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.

How does he not know what to do?

It's a little human, he's presumably manage to keep himself alive all this time, just do the same only smaller and gentler

My partner is was absolutely useless when our daughter was young, but he did get better, being part of a relationship is about working together! If it works for them, it’s no one else’s business.

Also we don't hold men to high enough standards so women think it's ok.
This with bells on.

As a society it seems to expected that whilst men live alone they're capable of adulting, but in a relationship the woman does the lion's share.
It's meant to be funny when there's lots of memes and jokes about how useless men are with babies or children
People talk quite openly about how dad's are 'babysitting' when they look after their own children
It seems to be normalised in places that man's job is terribly important but woman's job isn't.
People seem to think equality means mum and dad working, but not sharing an equal load of the home tasks and child raising.
Women are socialised to nice and want to have families and run a nice home so when their DP/DH thinks nothing of having a hobby, they don't and end up without interests of their own.
Worse still comes the time where the women will claim they can't possibly have an evening to go to yoga to choir because the apocalypse will happen. Their useless partner is apparently incapable of watching their own children for a couple of hours.
Sadly the response to this ^^ situation is for women to tell other women they ought to stop their DP/DH having a hobby, that it's selfish to have a hobby etc, rather than championing how important it is for BOTH parents to have their own down time and hobbies.
A substantial number of women seem to expect very little of men so tell others how 'lucky' people are to have men who are capable and willing to pick up their shit and put a load of laundry in.

When society tells me they can be selectively feckless and there's enough women willing to tolerate it in the name of having kids, it's hardly surprising there's some useless man-children around.

@thepeopleversuswork

Are we saying all the men who turn out to be useless shitty dads were perfect partners and there was no hint? Some yes all, no. It's also offensive to suggest every woman who has multiple children with a shitty father is in an abusive relationship.

As other people have pointed out its much more complex than that.

But I'd also add that what you look for in a partner for a chid-free life is not necessarily what you need in a partner for child-rearing. There are certain qualities and characteristics you don't know you need until you don't have them.

When you're in your mid 20s, someone's ability to plan a household budget isn't necessarily something that draws women like moths to a flame.

Now you can argue that that's the fault of the women for being attracted to feckless butterflies who are more interested in getting laid than in planning a secure future, but you could also argue that society has conditioned men to think they can get away with this so they do.

I agree there are certain characteritics that you don't know you need until you need them. But once you realise they are lacking why let yourself in for more work/misery? This post is specifically about multiple children.

I also didn't say that it wasn't more complex than my statement. But it's an Internet discussion forum. This is how it works. You don't provide a reasoned response to every statement put forward you reply to some points and my point still completely stands. I didn't in anyway imply it was just abuse or it was just the case that all men showed signs of their potentially shitty behaviour. But it it is unreasonable do insinuate that they are the main or most significant reasons. Which some pp's indeed have.

@Totickleamockingbird

You need to realise this OP that a lot of these guys have a case of strategic incompetence. By definition, it means they can be incompetent as and when needed.

Ha ha! I totally get this unfortunately from my DH

I'm really struggling with the statement it's men end of.
As absolutely it is unacceptable that men are lazy parents in some cases. But the op was about why you would choose this as a woman and the question still stands. It's not about where the blame us. The question is given that some men can be shit parents and that is of course their own fault, why would you have multiple children with them?

I actually feel this is quite an important question as it also links to why we find it socially acceptable for men to behave this way. We're really not going to get anywhere with this problem is we continued to say it's men not women to blame. Yes we know this!

So @Pickagoddamnname did the incompetence come after children? (if you have them)

Sounds like my first husband. When I married him he was capable in every aspect of life, there was no indication he'd be a useless lazy dad.
He was absolutely fecking useless. So I only had one child with him.
And left him, I thought as our marriage was more stressful than being a single person I thought I may as well be a single parent.
I don't have any time for men too lazy to parent their own children because it is pure laziness and nothing else.

@Harderlife

Well my husband really wanted a child, made lots of claims how he’d be a super dad, it was his dream to have children, he couldn’t wait etc. 2 years of IVF...baby born and he did fuck all. Complete surprise 2nd baby (I only have half my reproductive system)...still does fuck all He’s an abusive alcoholic but funnily enough his opening lines wasn’t I’ll be a shit dad and husband I live and learn, still don’t think the blame for his sheer twat-ness should be put on me though

I'm sorry he's shit. I really don't think any blame should be put on you. Of course there are plenty of men who say they will be great and are shit then the second is unexpected etc.

Would love to know where all these perfect “suitable” single prospective fathers are. If every woman who wanted children had to wait for the perfect man and father the human race would die out.

To those saying why have another baby:

It’s possible for a husband/partner to be pretty involved with baby no.1 and then check out with baby no.2 because it’s less interesting than the toddler/child. Or to be crap with the older kid cause the baby is easier. Or just to be terrified of being outnumbered.

Interesting thread.

My two cents worth - women are programmed from a young age to be caring, nurturing, obedient and to clear up the messes of others - you only have to see the number of threads on here about "disruptive" male children being placed in the "care" of a "good girl" at school even at primary age. I experienced this myself 40 years ago and am only a little surprised it still goes on.

There is still alot of shame associated with a failed marriage scenario and all the hand wringing about "but what about the children" which makes many women hang in there for grim death because their needs apparently come last.

I've had several failed relationships and the underlying tone, even when in a severely toxic situation was that I had somehow not tried hard enough, even when it lead to me being sectioned - the action that lead to that was illegal but I came under enormous pressure to move on, put it behind me - he couldn't help it, he was under stress, it wouldn't be fair to add an extra layer of stress to the whole family especially the children (not all mine) on top of the inevitable divorce...... still angry, still bitter and there's fuck all I can do about it.

So why do women "keep having" children with "useless" or abusive fathers - well, it's complicated. Very complicated.

If you can stomach it, there's a Brazilian series on Netflix called "Good Morning Veronica" - basically a police procedural that is based around misogyny and includes a serial killer whose wife is expected to produce a son for him and is co-erced into helping him with his crimes - while yes, it's obviously a fictional thing, watching it gave me chills as I recognised quite alot of the headfuckery employed both in relationships and institutionally.

I'm older and hopefully a bit wiser now, and my child bearing days are gone, but it's taken me a whole lot of heartache to get here and while there is an element of personal responsibility involved in these situations, you can only make your decisions based on the available information in any given moment. Once you start to feel a decision was "bad" extricating oneself isn't easy - and sometimes the biggest lies are the ones we tell ourselves because the truth can break you.

Let's blame women again for the failings of men.

Mine was a professional -earnt over 250K a year, and was still an arsehole. He wasn't before we had kids.
Mine promised the moon and stars and failed to deliver -how about making them REALLY accountable with money and everything else and cutting women some slack. How about courts understanding that some Dads really are CRAP and want to play at being a father and play at being there when they cause a load of shit and make things a million times worse.

I have noticed a trend with some woman these days. They assume their me n are incompetent and helpless with anything domesti c

My mum used to get very worried if she wasn't back in time to fix my father's tea and I would remind her that if he was feeling peckish he was more than capable of fixing himself a sandwich or ordering pizza

To be frank, the women are the problem 99.999999999% of the time in couples where the children can't be left alone with their father. He's not incompetent, they're just overprotective and controlling. It's very, very rare that a father is actually dangerous to a child without being a genuinely bad human being. In reality, she's decided she doesn't want her precious babies being looked after by him because he might do things differently to her. I have zero sympathy.

And in my experience -most useless fuckers know they are are useless fuckers and love bomb and try and get the women to have a baby as then she is a reliant on him for money etc -things are shit and they she might feel that 1) already have one DC, always wanted two -two is same / less work than one I'll go for another or 2) he pulls his finger out and things are good for 2-3 months and he persuades her to have a baby as things are better and the cycle repeats or 3) she ends up being so beaten down that she feels this is the "best she should expect so my as well get on with having another or 4) Complicated.

@Okokokitsout My husbands incompetance has always been there but is mainly around diy rather than fathering.

Many interesting theories on here. I just want to reiterate I in no way wanted to blame ‘the woman’ on this thread. There are many theories and it was just that me and my friend had a discussion where we had differing points of view and I found it interesting.

It’s quite sad reading some of these though as there are a lot of cases where it reads neglect and abusive by the husband and like a lot of you have said, society and our culture make that behaviour completely acceptable.

I wonder when women really do have equality whether the same issues will exist to such an extent.

To be fair, ‘AIBU to not understand why women intentionally have children with these men?’ seems accusatory and like the fault lies with the women.
So you know...that’s how it was taken.

I think these women know from early on how their partners would be as a dad/husband. They're just in denial and think it'll get better.

There are definitely cases where the man was the perfect partner until the woman was pregnant. Lovebombing to abusive almost overnight.
Shared custody then becomes the greatest fear as it would mean leaving a child alone with the man. Not wanting him to do childcare or shared anything for same reason. Pretty grim really. I bet more cases of that are out there than you realise, OP.

wonder when women really do have equality whether the same issues will exist to such an extent

That equality will never exist until men can gestate, give birth and breast feed.

@pictish I also explained in my OP that was my friends statement not mine. So you know. Not my view, not my intention. I was aiming for a discussion and other people’s views which has been interesting.

I’m surprised you needed to ask really...I think the reasons women end up with inadequate fathers as partners are varied and in some cases, rather obvious.

People who post, “And you had children with this man, why?” only do so to be a chief wanker.