Would men just put their kids into care?

[MustdrinkmoreH2O]

Would be interested to know peoples thoughts on this.

since having my baby and going to a lot of baby groups and mixing with other mothers and reading these forums In can safely say a high proportion of men (not all of course), see child rearing as women primary responsibility.

Women tend to be the default parent in the events of splits and men having EOW or even just walking away completely.

So I was thinking, if women suddenly acted like men in this regard and literally left men holding the baby, what would honestly happen to a lot of children?

If women suddenly stopped carrying the mental load so didn’t book in any kind of medical appointment or arrange play dates or buy new clothes, what would honestly happen?

One of my friends is dating a single dad (mum walked out), but his parents practically raised the kids as he worked away. So still pretty much saw them only at weekends. However if a man leaves a woman with a baby, in normal circumstances she’d just find a new job where she didn’t work away, reduce hours of needed and use paid childcare. They wouldn’t normally hand their kids over to others to raise 80% of the time because they had to work.

So I’m really interested to see what a lot of men would do if the roles were reversed. If women literally just walked out or stopped carrying any mental load type stuff relating to the kids. Would men leave their jobs if required or go part time and claim universal credit?

Would the majority step up as women do and stop their hobbies, arrange childcare and extracurricular activities and basically fully give themselves to parenthood? Would they realise their kids need new vests, socks and tshirts or need a dental check up?

Or

Would they hand over their kids to grandparents/family members to be primarily raised or if failing that, put them into care? Would they do the bare minimum so kids are literally fed, watered and taken to school but other than that left to their own devices with no activities or medical appointments arranged or assemblies attended or well fitted clothes worn and basically be kind of neglected?

Be interested to know others thoughts on what would actually happen.

YABU - as many men as women would step up and look after their kids the same way single mothers do.

YANBU - unfortunately most men would try and shirk as much responsibility of child rearing sometimes even resulting in the care system if their were no willing people to become primary cater.

@OddSockQueen

Both are true

Both are a result of each other and of the patriarchy

My husband was an equal-share parent from day one (he'd never actually touched a baby in his life, so learned fast, on the job) and so are our sons.

One of my aunts developed a fast terminal illness and died three weeks later. They had six very young children. Her husband raised all of them on his own and did a great job.

Natural caregivers or control freaks?

Honestly the amount of whinging on here that DHs are doing stuff wrong.

No wonder they leave their female partners to do things female partners are control freaks about.

My only personal experience worth contributing is observing that MN is full of control freaks.

There us a saying where I come from regarding babies - "Men learn, women know." I think this is true, broadly speaking. It starts from the first minutes. As a mother, you can physically feel when your child needs feeding. A man can't do this. As a new mum, you never really sleep as you did before. You are so attuned too the baby, they don't need to be crying much to wake you. I can only speak for my husband, but he was just not attuned in the same way.

That's not to say men are incapable of learning - but men are not women. Also, there are some women who aren't maternal either. These women struggle to see the difference between themselves and men from day one because they didn't feel it. But, I would say, for the vast majority of couples, women are instinctively attuned from the first minutes in a way men are not.

As children get older, biological differences between men and women become less relevant. But still, in the whole, I think women have just got into the habit of putting the kids first and anticipating their needs, in a way that men don't. It's partly that they haven't had to (because they will have felt a need to prioritise other things, such as their work); or it's something that they have to learn.

For our primitive ancestors, it was all about survival and it would not have been efficient to have both parents focusing on the same thing. One would have needed to go off hunting; one keep the children safe. This is how we've evolved as a species and there's nothing like children coming along to cause couples to revert to certain roles. That's my experience anyway.

My Dh is the most hands on dad, if I wasn't around he'd die before he gave them up.

My uncle in law, spent thousands and fought tooth and nail to gain full custody of his DC, when their mother was a malicious, evil witch who made up lies, refused him access - to the point they were removed from her care, she was only allowed supervised access, and now she has written a letter stating she never wants to see her sons ever again. The only interest she ever had In the kids, was to use them to control and abuse him.

Your generalisation is really shitty. Women are more than capable of being horrendous parents.

I agree with "men learn, women know".
And I think children sense when that is the case. When you are hurt, it's your mum you generally want.

Change your social circle.

The men in my family and social circle are great dads, partners and human beings.

Sorry the ones you know are not.

Sorry that's BS.

I agree this is all BS.

From a very recent experience of being in an antenatal group I can say that vast majority of women don’t “just know” at all. Actually that natural instinct/ mother’s intuition rubbish is a large contributing factor to post natal mental health issues and PPD because women are shocked when they realise they don’t just know everything about their newborn and they then question themselves as a mother and a person.

In fact the majority of this site is mother’s asking various questions throughout ttc, pregnancy, postpartum and childhood. That alone should totally disprove “men learn, women know”.

I agree with @nesbo that men would think their job is to provide more financially. I get the point you are making @MustdrinkmoreH2O but don’t think I agree with lauding single mums for going part time and claiming Universal Credit, isn’t that avoiding your responsibility in a different way?

Obviously it doesn't literally mean women know the details of everything!

It means that women have an instinct men do not have. Because men are not women. They are not the childbearing sex and are not designed to feed babies. They don't have the hormones women have after birth, nor same intuition.

That's not to say they would put the kids in care! But, on average, men are less attuned. Men have different hormones and physicality that predispose them to focusing on slightly different things.

I once decided to give my ex-husband a taste of his own medicine when he kidnapped my children overnight, simply to upset me he took them to a hotel room and then brought them into school the next day they had had no dinner no breakfast they were in Yesterdays clothes including knickers hadn’t brush their teeth and had no lunch with them . The school absolutely bent over backwards to help and assist him to sort the children out. I know it was for the children’s benefit of course it was. BUT
Can you imagine if a woman a done similar thing?
later on that day when he arrived back at the house to further verbally assault me I told him if he was taking the children don’t forget to take the baby with you was well, given that that’s the most difficult one to manage. I walked off halfway down the street turned around to see him on the phone to his mother I shit you not crying. Obviously I went back and took the baby.

And I would completely agree with that, whilst they are in relationships with the children’s mother, a very different kettle of fish afterwards. When they aren’t fucking the mother of the children and she isn’t there to advocate for them the children very often become second-best we see it on threads on here, day and day out.

@minticelime

Men do have the same hormones

The more direct childcare they do for their own babies and children, the more they produce

@RedWingBoots @luxxlisbon it was a pp just above me who explained the whole "men learn, women know" thing in detail.

And obviously women at an antenatal class don't know yet! The baby hasn't been born yet . But guaranteed when it is, they will have a better instinct than the man re what to do with it.

@Nothappyatwork

How did you manage to have more than 1 kid with such a great guy?

Because I alluded to be low they aren’t like that or at least less ridiculous when they have to keep the mother of the children happy. Although actually to be fair he did get his mother around to babysit the baby whilst he went off to fuck somebody else while I was at work.

What a delight.

But guaranteed when it is, they will have a better instinct than the man re what to do with it.

Really? No missing instincts for these two Dads, the same certainly cannot be said for the birth mother.

You probably would have said the same about my mum. She thought my dad often did wrong.
After the divorce, she would send us (young children under the age of 9) with my dad and he indeed would send us to school without our bags or lunch. He didn’t realise we needed to wash our hair until I told him. 🤷🏻‍♀️He didn’t cook and fed us only chips and chicken nuggets and pasta. It wasn’t neglect as such. You can see where my mum was coming from.

There's no way my DH would hand our son over to GPs if I ran off or died. I don't think he had the maternal instincts that I have for DS but he would be an excellent single parent if needed. I don't think my DH is the only one.

No, the antenatal experience was the first 12 months of having a baby and being on mat leave.
I can’t think of a single time one of the women just knew what to do because “instinct”. They were learning just as much as the dads.

"Men do have the same hormones"

How do men have the same hormones? They're not producing milk. Their bodies haven't grown a baby over nine months. They don't have whatever hormone causes the uterus to contract back - they don't even have a uterus! Tudy have no physical changes whatsoever. Also, women have a raised adrenaline in the first few weeks after birth that puts them in a kind of high alert and means they are less likely to sleep through the baby crying. It's how humans survived as a species.

@Nothappyatwork

Oh dear. My comment still stands. The men I know are decent.

@minticelime

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170217095925.htm

Ok… so it would seem you do agree with me?

Which begs the question- why did you start arguing with me a few pages back? I was saying women are not gatekeeping childcare, and men as a group do dodge childcare. And I was saying those things precisely because some people had said the opposite on this very thread. Indeed, it sounds a lot like you are saying those things in this quote:

I've seen loads of women moaning their ohs don't look after their kids.

But if asked why they don't just leave them to it, there's loads of (rubbish excuses)

Sounds a lot like you’re making it women’s fault 🤷‍♀️