To not understand why women intentionally have children with these men

[Pickagoddamnname]

A friend said this about a mutual friend. Basically mutual friend has 2 children with a man who she can’t leave them with because ‘he doesn’t know what to do on his own’. So mutual friend is always solely responsible for childcare except when she has family babysitters. My friend thinks this is unfair on mutual friend and the children and I kind of agree but it’s really not an uncommon situation. I don’t know if mutual friend suspected her DH would be like this as a father or has maybe taken over the parenting to such an extent that he lets her get on with it as I’ve only known the couple a few years.

One of my friends is married to a man who seemed enthusiastic enough about the first child and then just seemed to switch off and tune out when the second came. I guess the novelty factor wore off just as his career started to take off (although so did the mum’s career and she didn’t have the option to check out of family life). I’d have called him an OK dad when he just had the one.

Also, male crapness gets normalised. Plenty of people would consider it a horrendous overreaction to break up an “otherwise happy” marriage or condemn your child to a supposed life of misery as an only child over a trivial thing like Dad being a useless, uninvolved parent.

Of course they are capable. I think often it's habit, formed because women take the lion share of those newborn weeks and then it becomes ingrained. Also, in my experience at least, control freakery takes a lot to shake.

(Hopefully the sarcasm in my second para is obvious!)

Illness, depression, family conflict, age, addictions and a whole host of other reasons can change a perfectly reasonable decent parent into someone useless and a 'dead weight'.

Most women do not actively seek out hopeless men to father their children, in the most part they go into the marriage/relationship with high hopes.

Once the children are here it is not possible to trade in useless Dad for someone better!

I am saying YABU because this is a warning sign of domestic abuse and when you are in that situation it can take a LONG time to see it - one of those reasons is that there can be a fear of people thinking less of you as someone who has seemingly chosen to be in that situation.
Please be careful what you say about this women.

Yes, but let's be honest... Women have children (more than one!) with men with far worse flaws than not knowing how to handle the children on their own.

And sometimes people say that and the truth is that the other person could do it (maybe after a little "training"), but it wouldn't be done according to their own standards, so they choose to do it themselves. That's fine, but it's their choice!

I also think it is true that many men find multiple children very hard to deal with, where as one child seemed manageable. It might be that they can't cope with the noise/responsibility and all the rest. You can't know that until the children are born, and the situation is set. Lots of mothers can feel like that too, deadbeat dads are not the only ones that can feel overwhelmed.

Some women go into it with their eyes at least a little bit open because they want a child and they think the man is their 'last best' hope.

Had a friend who had a child with a man who was already a shit father to two DC. But she wanted a child desperately, so she married him and got pregnant. I don't think she ever truly believed in her heart he'd be a good father, but I do think she rather hoped he would be. He wasn't. She pretty much accepted that she knew what he was so just muddled along without any help from him. She got the child she wanted and I guess she felt he was 'part of the deal'.

They split when the child was about 2, but not because he was a shit father. He was also a shit husband.

Of course you can predict a man will be a useless dad! Or at least have a good idea...
Does he consider half of the household chores his in the sense that he isn't waiting for you to tell him what to do but actually does it when it needs to be done? This includes daily tidying, meal planning, etc, no just vacuum once a week for ex.

His attitude when it is just two of you is a pretty good hint.

@b0redb0redb0red

One of my friends is married to a man who seemed enthusiastic enough about the first child and then just seemed to switch off and tune out when the second came. I guess the novelty factor wore off just as his career started to take off (although so did the mum’s career and she didn’t have the option to check out of family life). I’d have called him an OK dad when he just had the one.

Also, male crapness gets normalised. Plenty of people would consider it a horrendous overreaction to break up an “otherwise happy” marriage or condemn your child to a supposed life of misery as an only child over a trivial thing like Dad being a useless, uninvolved parent.

Very true. I have come across quite a lot of people who would've been within the normal and workable range of moderate crappiness if they'd just stuck to the one, but didn't.

Not exclusively men either, sometimes women, but as you say, we don't really give a shit about it when it's blokes. I was going to say we forgive it but actually that's not right either: we don't see it. Because if you have an NT, averagely difficult child and a reasonably competent primary carer, actually the bar for the second parent, usually the father, is pretty low. They don't have to do that much to reach the levels of unremarkably alright.

Psychological abuse. Patterns of behaviour in families. It's very complicated and difficult to see when you are "in it".

YABU, for starting another thread like this.
What do you aim to achieve OP ?

He probably didn't realise he wouldn't know what to do before he had a child but if it became evident with the first one, why go in for a second one?

I have known a couple of people with depressive illness (having treatment), who found looking after their children terribly difficult despite wanting to.

If there's nothing wrong with a person they can surely learn what to do, it's not rocket science.

My exh did the housework too while we were both working, before children. There was a lot less to do back then. He wasn't great at cooking - but we were both young so it didn't surprise me. I had learned to cook better over the years and thought we would both continue to learn - why not, I thought. He also said all the right things; that women were equal, that he wanted to be a hands-on dad.

When our first child was born, at first he did things with her - but I was a SAHM, so expected to do more childcare. I was pregnant with our second child without going back to work in between: they are two years apart, so I had a little over a year during which I could have decided he was too shit a father to have a second child with - but it was a year during which our whole plan was for me to take on the majority of the childcare.

Over the years, my exh gradually did less and less, until by the time I was ready to go back to work, I was in charge of it all. And when I did start work again, by that point he saw me as the housewife and him as the earner. It was only then that it became really clear to me that things were not going to become more equal again.

His attitude never really changed after that. But before we had kids, I didn't know that was how it would end up. And when our dd was small, it still felt like a temporary situation. The shift was creeping; hard to recognise. It wasn't something either of us expected: I'm sure he did intend to be a hands-on parent. But like many of us, he was underestimating how much time and effort that requires.

I carried on learning to cook. He never learned any more: if anything he's regressed, as he can no longer be bothered to put any effort in at all (reading between the lines of what the kids report!). I don't think it's a coincidence that we both ended up following traditional role models. But when we were young, it didn't feel as if that was the only possible outcome.

I don't think it's useful to act as if these things are obvious, and we should know from the start that a man is going to be an equal partner or not - because if women think that, then (like me), they won't spot the gradual changes, over time, and won't realise that those changes are stoppable.

I think it helps if you have had a good model of a husband and father as you grow up, so that you know what to look for in a prospective life partner and how a good relationship works, and just expect more.

I also think there is an element, if the woman feels time is not on her side, of "he's not perfect but he will have to do because I want children".

One of my friends is married to a man who seemed enthusiastic enough about the first child and then just seemed to switch off and tune out when the second came.

I've seen that - and on a related note I've had several friends say that as their relationship deteriorate the interested in the kids by their Dad did as well to point once they split they were barely in the kids lives afterwards yet had seemed very involved fathers previously.

DH was always pretty good but I did have to push back on what can I feed them at times and his confidence increased when I got busy and wasn't around sometimes for part of weekends.

I think there were many people undermining his confidence - not just me though I don't think I ever intentionally did though perhaps stepping in too soon did happen. Family IL especially they were horrified he changed nappies - something my own Dad had always done.

Because the default position for childcare is always the mother, so women have low expectations unless they have grown up in a household with an involved father.
If your only experience of family life is a mum who caters to most of your needs , runs a household, works and society meanwhile bombards you with images and adverts where mum is the default carer and dad just does the fun stuff or is portrayed as hopeless, then your expectations are already skewed to start with.

Until recently most adverts about anything child related or domestic were targeted solely at women. mum worrying about how clean the kitchen was or which floor cleaner was the best etc. Its subconscious messaging from all around you that that will be your role when you grow up, whether you realise it or not.
From the moment you are given dolls or pretend kitchens, when magazines and adverts run pieces like how to have the perfect home, cook the perfect meal. expectations are set from a young age.
Men just dont see childcare/domestic work as their role because they dont receive the same level of conditioning women do unless they are made to see it
You only have to see how much 'help' a single dad would be offered in relation to a single mum and how many plaudits they get for caring for their own child to realise the deep sexism inherent in society perpetuates the status quo of women = default childcare/domestic work.
Women have low expectations from the start, they are groomed to it from a young age.

Huge numbers of people get divorced, and formerly great dads abandon their kids in favour of a new family.

So even if this woman’s original husband was a useless father, maybe the poor kids will get a good dad in the great divorce reshuffle probably heading their way.

your expectations are already skewed to start with
This, too - even if you know that you want a more involved parent, you still don't know how high your expectations could be.

@Viviennemary

It's easy to decide you are hopeless at something if somebody else is prepared to take over. Nearly all these men would step up and learn if they had to.

Absolutely.

''Learned helplessness''

'Oh I'm crap at changing a nappy...you do it so well DH hands over stinky baby.

It's because they don't WANT to do it, rather than ''Can't.''

Surely no one is that utterly feeble that they can't change a nappy or fold down a buggerboo.

Without knowing the background story to how the children came about or much about the relationship dynamics it is impossible to form a fair judgement.

Women as a generalization want children and biology imposes an age limit for this. Men are much more split, some do, some are ambivalent and some definitely don't, many would rather leave it later in life to give more time to enjoy being childless first. Given the roughly 50/50 gender split of the population and the monogamous norms of our society it is a mathematical inevitability that many women will not find a relationship with a man of similar age who wants children when they do (or at all).

If you find yourself running out of childbearing years, desperate for children and either single or in a relationship with a man who doesn't want children then you have a choice to either give up on the idea, have an 'accident' or cut a deal where you take most/all the responsibility. Very few women seem to take option 1.

@SBTLove

I think I question more that after one child and seeing how useless he is they then keep having more kids.

What difference does it make at that point? You already have the full responsibility of looking after one kid, two won't make any difference.

My friend was like this and then she died... :-(

@Staffy1
Why keep having kids with an irresponsible useless parent?

Maybe he didn’t know how hard it would be, I don’t think they intentionally set out to be crap. Why did she have a second baby with him if he is so crap? I prefer to get on and do all the changing, cooking and cleaning as then I know it has been done and where things are. Plus I work part time so I have more time to do it as he works full time. No he is not a total monster for making me work part time and look after my children, funnily enough I want to look after them as I am their mother. All my colleagues do this too.