To wonder why some men have children at all?

[TheRossatron]

When they have absolutely zero interest in family life? I see it on here constantly. I don't mean men who accidentally get someone pregnant and shirk responsibility... I mean men who enter into a relationship with a woman, propose, get married and try for babies... then end up with two toddlers and a presumption that they can dump everything onto the wife and fuck off out all weekend every weekend to play golf? Or get smashed in the pub? Or sit playing video games all day? I myself loathe the thought of family life - I just wouldn't want to be tied to anyone and would feel suffocated and resentful. So why on earth don't they just stay single and childless?! Baffles me.

(Disclaimer - I know there are loads of really good men out there!)

This I fully agree with. It's on both of them. You will find that often more than not, women knowingly choose to have more kids when he was useless with the first.

Do women bear no personal responsibility in your view then?

there are 50 posts a week on here alone of women who have issues with their husbands not pulling their parental weight, and through the course of the thread it’s made clear they were shit partners before they became shit parents.

Women who post here moaning about having the burden of 2 kids lumped on them, when they also admit their partner did fuck all with their first.

Women who choose to procreate with shit men are equally to blame. Women who choose to keep having children with shit fathers are pretty shit themselves and again, only have themselves to blame for the issues they then face.

I sadly know a few irl, who married crap boyfriends, who became crap husbands and they willingly had kids with them because they wanted kids regardless, and guess what? They’re lumbered with a shit father.

@TootMootZoot

All the women with the crystal balls, eh.

Ever heard of future faking?

Glad to hear things worked out on that score 💐

I read this on here years ago and it stuck with me, a lot of men seem to think that babies/dc are a sort of hobby for their wife. I think many men do see children as 'women's business' they do want them, in theory, but the ensuing workload isn't their domain.

But that's not every case. It's not even most.

Most cases women do pick partners and ignore red flags, and we should be able to say that instead of saying "oh you picked a drug addicted violent man to be a father? Not your fault"

Let's be realistic, women are not children, they can think and make wise decisions when they can.

I always wonder if these men who think they can opt out of parenting their children are the same men who left the entire planning of their wedding to their fiancée.

I think the unpalatable truth is that some men (either consciously or subconsciously) think that anything to do with home, family and domestic life is inferior and so is beneath them. But of course it’s fine for women to spend their - unpaid - time focusing on these kinds of things.

My ex was a great Dad for the first year. He would've done everything had I let him. He did her first bath, put her first onesie on. Laid on the floor with his head in the play gym with her, really hands on. Then literally a few days after she began walking - gone. Never came back. Never even saw her again

Pretty sure this is it exactly. I know very few men who actively want children. And quite a lot who will do whatever makes DW happy for a quiet life. Some fall in love with the baby, most don't. We see this on here often in threads about ex husband taking on the other woman's children while abandoning his own. We are animals and its a rare animal where the father cares about the offspring as much the mother. I actually think we do women a disservice when we pretend to be surprised that this still applies to human families.

Boys are brought up to be very focused on rewards outside of the home.

Career, sports, and the approval of friends are all very important to them. Basically, anything they do at home is invisible. It's not going to advance their careers, it's not going to increase their popularity with their friends, it's not going to improve their golf game or their gaming score.

Baby arrives, and it's too easy to palm off all the work on the baby's mother, because women are conditioned to do the dogsbody work and not to seek validation outside of the home as much as men are.

If we want this to change we need to start talking more about responsibility to boys, from a very early age.

When a woman has a baby with a man who turns out to be a shit dad, she knows he's a shit dad and complains that he's a shit dad.

Would you blame her for deciding to have more children with him, or is there a way to contort yourself and really really stretch to that being 100% his fault?

Hahaha, well most men don't care about weddings either! Surely you know that? Obvs namalt but hey be realistic!

I have a friend who was trying for years to have a baby, eventually had gorgeous twins, the husband says ‘Well you were the one who wanted to have them’ when she complains of being tired or how hard it is etc…nice guy 🙄

I think a lot of men given the choice they wouldn’t have kids but pressured into it

I think an awful lot of men just want a relationship and they agree to marriage and kids to maintain that relationship plus it's expected of them. But if they were brutally honest about it, they never really wanted any of it.

It's 100% his fault if he's a shit father and a shit partner.

It's PARTLY her fault if her own life has been made harder because of her low standards when choosing a twat as a life partner - and I'm referring to an obvious twat not one who goes south after baby arrives. Doesn't work and smokes weed all day for example.

If a man is a shit father, it is HIS fault for being shit. And no one else's. Women who are left picking up all the pieces and doing all the work of two are fucking heroes, not feckless slags who should be berated.

Let's face it, the vast majority of men are on the sub-par spectrum when it comes to fatherhood. And they get away with it because society lets them off the hook, preferring to bash women instead.

The internalised misogyny on this thread is staggering.

I would gess that the shit ones are generally lazy and know they need a woman around to look after them.

Women want babies. Give her a baby and get back to normal household shirking.

Part of the problem is (NOT woman bashing here) that before kids many women grow up wanting to "be nice" and do "little things" to make him happy. Make him a nice tea, do his laundry as shes doing hers anyway (and he never remembers the fabric softener, bless him!). Make the home. Then baby come along and suddenly shes bo longer playing house and able to overlook his shitness and life is bloody hard and she realises he was always a lazy fucker and still is. Plus...kids with different dads is stigmatised so might as well have the kids together. Otherwise you have to face up to splitting, finding a new man, having more than the coveted 2 year age gap...

I've known men who are really good Uncles and have begged their wife for a baby make shit dad's. I've known two Dad's who just left and didn't bother looking back after waiting years and paying a fortune for a baby via IVF. In possibly 30% there were signs. But I know cases whose family are shocked and appalled by them.

I always say to women that they need to really explore what a man means when they say they want a baby and only go ahead if it's totally what they want, because even the good ones, can be lacking and unless you've done overnights babysitting, you've no idea what it's like. Then you get good dad's, who on splitting, start looking for a younger GF/hitting the gym/cycling etc and the kids become a distant memory.

It's 100% both their faults if they decide to have more than one child, knowing one of them is a shit parent.

If my DH was shit there's no way he'd get a shot at having another child with me ever again.

In the same way I wouldn't repeatedly smack myself in the eye whilst complaining it hurts.

But does anyone truly know what it’s like having a child until you have one?
I certainly didn’t and honestly would have opted out of the grunt work if I could have. It was only society’s expectations and the fact that DH was a great dad that kept me going.
I think Mother Nature plays a trick on us to keep the human race going

my parents will tell you that they where both desperate to have children

(this was pre ivf-it just wasn’t a thing back then but if it had been,they would have gone for it)

they got married (they really shouldn’t have done-they are a toxic mix) and tried and tried for a baby for 7 years,losing 3 babies to stillbirth in that time

then along came me

then my brother

then surprise twins (dad was booked in for the snip and they had just one last shag…)

my mother wanted us to be her double (shes a narc) and I think my father just wanted whatever my mother wanted-he convinced himself that he wanted kids but he would have had a happy life without us if she’d said ‘no,I don’t want them’

I spent my childhood being told they wanted kids so badly,but both abused us in their own ways-I was often told ‘we really wanted kids,it’s a shame we got you…’

i often saw him looking at us in amazement-as in ‘how the hell did it come to this?’ ‘how am I a father to 4?’ And ‘what the hells happened to my life?’

he definitely saw us as our mothers hobby-her job-his was to provide for us-working 60+ hours a week just to stay away from his life at home

if anything had happened to him,she would have got on with it but if she’d died,he would have dumped us into care-he wouldn’t have been able to cope

they should never have got married let alone had kids

They don’t realise the realities of family life until it’s too late

They are sexists & expect wife to do the childcare

I do know a couple of relationships where the men wanted to stop after child number one but the wife pressured them into number 2, which is unfair of the wife (and the man should have been stronger).

Plenty of men like the idea of having kids but don’t want to do any parenting.

Having a wife and kids has been shown to be a career advantage for men. Being a husband and father is still viewed as a measure of success in life. Having children is proof of fertility which is viewed as part of being a masculine man. When Michael Portillo was in politics, running for party leader, Norman Tebbitt sneered at him for not being like his opponent “a normal family man with children” (nasty and hurtful, because Portillo and his wife were not childless by choice”.

As for fathers actually looking after their own kids, this is still seen as unmanly. Stay at home fathers with working wives are still rare, and a decision to do this often horrifies colleagues, who consider being a SAHF demeaning. Looking after your own kids if your wife has the audacity to leave the house without you is called “babysitting” and fathers who do this have to endure jokes about being “under the thumb”.

We’re still a very backward society. Having kids but not being arsed with them means fathers get the social advantages and the mothers are left with the physical and emotional work.

We asked my bro in law why he had a second child whilst his relationship was so terrible. He said he thought it was what you did.
He modelled his life milestones on ours, his mates and his parents successful families but is totally unwilling to put the work in.
He ticks the box on using work to avoid. Time consuming hobbies. Kids now eow. Bought a house inconvenient for everyone despite a huge budget and lots of choice.
We are embarrassed by him and feel so sorry for his kids who are screwed up.