To be shocked by people's partners?

[ReallyLilyReally]

SO MANY of the threads i read about new parents include women struggling hugely to cope with their babies, and when asked if there's a DP on the scene who can help, they say that he's just not interested/won't do night feeds/is too busy etc and that theyve already tried to get him to pitch in and he won't.

Call me stupid, but i cannot for the life of me work out why these women have had kids with men they can't rely on for support. What the hell kind of decision making is that? AIBU to think that it's bad parenting to knowingly give a kid a useless dad?

To an extent, YANBU but this is MN so women must of course be given a pass for dumb choices. Always.

I know women who've married molly-coddled men who don't know what housework is, they've blatantly always had cooking cleaning washing done for them. Why would you even want that man around you? Maybe it's love goggles and 'he'll change because of me, once we're married & have kids it'll all be perfect'.

But I'm still mindful that some men are just devious and will play the perfect Prince for a time, then the mask slips once they've got you where they want you.

So my comment is for those who actively give it a go with Mr Lazy No Life Skills then expect a good outcome and complain when that doesn't happen.

I agree with your thread title but that's where it ends.

I'm new here and also shocked by how many men are complained about here.

I also have the common sense to know this place is a tiny section of the population.
It's not a true reflection of what's going on as there are plenty of decent blokes out there doing everything they can to support partners and wives.
I'm one of many.

WheresMyChocolate's post has prompted me to report the original post. She's right.

This again? Abuse often starts during pregnancy and with the birth of the first child. Ask any DV organisation or read any research on it.
As for blaming women for men being useless that's not going to fly here but I'm sure there's an MRA group somewhere just desperate to agree with you.

I can't remember where I heard this pearl but the quote was "Someone's true colours show when the children start arriving".

It's very true.

I don't think the majority of men really think about the physical,emotional or financial Responsibility until they become a father and the baby is physically here.

TBH the extended amount of maternity leave is both a blessing and a curse because it would seem lots of men become use to their partners being at home for a long period and then when they head back to work they don't want to step up and do their fair share to help their partners.

Or some men simply crumble under the pressure of becoming a father and start distancing themselves.

Women don't intentionally pick a crap partner or parent for their kid.

My Dh managed kids by getting a sideways move where he had to travel loads ! I didn't see that one coming at all ; weeks away at a time. We got through it but he picked and chose his family duties and nobody could say much as he was working hard to pay the bills. I did stick with it , but nobody has a crystal ball and I did struggle at times.
Children do change relationships for the worse sometimes; the fun times are small and the drudge is huge. Nobody can prepare you for this unfortunately however good the men are pre kids , married or not.

Well reading this has made me feel like a sack of s* on a Monday morning. Thanks for the the kick in the nuts, OP! Glad you've got life all sewn up.

I can't believe people post this judgemental bollocks.

My husband is lovely. He's a nice bloke, we had loads of fun before we got married, and after we got married. He wanted kids, we had a baby. He was completely thrown by it, was still working nights and acting very much like he did pre baby. I ended up doing the bulk of the parenting.

A few years later and a few words plus a job change he's a million times better and pulls his weight. I couldn't have predicted his reaction, unless I had a crystal ball. I am a loving and responsible parent so bog off with your completely unhelpful judgement.

Blaming women for men’s behaviour, what a new, original, and interesting idea...

@Jaichangecentfoisdenom I reported and @MNHQ said they were looking into it over an hour and a half ago, yet it's still here. I'm not sure why. I've seen much less vile threads removed.

The OP is being ridiculous. Having a caring helpful supportive partner pre-baby does not guarantee the same post birth. The demands on a couple spike exponentially once a child is involved and it’s only then that you can tell who are the men, and who are the boys!

OP been back? No, thought not.

Another issue that I have with the Op is 1. It blames women for men's behavior. 2. It falsely accuses the parent who is doing all the care giving and putting in 100% effort of being the bad parent. 3. Inferring that it would be better if children who have a lazy, shirty, unavailable or abusive dad should never have been born. Which is horrible. All of it. Every person I know who had crappy parents is still glad to be alive, glad they were born and more than happy to exist. The OP and any pp that support it are completely wrong in every way and have a completely skewed perception of reality based on prejudice, contempt, ignorance and apathy. I still absolutely love seeing all the amazing post challenging this OP. It gives me hope that the world hasn't completely gone to shit.

It makes me think. When my DC were little I had an illness meaning DH had to basically look after the DC full time and he went self employed to do this. Without him the doctors told me, the DC would have had to have gone into care as I was so poorly and unable to look after them.

FIL (DH's dad) only approves of e.g. BIL going back to work into a new job after DC came along (BIL is a pretty useless dad) Odd how he thought that was the 'responsibly thing' - no comment on the support from DH etc.

But anyway not all men are like this, just I guess as not all mothers deal with parenting well either. I have seen problems when couples have a rose tinted view of parenthood beforehand.

Shirty was meant to say shitty

It’s because so many other women go with their “heart” which basically means thinking with their fanjos and seeing a man’s big hairy arms and cheeky grin and whatever and not because he’s a reliable, hard working person. You get what you sign up for i think

OP - you are very naive .
It just be nice to live in such a bubble !

I blame this whole Disneyesque bullshit message that women are fed from a young age. ''My love will change him''. Yeah, my arse. I would absolutely love to see a Disney movie where the Princess sees that the Prince is shit and dumps his arse, cause her love for herself comes before the love for some useless penis. (And I fucking love Disney Princesses, so that says a lot.)

I want to see a world where girls are taught, since birth, to look out for themselves first and foremost, to put themselves front and centre of their existence and to love themselves the most. Men are just a nice addition to life, not the meaning thereof.

Also, can I just point out how single mothers are seen as the devil, but single dads get showered with a fuckton of praise? I was in a FB group which I had to ragequit after seeing the same dude repeatedly post about his status as a single father, searching (and receiving) praise for doing basic tasks like making his children's lunch. The amoung of figurative dicksucking he received from women who were falling over themselves to assure him of his amazingness was sickening. These are the most basic tasks. The bare minimum. The kind of stuff women have been doing for... well, ever, without receiving a fraction of the praise.

Female socialisation SUCKS.

But not as much as men.

"I mean, a guy doesnt suddenly change from being helpful and supportive to useless overnight when a kid is born, surely?"

One of my Son in laws did. He had housed and looked after himself from 17. He'd cooked and cleaned from 12 (when his mum left his dad and emigrated).

The resentfulness he had towards women didn't show until their first child was born. He started to make statements about what women/mothers should do. Then the hiding of money started and things got really abusive.

I've known men whose children have been born after years of IVF to suddenly check out of being a Dad.

I do agree that not enough condemnation is heaped upon men who do this. We have a completely different attitude to women who don't want residency, even if they are a good parent in other ways.

You've internalised a hell of a lot of misogyny OP.

Another issue that I have with the Op is 1. It blames women for men's behaviour

Oceanbliss I think in some cases you can absolutely blame the man’s mother for bringing him up to believe that women are here to serve men. Other posters have complained about partners whose mother has mollycoddled them so that they are utterly brainwashed into thinking that they cannot and should not be doing “women’s work”

@cavabiensepasser, I liked Maleficent for it's take on relationships.

YANBU- too many women think having a baby will fix an already broke relationship

WheresMyChocolate

Thank you for articulating what I was thinking. I've seen plenty of internalised misogyny on MN but I'm genuinely shocked at the casual victim-blaming by the OP.

I won't go into the multiple answers to your question as other posters have done this very articulately.

I just want to know, OP, how good it feels to be this smug, to be able to look down on other women because you won the bloke lottery?

If there is a practical response to be drawn from this thread, its this:

Let's all educate ourselves, men and women, as to what is involved in child-rearing and family. Let's teach our kids that its a partnership which requires division of labour and mutual respect. That no-one should enter into child-rearing with any expectation other than that it is the responsibility of both parents, male and female, and that anyone opting out of this on the grounds that they have higher earning status or that they have different genitalia or whatever excuse is not fit to be a parent.

Let's educate women on what they should expect from their male partners, how ideally to draw the line at shit behaviour before the children arrive but to support them if they are unable to and they draw the line afterwards. And let's stop blaming them when the men they couple with, for whatever reason, don't deliver the goods.

People ought not to worry to much about overpopulation. Now that people are no longer “expected” to have kids, birth rates are falling. The “reproduce with some average lazyass man/woman drive” billions of years in the making drive is currently getting a kicking by the “I like my money/Fuck it what’s on Netflix and I can’t afford a house anyway” drive across the developed world.