AIBU to have the rage about men who don't financially contribute to their children?

[SighNotAnotherOne]

Or indeed women, but all the cases happening to my friends right now are men. And I know I'm not actually being unreasonable.

What is it about grown men who decide to abandon their responsibility to children they willingly conceive? And how do they so easily seem to find other women to support them?!

One friend's ex husband has just announced he's voluntarily quitting work, doing a random degree instead and being supported by his girlfriend. In his 40s. He has smugly announced he won't be paying maintenance any more and doesn't know when he'll see the kids either. No apology or explanation. That's that, end of 'discussion'. She's now left to juggle and pay for everything including a big childcare bill for 3 kids whilst working full time.

Another friend is left to pay for everything and care for her two children virtually all the time because he is apparently too sick to work or look after his children (manages other stuff just fine, including spouting a lot of nonsense on social media and its an illness lots of people overcome ad cope with). He relies on his new girlfriend too.

Another - her husband just upped and left one day claiming not to be happy. Of course there was an OW who he then moved in with ... quit his job ... sees children rarely and leaves them stressed and anxious when he does ... and of course contributes nothing to their costs. Same pattern. OW is supporting him.

Another - he's buggered off, taking all their savings with him. Left her with the kids. Waiting for OW to emerge there.

And they are just the ones closest to me. Others I know have ex partners who have never paid a penny and rarely see their children. How are they allowed to get away with it? I realise money can't be claimed if it isn't earned ... but they leave women who have no choice just to pick up the pieces and get on with it. How does their conscience let them?

None of my friends of course resent a penny or time spent on caring for their children. And being good women, they spend their time downplaying what the father has done, trying to arrange contact, working even harder to make up the money loss etc etc. They wouldn't be able to sleep at night if they didn't.

If the resident / main carer parent did this (usually the woman) and just refused to financially care for or support her children there would be outrage and social services involvement (rightly so). But apparently (some) men can just get away with it...and manage to find women to support it

Exactly. My mum always pushed me to get a education and career so that I would never feel I couldn't leave if I needed to. I was a SAHM but only v briefly. Went back almost full time which was a good thing when ex fucked off with ow. He does pay CMS but chose to only see them eow and refuses to acknowledge that his contribution is a drop in a very large ocean which I keep full 🙄

There's should be harsh penalties for failing to support a chid financially (through work not benefits), whether male or female, resident or non resident. Its not always the non resident parent that doesn't financially support the children.

New partners do play a part sometimes, step children are often resented or seen as an inconvenience.

Yanbu
My x stopped paying because he didnt find fatherhood rewarding.

But you do seem to have a lot of friends who have made the 'wrong' choice to have as the father to their children

Yes, we should all have had our crystal balls properly serviced prior to marriage. Hope your smugness doesn’t turn around and bit you some day,

Why are you blaming women? Why not blame the men who walk away without so much as a backwards glance? Why is the onus on the woman to make a good choice and not the man to be a good choice?

Totally agree with you OP. This happened to me except I was very vulnerable as I gave up a career to have my DS at 42 and was reliant on ex. Long marriage. I am now a carer on benefit income only because of my child. He has done everything possible to avoid maintenance. Him and OW have a joint business and of course he takes pocket money out of it. She is wealthy. I get £88 per month. Their lifestyle though...!

OW tells me I am a "lazy, workshy waste of space scratching around for money". She is the only person I regularly refer to as a cunt.

YANBU. A friend of mine has been abandoned by her husband with five kids- one of whom was just a few weeks old at the time he went. He’s quit his job and is living with his parents. Is paying the minimum the CSA will let him get away with, which as he is unwaged is something pathetic like £40 a month from his universal credit... less than a tenner per kid! He’s a 12 carat wanker, but his parents aren’t much better.... their own grandchildren!

My ex husband owes me £15000 plus through csa in 5 years .Hes gone on to have 2 more children and run a nightclub in town . Csa still cant find him ........... so much more i could say about the system and my ex but .......

But you do seem to have a lot of friends who have made the 'wrong' choice to have as the father to their children

Because prior to twenty years of marriage they should have looked into their crystal balls and checked that the man they were going to marry absolutely definitely wasn't going to act like a cunt the moment they hit mid life? Blame women for men's behaviour all you like, doesn't make it anyone's fault but the arseholes who walk away without a backwards glance.

What about doing as other countries do and variously; take away driving licences from non-payers, lock up non-payers

The bigger scandal is that CMS can do those things. They have a vast amount of powers, but they don't use them. There's no political will for them to do so.

When I was a child it was assumed by benefits agencies that maintenance ordered was received. So, my grandparents were assumed to have £64 a week from my father even though the CSA didn't get a penny.

Instead of a proper crackdown or use of the powers they now don't count maintenance as income. Now, given the uselessness of the CSA and CMS this is absolutely right, but doens't it say a LOT about the political will toward chasing down NRPs that they've chosen that route.

Iknow - turns out the student loan system is even worse. Yes its a loan but unless you get a well paid job you'll barely pay anything back. On benefits it's something ridiculous like £5 a week... on a student loan with cash in hand jobs behind their back ... nothing .

There should be a public campaign shaming these men - bit like those crimestoppers mug shots.

They should be done for abandonment

For context these are some of the powers the CMS have and could use should they wish...

We’ll take the action ourselves – we don’t have to apply to a court frst. We can do one or all of the following:
• take money direct from their earnings
• take money direct from their bank, building society or Post
Offce account

This can be for a one off amount (ie take their savings to pay their debt) or a regular amount.

If they chose to go to court they can get a liability order...

We will then use the liability order to take action such as:
• asking bailiffs or sheriff offcers to go to the paying parent’s home and seize belongings, and then sell them to cover the child
maintenance owed
• putting a ‘charge’ against a property or some other asset so that it can’t be sold or remortgaged without the child maintenance being
paid off frst. This makes things diffcult for the paying parent and can
encourage them to pay
• forcing the sale of a property or other asset and collecting the money from it to pay the child maintenance owed
• taking away the paying parent’s driving licence
• sending the paying parent to prison

So the powers are absolutely there. They just don't use them and let men, because it is mostly men, walk away without paying.

Surely the government could just deduct money directly from wages from the men who do work. It can't be that hard. Obviously there's not much that can be done with the ones that don't. makes me furious too.

There's should be harsh penalties for failing to support a chid financially (through work not benefits), whether male or female, resident or non resident

What a crock of utter shite. Firstly, I work full time, part time and seasonally and I am still entitled to Tax Credits and would be entitled to housing benefit if I didn’t own my own home. What penalties exactly do you think I should face because I’m trying hard but I need the extra support.

Secondly, you never see the ‘penalise the benefit grabbing bitch’ if she’s a SAHM with a husband but eligible to claim benefits. Why is that?

Thirdly, if you took a minute to look away from the Daily Mail and understand Universal Credit and the benefit’s cap, you would understand that the opportunity to be a single parent and not work at least part time no longer exists without serious sanction. You could also take the opportunity to educate yourself on the difficulties many single parents face in terms of logistics, child care, transport etc which means that sometimes, with the best will in the world, working is difficult to nigh on impossible. And frequently it makes people worse off.

YANBU, they usually find new women because the women who go for divorced men have very little confidence and think they are only worth second hand cast off useless rejects.

They do it because society doesn't stop them, they should be named and shamed, then women would be embarrassed to be with them.

Whilst we continue to accept it, men will cheat, be divorced and find another.

The answer to this solution is one that no male orientated government will take, free childcare.

We need to make the care of children a service funded by the government (and of course therefore funded by taxes) so that mothers can work too.

At the moment, parenthood ruins a mother if it's not a fifty:fifty enterprise in a way that it does not seem to ruin a father.

I am not unusual, I was cornered out of the workplace for years because of the cost of childcare. Then I had my x and his solicitor brand me a benefit scrounger.

We can round in circles for centuries but women will always be the ones who get pregnant and deliver babies so we need to make parenthood something that costs mothers and fathers equally whether or not they go in to it with fifty:fifty intentions
We need to ignore the the reverence to the economic unit that is the family because that screws women (married women) in different ways. They still end up doing more than their share of the housework and childcare and getting paid less.

Parenthood takes an even greater economic toll on single mothers.

And yet, we need a ''supply'' of new population. This is a given. But women FUND this.

Surely the government could just deduct money directly from wages from the men who do work

Yes. The issue isn’t those who work on a PAYE basis, it’s the self employed, cash in hand, agency workers that pose a problem.

Yes, and my x was employed PAYE and is now apparently self-employed. Convenient that.

This is the bit I have most trouble understanding. How do the girlfriends supporting these leeches rationalise it to themselves?

All you have to do is look at the Relationships and Step Parenting board to see how. There are loads of them! And usually moaning about what a tight arse their 'partner' is with them and a cocklodger or a twat. Or they fell for the 'ex is crazy' line. And they're pregnant or TTC or have kids already. They're a ten a penny. There's even one now, dating a guy who ditched his supposedly mentally ill wife with a toddler and baby when the latter was only 6 months but of course whenever he had to 'work away' he added on sightseeing days, but he's a 'good, involved' parent.

I agree it's bitterly unfair and being in that position myself I want to rage and shout about it and let everyone know how fucking unfair it is to literally be left holding the baby, and he walks away with no consequences whatsoever.

It is a problem that I feel the government / society should address - how? I don't know.

It's the planning and scheming... how can I get out of providing for my children. Whereas the mother of their children is left thinking ... what can I do to provide more for my children now he won't.

Surely men should be evolutionary programmed to want their offspring and genes to survive. Apparently not. Evolution buggered again.

Men have a very deep belief that it is the MOTHER's responsibility.

I know my own x who contributed about a 1/4 of my over all income for me and his two kids for a third of their childhood feels that he has been fleeced. He has in this time enjoyed FREEDOM as well, which I have not had.

It is interesting that he like so many other separated /divorced/ weekend if that Dads don't SEE the mother's TIME as a resource, therefore they're blind to what she COULD be earning if she weren't minding his kids, they're also of the belief that unless the woman is on the breadline looking after his kids, he shouldn't have to give up any of his disposable income. And if he is forced to (but still has some disposable income) it makes him feel very hard done by if the mother has some small amount of income that is disposable.

duchess most definitely. Why not free childcare if working for all ages? Or at least heavily subsidised as in Scandinavia .

Instead they try to penalise single mothers further. One of my friends was left to pay it all so she took on extra work, is exhausting herself, managed to get a pay rise... took her salary over 50k and the HMRC are now clawing back her child benefit. Now I know 50k is a high salary and she's much better off that many others. But when you have children in childcare at over 1k per month and have to pay everything for them including a huge mortgage he leaves you with... meanwhile ex was 'unemployed' ie working cash in hand so avoided CSA. It just felt like the system could 'get' her but let him run free.

barnabas - ah yes the 'he's a great dad'. Sigh. No. He isn't.

Completely agree. A friends ex gave up work and went to uni. He was paying her a token sum £100 per month towards his son; which strictly speaking he didn’t have to. Even my mother thought he was a bloody hero for giving the money. I was raging; she was working her arse off to provide, and he was swanning away loving life as a carefree student