Would men just put their kids into care?

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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.

My dad just did the bare necessities with me when he had me at 8 years old. I was a latchkey kid so went to school on my own, came home alone and sat in the house on my own until he got back. He fed me and occasionally bought me clothes when it was glaringly obvious that mine were falling apart. I remember having to try and comb my hair with a fork as he was bald and it didn’t cross his mind to buy me a hairbrush. I put myself into care when I was 12/13.
My oh is considered a good parent but he works away, only comes home once a month. He provides for us and gives the kids all of his attention when he is home. I suspect if anything happened to me though then the children would be given to his mother so he could continue to work away.

My cousin is a single dad. He has been since his children were 8 and 3. He is a very hands on dad. He works full time and my aunt and uncle do help lots, but not all the time.

Care was never ever a consideration.

I had 2 kids with a single dad. After we split up he had nothing to do with his kids with me. He wanted the older one from previous relationship but not his younger 2, so it's not always clear cut. However he nearly had his eldest taken off him and adopted and I believe he only got custody of that child because his parents encouraged and supported him with it. The kids he had with me were an inconvenience to them, so if they weren't happy about him having them, then without any encouragement he was never going to be a present father to them. He was a shit dad in other words.

There was a thread on here the other day from a grandmother whose daughter didn’t want her son (the poster’s grandson) anymore, and the child’s father had approached the grandma about having 50/50 custody between them. Lots of posters saying that the other way round, a single mum would never seek 50/50 custody with grandparents and would just accept 100% of sole custody.

I was in hospital for a week and my DH had to look after our 7 year old DD.

He remembers it as him being very successful and says “I got her to eat fish” (poached white fish).

I came back to piles and piles of washing. Found out that she hated the fish, and he’d been feeding her far too late (9pm).

The only thing that she remembers about it “dad made me pick up the dog poo”
this was always my job, as he wouldn’t do it.

My DH, and most men of our age (late 40s/early 50s) that I know, would expect a female relative to help out. When DH’s friend split from his wife when their son was 6, DH was astonished by my suggestion that if he changed his working hours he could have his son more that EOW. The wife took a lower salary, part time job to fit around school hours, of course.

Honestly, that told me a lot, and surprised me.

My DH would absolutely give up everything to look after DD. He would've taken the long paternity leave but he is the breadwinner

YABU

There are lots of males who want to be just a such of a parent as mum's are, but when the split happens, mum's get automatically presumed as the main parent.

My brothers wife upped and left him with 3 small children. He had a job that was really unsociable hours with accommodation off the back of that. Because he couldnt find a childminder dur to his hours, he quit his job and of course lost the house in the process. But all three girls are almost adult, well adjusted and see their mum once in a blue moon, she's never paid cm or helped him out, our parents are old and live hours away so he had little support. I have nothing but admiration for him, but would feel the same if it was a woman.

I think most men, like women, would step up, but they don't have to, so don't.

In all the scenarios I've seen if this sort, the man has stepped up.

Agree. In my circle of friends all the men are really equal and great partners. TBF the women in our group are also not the type to accept or settle for anything less.

Can only speak from my own experience but my ex H's dad basically just handed the kids over to his own mother on his access weekends. Too busy golfing or going on holiday. Ex H would do that too on his contact weekends if he could, but has no contact with his mother. So he uses his sister and dad instead when he can't be bothered thinking of anything to do with the kids or wants to go to sports matches. Amongst my friendship group, the separated fathers definitely did not consider changing jobs, claiming benefits etc and would not think to book haircuts, GP and so on. So my control group is definitely not as varied as the comments here!

Of the families I know where the mother has died or walked away (usually drug or alcohol addictions) the following has happened -

• Most commonly either the grandparents rear the child either full-time or part-time. Families where the mum dies tend to get a lot of practical support from grandparents


• The man finds another partner who takes on most of the child-rearing


• The man becomes a single parent and does a good job


• The man becomes a single parent and does a terrible job but everyone says how marvellous he is

Anecdotal evidence from my life - most women just take charge from the minute the baby arrives and don't give the dad a chance to get the hang of looking after them in their own way. In most couples I know, the dad is fully competent, but the women just take control. Then moan that they are doing all the work! So, the dads that I know would be totally fine doing all the work if the mum took off and left.

I think if women stopped carrying the mental load within a relationship, a lot of kids would not go to activities or non emergency medical appointments, as the many men would still view it as 'her job' even if it wasn't being done. If the women left entirely and there was no one to delegate to or assume is doing stuff, more would step up. Though a significant proportion of kids would receive a lower standard of care.

It's not nessercerily because the men don't care about the kids, but on a societal level we still teach little boys and girls different skills and values, so a significant amount of men just wouldn't have the knowledge of how to raise kids. It's the invert higher proportion of women who are crap at basic DIY or car maintenance etc. There has been a push to at least pay lip service to getting girls into science and sport etc, but less the other way round of telling little boy they can do caring roles. I'm talking about little things like asking a sister to look after sibling not a brother, asking for help with chores or talking through your life admin with a daughter but not a son etc. It's nothing that can't be learned, but a knowledge gap that's mutch more common in men then women.

I also think people offer help to men far more then women. Far fewer parents of single mother would offer to raise the grandkids while she worked, but this seems quite common with single farther.

As a social worker I can tell you that these things happen a lot;

• mum has difficulties, social workers get involved and dad barely attends meetings etc as 'working' seeing the social work plan as all about mum


• agencies like schools and nurseries ask social services to pay for childcare to help mum out because 'dad is working' and seem surprised when we say dad needs to work less to care for the children


• Many dads are surprised that social workers tell them they are expected to change work patterns and hours to be able to care for their children when mum can't do it because 'working'


• many separated dads will let things get so bad with mum that child protection or even care proceedings are started before it occurs to them to take steps to have the DC in their care


• even when this does happen they still expect social workers to pay for childcare etc

Bear in mind we work with families where there is risk of significant harm so the idea that men are stepping up automatically when it's just a case of separated parenting is unlikely IME

This is quoted as a good dad. As I said, this is a common scenario I have seen where other relatives provide a lot of practical support. A level of support that was never provided to the mother.

OMG I rarelyr buy new clothes for our child - my husband sorts all that! in fact most of the things she needs he arranges to get for her. He also does all the cooking for her - all I need to do it take something out of the freezer for her on my days off and heat it up

I would absolutely struggle without him tbh.

If my dc had been left with their dad I imagine they'd have been taken in to care by now, although I imagine he'd have found a/a succession of girlfriends to take over so might prevent it that way.

None of this surprises me at all. I know there are exceptions. But generally, dads see work as important, and the kids have to fit around that.
Mums see kids as important, and work has to fit around that.

Same. My mum died when I was a child, my Dad raised me and my 2 siblings by himself. We always had everything we needed. He's now an amazing grandad to my DC, too.

There are some wonderful hands on dads and men who have raised their kids when their wives pissed off but ime these are the exception, not the rule. There are way more stories of fathers who have pissed off, often without a backward glance. I don't know if it's a nature or nurture thing but i find that in general men tend to prioritise themselves, while women usually put their children's needs first. Maybe it's simply a survival thing, women have invested more and risked more to have a child, having nurtured them through pregnancy and given birth to them.

I think a lot of times men have a female figure on standby that is more that happy/wants to take on the primary caregiver role so men are able to walk away or casually parent. Society also mostly seems to class this behaviour as acceptable which enables it to happen.

If those female figures were truly taken away then I think a lot of men would then take on the full role and responsibilities of a primary caregiver

They are capable of doing it but a lot of the time they have the option not to/aren't expected to so don't.

I think this is a really interesting question.

I've seen countless examples of men who were reasonably involved dads while they were living in the family home and married to the mother. Then they would find another woman, move out, not bother paying child maintenance, and make only sporadic contact with the kids (kids would reply to the overtures and then get ignored because 'dad' suddenly didn't have sustained interest in them 🙁).

I also know dads whose wives died and who utterly stepped up to the parenting. And just as a mini example, whenever my own mum was away, my gruff, old-fashioned dad would really try to be a mother hen thougj not that successfully.

I think, though, it's hard to say really what "most men" would do if more women felt detached enough from their child to leave, because it would be a completely different world, where the dynamics of childcare would - I presume - already be in a different state to what they are now, where generally the mother does the lion's share.

I think a succession of girlfriends or even a wife is a common "solution" for many men left holding the children.
Read step mum boards, so many young women end up in relationships where they are looking after the children. Even if they are not living with them, many end up doing a lot of childcare.

On the other hand my own dad absolutely would have stepped up. In fact he did most of the parenting anyway and still is the one that helps and when they have my dc he's the one doing the majority. I wish I'd chosen a better dad for my dc, more like mine, but I guess they wouldn't be them without him so I don't wish it too hard.