem to think that looking after children is a 2nd class thing to do, why should that be

At 17 it is, when the other option is university/career/having a life.

Maybe If more men did it it wouldnt be seen as a second class thing.

Society allows it.

Yes. It's not just the OP's scenario, but most women who have kids ending up doing more of the work and having more of / all the responsibility, because they are expected to and men aren't.

Now there are plenty of great men who take on their share of the work and responsibility and are fabulous dads. BUT if a man chooses to walk away, no one really bothers and there's no stigma on him. Same if he's in the relationship but just can't be arsed to do much kid stuff or accept the mental load.

My ex was lazy, selfish and wouldn't do anything he didn't like doing, and wouldn't reduce his work hours to take a day a week for childcare (though he easily could have) so the load fell on me. Resultingly, the kids see me as their main carer and want to be with me more, so it perpetuates itself. When I left, I no longer had to live with the lazy and infuriating lump which is nice, but of course I get the vast majority of the work and responsibility, the exhausting working single mum life etc while he gets oodles of spare time. Yes he pays - the minimum specified - and that's a lot better then nothing but in no way actually covers the extra expense incurred to me.

If the situation was reversed, I'd be vilified and massively looked down upon, seen as a terrible mother, and also, my kids would be miserable because they'd be stuck with someone who doesn't really take an interest or care about them emotionally. And despite all my feminism, I couldn't do it, because the thought of not looking after my kids horrifies me and they'd be so upset. Yet men are free to do that.

It's this kind of thing that's an example of how deeply embedded sexism is in society, yet so many people just accept it.

Men and women can choose to have consensual sex, or abstain.

Men and women can choose to use contraception, or not, or to leave contraceptive responsibilities to their partners.

Once a pregnancy occurs, the woman alone gets to choose whether to continue it or not.

Following the birth men and women can choose whether to raise the child themselves or not.

Following the birth, men must pay for their child if the mother chooses to keep it.

I think that's as fair as it gets personally. A woman who ends up a single parent has done so as the result of three personal choices - to have sex, to keep a pregnancy and to raise the child herself. Men (quite rightly) only get two of those choices. What is not fair is when child maintainence payments are not enforced.

It is swings and roundabouts, you missed out on education and career opportunities and he missed out on being with his child and seeing them develop.

In the long run I'd choose to be with my child. I was also pregnant at 17, although we were married and stuck together. I did my professional qualifications as a mum, sat at the dining table with the kids doing their homework while I did mine. In the end I had a better career than him.

I can't imagine leaving my baby to go off to university and I don't understand the mentality of anyone who could, even if ultimately it was a financial benefit. Yes, university is important but not more important than knowing and loving your child - you can't do that if you choose to be a stranger to them!

I'm not saying it isn't hard for a boy to have no say in the outcome of a pg, but it's not a piece of cake for the girl either - not everyone is at ease with termination of a pg, even when you know it's the right thing for you there are often doubts and for the rest of her life a girl can feel sadness and guilt about it. I'm not surprised many young women go ahead with pg - they are making the best decision they can with the information they have available at the time. No one knows the reality until they live it.
Society should not allow boys to opt out, regardless of whether they want a pg to continue. If they piss off to uni, they should be held properly financially accountable the second they start earning. In the meantime the state should ensure that girl gets all the support she meeds so her own chances aren't hindered.
It's such a short term view to not properly support women - the state would get repaid a thousand times over if it helped them to keep up with their education and earning potential.

But who on earth brings up their sons or daughters to think ‘great I am 17 and pregnant so let’s have this baby then’ ??

BarbarianMum

Spot on post totally agree

I was speaking generally Dr.Martha A high flying career can end up being a noose for a woman who actually wants to raise her children herself.

I speak about a woman because biology has decreed that we carry, give birth and feed our children ourselves . Yes to the op who said that is wonderful!! We have all the luck IMO and IME.

It's very true that society judges absent mothers very harshly indeed, and by a completely different standard than it does absent fathers.

But would you or any women you know choose to have a kid then walk away from them? Women generally really, really don't want this option. So they don't do it. If they don't want motherhood they exercise that choice at the prevention stage.

It’s totally unfair and always has been. 100 years ago if a man walked away from a woman and his children they could end up starving to death.

Unfortunately it’s biology and you can’t change that but what you can do is ensure the best possible contraception, such as the pill and a condom, or a coil and a condom, or even all three. Can’t be that many failures if you double up. Don’t leave it to the man, ever

And before everyone replies I was doing all three and still got pregnant, statistically it’s still very unlikely.

Barbarian

Agree

Yep, that's a completely shitty way to behave. YANBU to be annoyed and fed up with him.

Make sure that when he has a good job after uni, he pays every penny of maintenance. It's a small victory compared to what you have sacrificed, but it's something.

In a way I think he made a the right choice to carry on with his education, yes he should have made more effort to help out at the weekends but going to uni is going to beniffit him and your child in the long run

Only benefits the child in the long run if he actually pays any maintenance.

It isn't fair, but in this case it is biology and it is harder for the woman to walk away than for the man. I don't buy the 'well you could have had an abortion' argument as justification for the father buggering off though. He might not want a child, and you can't force a relationship but at the very least the father has a moral duty to help raise the child financially. If he's not willing to do that then he shouldn't be having sex (which I know is unrealistic, but not unreasonable to expect him to take responsibility for his actions - the woman has to, whatever decision she makes they all have potential risks to her health.)

motherfiver if you're coming at this from a pro-life angle then we're going to have to agree to disagree - I'd never want any child of mine to throw their life away over a clump of cells.

If not, you've entirely lost me. Do you propose that we allow would-be teenage fathers to tie their impregnated girlfriends down so they can be forced to abort, if that's what they like?

YANBU op.

I’ve actually had (not completely successful) counselling to help me work through the anger and resentment I have towards my ex for his total abandonment of our children. And before anyone says I chose to continue the pregnancies we chose to continue the pregnancies. I was the one who carried them but if he had said he wouldn’t parent our children I wouldn’t have had them. My life is unbelievably difficult, not just because I am parenting alone but specifically because he isn’t parenting. The issues he has caused our children by his abandonment have impacted theirs and my life in a way that is unrecoverable from. There is permanent damage that is still happening. My life is on hold. I have no choice. I have to go through this. My children have to go through this. Meanwhile he has travelled the world, got his degree, a career, married, bought a house and started his “real” family. Without wishing to sound like a petulant teenager. It just isn’t fair. If I had treated our children exactly as he has they would be in care and probably turn into some very fucked up adults.

But who on earth brings up their sons or daughters to think ‘great I am 17 and pregnant so let’s have this baby then’

More than you'd think, sadly. It's not at all uncommon.

But really young mums can return to uni or whatever when their dcs have grown up a bit more.

Some people do this without dcs after they dropped out of school early etc. when they have become more sensible and see the value of education ( a lot of teenagers don't!).

So it's not such a terrible sacrifice.

But really young mums can return to uni or whatever when their dcs have grown up a bit more

If they are very lucky and have the right support. They don't generally though.

I agree with everything above, but, On the flip side, I know that if my sons become fathers, they/ we would be on a very precarious footing emotionally speaking, if that relationship soured. In some ways men are also very vulnerable....

ppeafruit this might be true in a vacuum, but we know that statistically teenage mothers carry a lifelong disadvantage for reasons causal and correlated alike, and the likelihood of them embracing a career with gusto later on is very low compared to their counterparts.

The biology we both agreed about Dr.Martha is extremely powerful though. I can remember being in the grip of it. That little "babeee'" holds massive sway in our imaginations etc.

I have two sons but if I had a daughter I would advise her that if she got pregnant at an early age she should decide whether to keep the baby based on the reality that she may be raising the child alone,harsh but honest I think ( and thus use reliable contraception to try and minimise the risk).
The final decision is of course lies entirely with the mum which is what I reminded my 16 year old son when he told me his girlfriend was pregnant and raged at him for not using contraception which we freely discussed as he was growing up
She wanted to keep the baby and he stepped up, he is now 18 they live together and he is working and supporting his family while his partner is a SAHM they have additional support from both sets of family. I would have hoped to still be allowed to be involved even if they hadn't stayed together
It's not ideal for either him or her but my GC is very much loved by everyone. I am proud that he didn't walk away.

I think that if it wasn't for those rose tinted glasses there would be a population slump of extreme proportions!