I agree the bar for fathers particularly post-divorce is ridiculously low. I've seen how my dd has been affected by her father having more children with 2nd wife. With first 2 she was quite little herself, focuses on "aww a cute baby to play with" as she got older she realised the effect it had on her relationship with her father. Each subsequent pregnancy announcement was greeted first with dismay then heartbreak, because the reality was the more DC he had with wife 2 the less time & energy he had for dd. He's got 5 now with wife 2 and hasn't seen dd for several years because he doesn't make the effort to make arrangements - even if dd, step mum and I do the majority of the arrangements it goes wrong because he doesn't book leave at work in time.
And I've seen it over and over with other children of divorce from friends & family my age right down to younger children in my circle dealing with it now.
Most nrp's lose touch with their DC living elsewhere I think it's within 5 years, and then a few more do so as time goes on so that by the time these children are adults very few of them have contact with their nrp.
Then when these parents' younger children hit teens and are spending more time with friends than at home, or they semi-retire or retire (sometimes these events coincide) the parents want to pick up where they left off and think it's oh so unfair that the now grown children - possibly parents themselves by this point - aren't interested.
I've seen it on here too - parents dealing with grandfathers who were absent fathers wanting to play the cuddly beneficent granpa and pretend they were great loving fathers when that's nowhere close to the truth.
"My parents weren’t divorced but my dad used to work away most nights and come home for the weekend. How’s that different to this?" Sorry but that's REALLY offensive - it's along the lines of those mothers with a partner/husband saying "oh I know what it's like being a Lp dh works such long hours" it is NOT the same AT ALL.
"While my Dads wife did a bulk of the childcare while he worked away, his children from that relationship have had SO much more from him from living with him. I still don’t really feel like I know my Dad properly." See? It IS different the parent living with the DC.
"So adoptive mothers, step mothers, grandmothers who look after their grandkids full time aren’t real mothers?" All of those would tell you that loving children that aren't biologically theirs does involve certain issues that don't generally occur if children stay with biological mothers. It's partly why people adopting have to go through such a rigorous screening process and are given all the support they are especially through the early stages. True also of kinship fostering.
All the comments "men do it and nobody bats an eye" are untrue - numerous threads on here where men who are nrp's and barely see their DC are criticised, see it plenty in real life too - because it DOES have a negative effect on the DC.
"No one can tell the adults what do but let's not pretend it doesn't affect the children." Exactly!