To think it should be more equal

[CreditCrackers]

I'll definitely get attacked over this but it honestly and truly baffles me.
Almost every thread I read on here has a million women saying that the OP can do whatever she wants as the mother and that the father gets no consideration at all.

• One thread today saying that if OP doesn't want the child to stay overnight with the father then that's her choice - even though the child stays overnight with other relatives.
• Threads saying dads don't get to decide on whether or not the child is vaccinated or what form of punishment is used or whether to go to private or state education. There was a post yesterday about a child wanting reconstructive surgery after an accident and the father being ok but the mother saying no.

I cannot fathom why women on this site genuinely seem to think that being a mother gives you more rights than being a father. Does anyone have any reason why they think this?! And if anyone hits me with "because the mother is the one stuck with the kids when he leaves and has an affair blah blah blah" then I will scream at your disgusting sexist attitudes.

Ok I'll bite - because when the chips are down the mother is statistically way more likely to step up and put her children first, whereas the father is more likely to use them as pawns in a revenge game. Not all, but more likely. And mumsnetters judge on the facts they are given, if they are given these kind of facts, which is what I feel I see so often in the type of threads you're describing.

Almost every thread I read on here has a million women saying that the OP can do whatever she wants as the mother and that the father gets no consideration at all.

I don't think that's what people say at all. One of the threads you referenced for example, people were saying that the guy shouldn't have just taken his 10 year old son from his mother's house without speaking to her, most agreed that she shouldn't be stopping the children from seeing him indefinitely

@onalongsabbatical This honestly isn't my experience in family law at all. In my personal experience, working on many many many cases, mothers use the children as pawns far more than men do.
And I'm not sure what you mean by the facts that they're given. I'm reading the same facts as the other women on here and I'm not thinking it's ok for a mother to stop contact with the dad because "she doesn't like it" or for her to unilaterally decide major life decisions.

@AryaStarkWolf That wasn't actually the post I was referring to. But even on that thread (where most people actually were supportive of the father) there were far too many people saying he should never see them again. And he did tell the mother and the sister also told the mother - the mother just disagreed and apparently fathers aren't allowed to pick their children up from the side of the road when the child has called them for help unless the mother agrees to it.

Well then a) we're reading different threads and b) we have different experiences of the world. You say you're in family law, my background is in psychotherapy. But I don't feel I see THAT much hysterical knee-jerk 'only the mother has rights' type stuff on here, I find the majority of posters articulate and intelligent and keen to judge on behalf of what's good for the children. Maybe we really are just reading different threads!

And he did tell the mother and the sister also told the mother - the mother just disagreed and apparently fathers aren't allowed to pick their children up from the side of the road when the child has called them for help unless the mother agrees to it.

Oh come on, that's irresponsible, he should have spoken to her and told her and I would think the same if it were the opposite way around. That whole situation sounded like communication between the two parents was probably a massive part of their problems

@onalongsabbatical We must be reading VERY different threads. Very different. One thread this morning, OP and her partner had split up and the child was staying overnight once each week with the father. MIL had demanded some of the baby gifts be moved to their house where the father was saying. This made OP so upset and anxious that she no longer wants her child staying overnight (even though she stays overnight with OP's sister). The thread is FULL of women saying she's perfectly entitled to stop contact and not allow them to have her overnight and she needs to put her own anxiety first.

@AryaStarkWolf I agree that he should have communicated but he had no idea what was happening. His child asked for his help so he did what his child asked him to do. The child was safe and with a parent - both parents knew that. She was completely out of order for phoning the police given that she knew her child was safe and with his own parent. That's just wasting police time.

I do think the primary carer should have more say, particularly if the other parent doesn’t share equal custody. Someone who swans in and out once every week or two shouldn’t expect to make the big decisions. Statistically the primary carer is usually the mother but if the roles were reversed I’d say the same. And I don’t think a father should have the right to disrupt his child’s breastfeeding to satisfy his own desire for contact. That’s not putting the mother before the father - it’s putting the child first.

Its tiresome

Im sure many dont read properly and just add the same crap every thread and everything is as black and white as man is wrong, woman right regardless of the issue

Likewise man snoops on dw phone is a controlling abusive bastard but women should always trust their gut to justify snooping

If i wanted justification for thinking my dh was abusive or cheating, i could post any old bullshit and ask if im aibu to think dh is cheating and id get 98% responses telling me that theyre sorry to tell me they are sure he is cheating on me because this morning he had 1 sugar in his tea instead of none

@Davodia I think you may have a point but on a lot of these threads the parents are still together so we have no way of knowing who the primary carer is.
Also, I agree regarding breastfeeding but I can't understand why spending a night with the father would disrupt breastfeeding but spending a night with the sister wouldn't. That's a ridiculous logic. The child's already spent multiple nights at the father's place without it being an issue so the sudden realisation that breastfeeding needs to happen is a bit suspect. Not to mention, you can express milk, you can get milk donated. A relationship with a father is actually more important than the ability to suck on a nipple for every single feed.

@CreditCrackers sure but the father equally should have (imo) backed the boys mother when he found out what the actual reason for the son calling to be collected urgently was. It was a reasonable punishment for what he had done, nothing excessive or harmful and all the father did by caving in to the son and allowing him to stay was telling him that he should call his dad now anytime his mother gives him a punishment. It isn't helpful and must be so frustrating, especially if you are the primary carer of that child.

Having said all that though, I think the mother is very very wrong to stop all contact

It's not equal because it's not equal.

@araiwa I completely agree. I once posted something and mentioned that my husband is colourblind - there were genuinely women saying I should LTB over it. People are crazy.

I once posted something and mentioned that my husband is colourblind - there were genuinely women saying I should LTB over it

Are you sure that wasn't a joke, I'm sorry but I find that very very very hard to believe

@AryaStarkWolf Deadly serious. The two reasons were: a) If he's willing to drive with me and the children in the car then he's not considering our safety so LTB and b) Surely I don't want to risk my children being colourblind.
It's funny because I only mentioned it light-heartedly because I have to pick out his outfits for him because otherwise he looks ridiculous. We only buy him clothes in neutral colours to try and help (black, white, grey, navy etc).

A relationship with a father is actually more important than the ability to suck on a nipple for every single feed
No I completely disagree. Breastfeeding is important for the baby and an adult should put their own desires aside in order to facilitate this. Not all mums can express (or want to) and not all babies will accept a bottle. The courts agree - they don’t order overnight contact if a baby is breastfeeding.

@Davodia Contact with the father is not the father's "own desires". And, once again, you're completely ignoring the fact that the child spends the night away from the mother. How can you possibly argue that spending the night at the dad's disrupts breastfeeding but spending the night at the aunt's doesn't?! Breasts don't know which relative the baby is with.

@CreditCracker OK that's hilarious but you're going to have idiots everywhere - especially on the internet

@AryaStarkWolf I agree that idiots are everywhere - it just seems to be that on this site, the idiots are sexist and plentiful.

why women on this site genuinely seem to think that being a mother gives you more rights than being a father

I think it's more that posters on this site think that being primary carer necessarily lends itself to making more key decisions, and are very well aware that primary carers of babies and young children are overwhelmingly mothers.

I am sure I could find evidence on here of people hating men and seeing all male actions negatively; I could also go to many other websites which are not overwhelmingly female and find evidence of people hating women and seeing all female actions negatively. I post a lot in some politics and current affairs subs on reddit which are incredibly male dominated and the narrative there is "women are awful, feminism is all about hating men and is unnecessary anyway, all mothers try to sabotage all fathers, etc etc etc." They care far more about parental rights than parental responsibilities and when things like custody and access are discussed the focus is all about the rights of the father to see the child, not the responsibility of the father to parent the child.

TLDR: it's all a question of perspective

I agree OP, I thought the same about the overnight visits. Usually BF is a good reason for the baby to stay with the mother, but if the mother is happy for an overnight at her sister's it means there is no issue with feeding so obviously overnights with the father should be fine.
Once there is no more BF I don't see why mothers have more of a right to decide anything than fathers.

Oh and I am also shocked on baby name threads when people think that the mother carries the baby so can ultimately decide on the name.

I am a mother and I agree things are not always equal. Most mothers do fall under the category of primary carer and they just naturally take on that role. Fathers do tend to take a backstep as for many this seems the traditional way of bringing children up. Men should be more equal but then I flip to many people's points that in many cases the father isn't as interested or has no desire to see their children (also aware mothers can be like this too). Being a parent works both ways, regardless of whether they are together or not. Unfortunately children are used as pawns between bickering parents and this will never stop

Go read the relationships threads that will give you a good idea of why many women think they way they do about men.

Contact with the father is not the father's "own desires"
At that age it is. A tiny baby eats and sleeps, it doesn’t know who the father is or have any desire to see him. The father wants to see the baby but the baby doesn’t care about seeing the father. At that early stage, contact is purely for the father’s benefit.

How can you possibly argue that spending the night at the dad's disrupts breastfeeding but spending the night at the aunt's doesn't?!
I didn’t say that. What I said was that a tiny baby’s relationship with its father (or anyone else for that matter) is not more important than breastfeeding.