Absent father

[Givemeabreak88]

Aibu to wonder why there are so many absent or uninterested fathers? I just can’t understand how someone can have kids and not care about how they are or want to see them, how can you go through life without seeing your kids for years? But it’s so common for so many fathers to pretend they don’t even have a child, is it just a case of out of sight out of mind?

I suppose the whole marriage system is meant to tie men into sticking with their families. That’s why it existed through the generations. Of course it doesn’t work - there have always been men who upped and left and strangely the shame was always put on the women. I suppose because the rest of society feared they might end up claiming on the parish or something. It makes me laugh she a friend talks down to me as I am now a “single mum” - so very patronising! It could happen to her but she can’t see that. I think these men must have some major fault in their brains. Even if they didn’t feel the love or were faking it, where is their sense of responsibility? Utter snakes.

I think sadly it’s too common and normalised now so don’t see it ever changing. When I’ve confronted my ex over the years he said “well loads of dads don’t see their kids”

Yes OP you're right. I wonder what he'd say if you said back to him "and is that what you want for your own flesh and blood?"

@duchesspodcast

My question was really, how can we change society to make men feel shame when they don't support their dc

One man at a time. Obviously mothers can’t solve it alone.

My son has no role models of men who walked away from their kids. His dad put huge effort into staying in touch with him and he watched his step dad and step brother do the same with their kids. He’s adamant that he won’t have children outside marriage.

Maybe we should advise our daughters not to get involved with men whose family background features men who turned their backs on their families.

I was envisioning more of a drink-driving type sea change in public opinion, but then I'm an eternal optimist!

Obviously I know that won't happen.

CSA money is also a joke. It should better reflect the true cost of raising a child alone. Maybe that might make them realise?

My ex’s family had no history of men walking away. It didn’t stop him. As long as it’s legal and there are no real sanctions - not even public opinion - then it will go on, causing immense harm to the kids.

I think the OP’s point though was how can they do it? It’s not really about the money or the work, it’s how they can inflict such mental cruelty. I can’t understand how they can. Imagine if 90% of women abandoned their kids?

That 90% isn’t quite right. I mean 90% of those doing the abandoning are men.

My dc have both told me they won't turn out like their dad, and even if a relationship ends they will put their dc first.

Of course that could change, but I hope that knowing what we all went through, is enough to make them better dads than their own.

How we change things on a whole society level is another matter.

I read an interesting article a while back on the topic of fathers who drift out, it related particularly to fathers who were typically poor and relatively uneducated, who often had shortish (under a year to maybe two years at most), live in relationships with women, who themselves typically had kids with several different fathers.

The article suggested that a fairly typical pattern was that they would be initially enthusiastic about being fathers, but it would start to fall apart as the relationship began to break down with the mother. Many of them struggled to provide financially, and didn't have good examples of fatherhood in their own lives. Once they had moved out, all kinds of other barriers asserted themselves - the kids were still small, they often did not have cash to take the kids out or a home where they could visit, they not uncommonly would soon move in with another woman and her kids and the mother would often have a new boyfriend. Friction between the parents tended to make them argue over things like visiting arrangements and the mothers were upset over lack of financial support.

But as a result of all of this it was difficult for the fathers to build a strong relationship, even from early on, and whatever efforts they made in many cases still didn't work out well - the children weren't all that happy to see them or didn't enjoy the visits. Eventually the visits would drop off.

Not all of these things apply more generally, but I do think there is something common to the experience of a parent who doesn't have custody, even partially or at least fairly often, finding that the basic relationship of trust and comfort that a child normally has with a parent doesn't really establish itself. And things like friction with the mother can of course apply anywhere. So the whole thing becomes fraught and difficult, and the children themselves don't function comfortably in the parental interactions.

In general it is much easier for parents to both remain close to the kids if they have stable lives - housing and jobs - that are not too far apart from each other geographically.

That’s an interesting insight, I do think a lot of the time when new relationships and new kids come a lot of dads drift off however neither myself or ex have met anyone else, we are both still single though I believe he has causal relationships, also he has his own house but he preferred to rent it out rather than have the kids there.

My late teen kids dad has seen them twice in the last 5 years also pays nothing towards them .He also has four grown up kids that he doesn't really see.
He is selfish and self absorbed and always sees himself as a victim. He is a knob .

@Givemeabreak88

That’s an interesting insight, I do think a lot of the time when new relationships and new kids come a lot of dads drift off however neither myself or ex have met anyone else, we are both still single though I believe he has causal relationships, also he has his own house but he preferred to rent it out rather than have the kids there.

Some people are just kind of jerks.

I also think for some people, they are kind of lazy about difficult things. And seeing your kids is kind of difficult and actually sort of depressing in a way, and certain people avoid things like that and try and forget about them. Actually - maybe most people have done something like that at some point, but many step up with their kids. But some take the easy path.

I do also think that mums are typically more bonded to kids - not in each case comparatively, but if you were to look at all parental relationships you would see, say, 10% of mums that don't really bond in the first few years and a larger number of fathers. (That's a made up number.) I suspect this is due to the biological elements around pregnancy and childbirth and the fact that women often do the bulk of infant care, especially if breastfeeding.

It's not often you see mums with less than shared custody - I wonder, if it was more common for fathers to be the main custodians, if mothers would be more likely to fall away from seeing kids?

You'd think vasectomies didn't exist.

@SmokedDuck that is too simplistic a view. My ex was a graduate with a professional middle class job, married more than 20 years before the split and enough money from the divorce settlement to buy a three bedroom house of his own. He still cut all ties. Right at the start he said “I won’t be seeking custody”. It’s too easy for people to think this only happens to the poor, unmarried or uneducated.

Lots of reasons I would imagine. None of which excuse the behaviour but might be why they do it. Being talked/nagged into it by a partner, one partner not using contraception correctly as they want a child, being threatened with an ultimatum if they don’t have them etc.

Always surprises me how many have children with someone they are barely dating or who already has children and doesn’t see them or does the bare minimum with them.

Gets even more complicated when new relationships come along and the step parent often isn’t happy to be one so contact causes conflict etc.

Reminds me of my friends exH;he hasn't seen 3 out 4 of his kids in years,doesn't acknowledge them not even at Xmas,birthdays etc and Still lies to CMS that he use to have all 4 of them 2 nights a week (2 are over 18 now) and still lies he has both his 13&14 year old 2 nights a week when it's just the 14 year old.

The 14 year old is male;the rest are female so only wants something to do with his DS but not his DD's.

He dodged paying CMS for a long time and did everything he could to get out of it:I think the funniest incident is when he used other people's receipts for school uniform saying he was for things for the kids and had a private arrangement with my friend for CM (obviously he didn't).

However the one that took the biscuit was a letter (I've seen it too) he sent to my friend asking her to drop the claim because and I quote "surely you and x (friends partner) earn enough between you to pay for everything the kids need;it's not like you need my money too"

I think it's still painfully obvious to see that even in this day and age kids are still seen as being a woman's responsibility.

There's a weird feeling about vasectomies among some men I've found. My dbil point blank refused - something about his masculinity I think - resulting in an unwanted pregnancy and PND for dsis. It also set off her bulimia again, not to mention the years of uncomfortable intrusive contraception she had to deal with.

But his warped view of manliness was more important.

CSA money is also a joke. It should better reflect the true cost of raising a child alone. Maybe that might make them realise

I agree, if there was no state help and both had to pay 50/50 of the costs of the child in the event of a split many would think far more carefully when family planning.

@Iwantacookie

My DH went to school with 2 lads who were step brothers and in the same class and yet the lads dad had no contact with him and use to have to sit and listen to all the wonderful things step brother had been brought or done with his step dad whilst the biological son got nothing.

Yes and if the xh's quality of life is better than the mum's then he should pay more than 50:50 because I believe the idea behind maintenance was to keep the dc at the same quality of life as they were before the split/as if the parents were still together. Hence higher earning men (are meant to) pay more than lower earning ones - it's not just a flat rate that covers half the basic costs.

I think some of this business of "all men will do this" and the idea that it's always been like this is a little counterfactual.

Statistically there are a lot more children now being brought up by only one parent. And there is some significant differences with it across cultures/demographics as well. It tends to be a multi-generational pattern.

The acceptance of dads being out of the picture seems to come along with the acceptance of more babies being born outside of permanent, committed relationships as an ok social norm and the attitude that this is ok for kids. And it kind of makes sense that the two ideas would go together, and that attitude would also affect kids born of relationships that were committed but which break down.

It’s an issue way beyond family planning! I’m talking about men in supposedly very stable long-term relationships! As for the money - it’s a joke. My ex thought I should just pay for everything as I earn more than him. They are his kids too though. Actually it’s humiliating to ask but as he got a lot of money that I earned then it was only fair.

[quote TorringtonDean]@SmokedDuck that is too simplistic a view. My ex was a graduate with a professional middle class job, married more than 20 years before the split and enough money from the divorce settlement to buy a three bedroom house of his own. He still cut all ties. Right at the start he said “I won’t be seeking custody”. It’s too easy for people to think this only happens to the poor, unmarried or uneducated.[/quote]
What do you mean, "too simplistic". Of course it doesn't describe everyone.

Do you really think anyone thinks only poor people have absent fathers? Where do these people who think that live, on the moon? Especially given that I described the population the article was about in some detail and said that it wouldn't apply wholly?

Maybe we should advise our daughters not to get involved with men whose family background features men who turned their backs on their families.

Wow. Sins of the fathers! My boys have done absolutely nothing to cause their father to abandon them. They’ve suffered their entire lives being repeatedly and then finally rejected by him. They’ve had counselling to help them process the feelings that affect them as a result. And now they should spend the rest of their lives single because the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree?

Have a word with yourself.

I think there are too many men who are absent and don't provide csa because out current laws make it very easy for them to do so.

Csa debts are very rarely enforced.
No come back.

They just cut ties, cut support and put it to the back of their mind as they are not really pursued.

Not every man but for the ones that want to, we'll society and our lack of enforcement makes it easy for them to do so.

Meanwhile single mums often bear the brunt of it. Can't afford the childcare to work so have to stay home. Then get slagged off and penalised by the benefit system.