Do these fathers actually want children?

[Daftasyoulike]

I see a lot of posts on MN about absent Fathers who don't pay maintenance, don't make any effort to see their children, etc. Is it unreasonable to ask whether these men ever actually wanted kids in the first place, or was it a case of accidental pregnancies, which were allowed to continue in the hope that 'he will come around to the idea once the baby arrives', and then when the relationship breaks up, you find that he never really cared about having the kids in the first place, so doesn't feel he should contribute emotionally or financially to the raising of his children?

sorry no idea why I added the kiss on the end of my last message 🙄

Same with the financial support that’s available through divorce - why has no one told me about this before ?

I know! I wished @hoven had told me about this before I had to pay my husband off in the divorce. Those silly solicitors, he should have been paying me apparently!

Yes, because unlike most decent countries there is no allowance to ensure that they aren't being taxed more than another household with the same income. So a couple can earn £25k before paying income tax, a single parent only £12.5k. The couple can earn £100k before paying higher rate tax but the single parent only £50k. Single parent also loses child benefit if earning over £50k but a couple can earn £100k and keep it all. The effective tax rate for a single person at £100k is over 100% - you actually lose tens of thousands of pounds by getting a payrise - because you lose tax free childcare and funded hours at nursery and your personal allowance is withdrawn. A couple can earn £200k before that happens. So single parents are penalised at every level of the tax system. For many it means hundreds or even thousands of pounds less in net income per month, taken to subsidise households with two parents to share the load of earning and childcare between them.

It's grossly unfair and the UK is a huge anomaly on this. That's one of the main reasons that there's so mucj poverty/ more disadvantage in single parent households in the UK than there is elsewhere.

I'm sure it could be the case. In my own situation, he begged for kids, did ivf for him (his only chance of kids), but when they arrived he discovered he liked the idea, not the reality. So he buggered off, and openly told csa he was going self employed so that he could dodge maintenance. Some men are tricked, some just go with the flow, some are irresponsible arseholes. Some are genuinely stand-up guys. And sometimes you can't tell which until it's too late.

So as an example @theblackradiator if a couple have a household income of £60k (assuming equally split for simplicity) their monthly net pay is £4070. Plus they will get child benefit. A single parent household with the same £60k income will have net pay of £3654. And no child benefit,

So single parent pays an additional £416 tax per month and has no child benefit.

It's a disgrace.

Mumsnet did say on a thread a while ago that they'd look into campaigning on this issue to get the tax code change to remove the single parent penalty, but I've not seem anything more from them on it since. It's exactly the type of thing they should be campaigning on because it is discrimination against women and children, given that 90% of primary resident single parents are women.

It's genetics as well though. If the man is a hunk or successful then they assume he'll produce good offspring, whether he'll be a good father or not. Then that kid grows up to be an arsehole who some other woman will want to bang.

The income tax is per person. There is nothing to stop single people house sharing. This goes if you have kids or not.

That's the whole point, it shouldn't be per person. It should be on a household basis.

Yeah single parents should move children into house shares with random adults. No safeguarding issue at all with that, great idea! 🙄

But if they don't have sex then they're not going to find much of a relationship either (unless they meet an asexual woman). They're living as a monk in that case.

Few men will live a life of celibacy because they don't want to be fathers. They should take more control of contraception in that case, but they're relying on someone else taking the pill and condoms can break.

How dare you imply that the accounts women have given here are untrue.

Because plenty of women lie. What a ridiculous notion to pretend they don't. It's not saying anyone specifically here is lying, just that every woman claims her pregnancy was either planned with the father or a genuine accident. Lots will be the case. And lots are neither, it's the woman faking she's on the pill, knowing the man wouldn't go anywhere near her if he knew she was on no birth control. You can't go example by example, because only the woman knows the real truth. Some of the accounts that there were no red flags will be absolutely true. Some of the men involved will have been fundamental in planning a child then acting appallingly and abandoning that child.

The point is, no woman is going to sit there and say "yeah, I hit 38, panicked about my biological clock and had casual sex with no thought other than I'm getting pregnant, regardless of whether the man I was shagging wanted a baby". And volumes of these women exist. They are no better than the shitty men who plan children and walk out, leaving the child with one parent. If they had any decency, they'd use a sperm donor and own their deliberate choice to have a child. But they go for the free option of finding an idiot man who won't use condoms, then play the victim, announcing him a deadbeat for not wanting the child she already knew he didn't want and collect their money for 18yrs to boot.

I know two women who've done this. I've also had several women (prior to me marrying and having DTwins) when I was with a very wealthy man, suggest "it wouldn't be a bad thing" if I were to orchestrate a baby.

You can pearl clutch and be professionally offended all you like. For every single mother who was screwed over by a shitty man, there's a single mother who orchestrated her situation, but hell will freeze over before she'll admit that. Because when it's tough, and not all she expected, and she's got no support, she doesn't want to take the accountability that she put herself in that situation. Much more palatable to pretend she's the victim. Of course this thread is only full of the women screwed over by shitty men. But not because it's the landslide majority, because zero single mothers who orchestrated their situation will never say this.

How dare you imply that the accounts women have given here are untrue.

Because plenty of women lie

You're accusing us all of lying? Jesus Christ. Pathetic.

The point is, no woman is going to sit there and say "yeah, I hit 38, panicked about my biological clock and had casual sex with no thought other than I'm getting pregnant, regardless of whether the man I was shagging wanted a baby". And volumes of these women exist

Yes they do....of course they do. But look more deeply at that. Why haven't these women met any suitable men who want to get married by that age? The problem is there are heaps of women who want to settle down, get married and have children and fewer men who want this. I truly believe that decades ago men were more willing to marry in their early twenties because it was a way for them to get regular sex. Nowadays, sex outside of marriage is not taboo or hard to find. There is less incentive for men to marry nowadays than in previous generations.

The point is, no woman is going to sit there and say "yeah, I hit 38, panicked about my biological clock and had casual sex with no thought other than I'm getting pregnant, regardless of whether the man I was shagging wanted a baby".

Except plenty of women do openly admit to that if that's what happened.

Those of us who've stated we were married for years before having children and our ex-husbands really wanted children and planned a family with us are hardly going to be making up imaginary ex-husbands. Get a life and stop attacking other women.

I know two women who've done this

How would you know that if according to you they lie and never admit it?

What self-contradictory, irrational nonsense.

Agreed.

These men absolutely do get the choice. Babies are a known consequence of having sex. Use condoms properly, have a vasectomy or don’t have sex. Men do have a choice until the known possibility of a pregnancy happens.

A landlord wouldn't allow a child in a house share 🤣🤣🤣

Please cherry pick the words you like, and not where I specifically state it's not all women. Well done, stellar effort.

This is really hitting a nerve eh?

And yes. I know two women who have (in inebriated form) laughed about what they'd done. One directly to me, one I heard second hand. What struck me was the manner in which she spoke, like she was talking about a silly naughty little thing, like she'd eaten all the chocs, but it was ok, we've all done it, right?

I completely agree.

The problem is there are heaps of women who want to settle down, get married and have children and fewer men who want this.

Absolutely. It's where the woman wants all that, can't get it, but refuses to accept this. You can't force someone to marry you or settle down. But you can force someone to be a parent if you can get pregnant. So she finds a man who she knows doesn't want any of that, but it is stupid enough not to use condoms, and bingo. No regards to what impact that will have on the child.

If that's what someone chooses to do, then own what you've done. Women capitalise on the fact you can't prove that she orchestrated the whole thing, and when life is hard, deflect onto the man who "left her in this mess." No. Own what you did, be accountable for yourself. Two people irresponsibly conceived. One person chose to have the subsequent child in full knowledge it was not what the other person wanted. You can't force someone to do what you want, just because you are in sole control of a choice they would never make, then berate them for not conforming to your choices.

@DHsPoorBack so you know two women which must mean it's rife? I do wish people on all sides could acknowledge nuance. Some women may "trick" men. Some women may make hasty or poor or unwise choices. Some women may be genuinely blindsided after doing everything "right". You know what they all do though (assuming they are single parents)? Stick around. Maybe they need benefits to get by for a while, maybe they don't contribute to the economy as much as they would have, but they parent their kids. In none of the above scenarios (in the context of this thread) do the fathers stick around in any meaningful way. So in the end, regardless of the circumstances of conception, the parent who stays, and pays and parents should surely NOT be the one being slagged off.

Most men are invisible to women though. Look at dating apps.

I completely agree with this too.

It's not about slagging off single mums at all. Loads of women will have been left high and dry, with fully planned children, because their partner had an affair, or walked out. That's shitty. If you actively try to conceive a child, don't walk out on them.

What I don't agree with, is one person deceptively, very actively trying to conceive, whilst the other thinks they are having (99%? I don't know the stats) sex protected against pregnancy. If you want to be so low as to deceive someone into extremely likely, but unwanted conception, then don't berate the other person for not standing by you. They would almost certainly not be having sex with the woman if they knew the true likelihood of conception, and the woman knows this, hence the deception.

Both situations, it's the woman raising the DC, most likely excellently.

Women in the former situation have the right to be outraged at how the father is subsequently treating their DC. She didn't choose to be in this position. She has no choice but to pick up the pieces now.

Women in the latter? What entitlement do you think you should have from a person you deliberately deceived to even conceive the baby. You chose to be in this position.

I don't think the women are owed anything, but the children are. Biology fixes it so that the women do have the final call in that child's existence but men are ultimately 50% of that child and planned or not, they should contribute AT LEAST the paltry CMS amount, and ideally, be enough of a man to be involved in the child's life.