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?

No young person is going to abstain from sex, let's be realistic.

I don't think it's unreasonable to want to have a girlfriend/boyfriend whilst simultaneously being absolutely certain you don't want kids yet. Of course, it's easy for women to get all sanctimonious about it when they know there's zero chance of a man forcing them to become a parent.

Do you also think nobody should drive unless they're happy to crash and become a paraplegic?

I agree. Women are supposed to be smashing the patriarchy and forging a career, not becoming a homemaker. That's how a lot of people see it, mainly women.

Some men can be very stupid. If they don't want children, they should have the snip or use a condom at the very least.

Some women can be very stupid. If they want children with an involved father, they should remove their baby blinkers and be more selective about who they have unprotected sex with.

It's all very well saying men should be forced to take parental responsibility and cough up. The fact is they are not legally obliged to do one single jot of parenting and many do not fulfil their financial obligations. This will not change any time soon. Women should wise up.

Likewise, men can say they don't want children until they are blue in the face. The fact is, they cannot do a single thing about it if they get a woman pregnant and she chooses to continue. Men should wise up.

Both sexes can be equally stupid.

What can I say 🤷🏽‍♀️, all I hear and see is shaming single/chilfmdfree women.
IRL, online and more and more on news.
Everyone just smiles and nods if woman wants/ already has a man / kids.

What’s wrong with celibacy, people here talk about here in such fear…

@StepAwayFromTheBiscuitJar Ridiculous analogy. Sex literally evolved to reproduce. Yes people want it but I waited until my 20s, still didn't want babies yet but accepted that it could happen.

What's incredibly sad is that "don't have sex if you don't want kids, then" is anti-abortion rhetoric. If it's said to women, quite rightly, it's disgraceful, oppressive, awful.

Men should take responsibility and nothing and nobody should be letting them off the hook for not wearing condoms and/or making smart choices. But some of you are suggesting they avoid sex or have vasectomies because some women cannot be trusted not to lie to them and use them to make a baby. That's bloody awful.

I don't want to return to the 1950s. If men actually did what's being suggested then women would be snookered, because they'd have to wait until a guy was ready to marry them in order to have a baby (and hope his vasectomy was reversible). It'd be sort of karmic justice, I suppose, but I can't get over how deeply unhealthy MN feminism is.

If that's all you hear, despite what's actually said, there's not much anyone can do about that

The problem is, some women are left in terrible situations through no fault of their own. And others bleat on about how terrible their situation is, despite being the absolute orchestrater of that situation, thinking they're entitled as some kind of martyr because they're raising the child they lied about the conception and chose to have against the other parents will.

You're trying to lump the two camps together. When they are very disparate.

🤣🤣🤣

I’ve never met someone with this strong agenda, I’ll give you that!

Back in reality on the other hand….

This.

I will never understand how abandoning your own flesh and blood is in any way socially acceptable. These men are a fucking disgrace and should be pariahs.

It’s easy to prevent a pregnancy, but many men don’t bother because there will be zero accountability if a baby is produced. In my younger days, the one thing guaranteed to give me the ick was a boyfriend asking me if I was on the pill, as though contraception was my responsibility. As it happens I was covered but there was no way I was going to let them near me without a condom which funnily enough they didn’t seem to want to
wear.

My ds has been told in no uncertain terms that preventing a pregnancy is his responsibility. If he doesn’t want a pregnant girlfriend then he knows what to do. If a pregnancy was to happen he would be expected to step up and parent that child no matter what.

You forget the case:

A woman wants to have a child (usually the woman is approaching forty). The woman cannot find a man that wants to have a child with her (most men these days). The woman goes an has the child anyway to be a single mom with a financial contribution for 20 years from an unsuspected member of the public.

Exactly.

And the people posting here make only vague references to this very clear distinction.

The result being that the women and children in the former group are constantly stigmatised because their husbands abandoned their family.

Exactly this.

Moreso the man is only sleeping with her because of her lies. Thinking, "great, I don't want any (more) kids and neither does she" so that's why he dates her and sleeps with her, thinking they are both compatible in what they want from life. He would not be the father at all if she told the truth. So then when she peddles out that she's some kind of hero for raising the child she always intended to have, it's actually grim. He's only the father because of the level of lies and manipulation she went too.

This "he knew what would happen when he had sex with her" is crap. Because "her" was not what she presented herself to be. He knew what he was being told, and chose to have sex with that person, and had no idea that whole persona was deceptive.

I don't want anymore children. DC then DTwins are enough for us. DH had the snip. Imagine if he told me he had, but actually hadn't and was knowingly trying to conceive another baby with me. "Whoopsy, the vasectomy has failed, what a happy accident." How disgusting is that. Would I even be having sex with him thinking we were 99% safe from pregnancy? Hell no. Difference is, I don't have to have that child. Imagine if I had no choice, and was suddenly handed a baby against my will and an 18yr payment plan? That's ok though, I just suck it up and do what DH has forced me into, pretending he didn't want children, otherwise I'm a "deadbeat". After all it's my "flesh and blood" so that makes everything alright.

Are they stigmatised?

One of my friends has 3, very much planned DC. DH was great until the 3rd, then got quite snippy with her because it was basically 3 kids were too much hard work for his liking. Roll on to the youngest being 2, and he left her for a woman at work, who has 2 much older DC. He swans about like the hero for "raising" these 2 that aren't his, and she's had her life turned upside down, left with 3 children, and no real future. She can't date because she's run ragged and has no time. The future she thought she was building with him for the rest of their lives, gone. She hasn't the time, energy, nor emotional capacity to try and start again, with the tiny dating pool of men who are happy to have 3 of someone else's children in tow. She's lonely. Bitter, as I think she has every right to be. She can't have any more children, so now will never share that with her husband/partner, and will always be on her own, or a "step" family, which is a dynamic she would never want. She's a superb mother. He takes them eow.

What do I feel towards her? I feel sorry for her, not in a pity sense, in the injustice of it. I'm more enraged for her. I feel it's horribly unfair. And I think he's a prick of the highest order, just binning off his responsibilities that he actively chose to create, at her expense. Not quite the deadbeat, as he does pay a lot of maintenance, which eases her financial stresses, but that's all it eases. But I think she's incredible. I don't know how she does it. Quite the woman.

I don't attach any stigma to her. I find her admirable, and would assume most would think the same. Could you explain what you mean by the stigmatised aspect?

@DHsPoorBack I agree with most of what you are saying. The only part that I think is shocking is men should be wearing a condom though. Like you are saying a woman could be lying HOWEVER if you don't take responsibility and were a condom. That changes the game completely. Self responsibility has to be taken on BOTH the woman's part and the man's.

Wear**

I think this is where it gets tricky.

Yes, definitely much more safe if he's using a condom. No doubts about that.

But, for example, would I refuse sex with a partner who was wearing a condom, because I wasn't on the pill, or would I deem that we were using adequate protection, irrespective of who puts it on/swallows a tablet.

If the condom broke, would I be expected to have a baby because "I knew what could happen, why didn't I protect myself, how irresponsible" or would it be more accurate to say the joint contraception failed, and on the basis we were using contraception, neither of us wanted to conceive. I would not either continue with the pregnancy in accordance with this, or would know quite clearly, I could continue against the man's wishes, and have the child, but not with a present father. I think too many forget just because a woman can choose to become a mother, a man does not choose to become a father, every child born is because the mother has chosen that conception to mature to birth. It's ok for them to decide not to have the baby at all because they don't want the child. Yet it's not ok for the man to do the same, all because the woman makes the opposite choice to him?

I think also, should a condom break, I think the man is less likely to be an absent father. Because he knows he wasn't manipulated into an unwanted child, it was a genuine accident, so the disgust and inability to be around the mother isn't there.

I don't think condoms breaking is the reason why we have single mothers. Complete opposite it's the fact that no condom is used. Like you are saying its the woman who falls pregnant so it is in the mans interest to wear a condom. The issue is here that the man is likely not wearing one and the woman falls pregnant.

It works both ways if you really don't have any kids.... then you need to take precautions man or woman.

@DHsPoorBack stigmatised by the sort of comments pepperex throughout this thread and many others like it. Indeed the very premise of this thread. The upshot of it is that the many, many single mothers in similar situations to the one you described about your friend, or worse where the ex-H who very much planned the family then ran off but now has no contact at all and pays nothing, are judged by the type of people who have been posting here the moment they discover that they are a single mother.

Oh, they must have tricked the man. Or be claiming benefits. Or have been a rubbish wife. Or just be really stupid and not bave noticed any red flags which must have been there all along. Etc, ad infinitum. Endless prejudice. And then the odd little caveat thrown in that we're meant to be grateful for saying "oh but of course, they're not all like that. But most of them must be". 🙄 With no data whatsoever to back up that assumption.

Sure, once someone gets to know someone like your friend they might make an exception to their prejudices and admit that actually, that woman is basically a superwoman. The problem is the inability to admit that there are many, many of us out there just like her. We are the norm. Not the exception. So society shows no respect for single mothers as a group and blames them as a group with insulting generalisations that don't apply to us, just as this thread demonstrates. We shouldn't have to prove to people that we're worthy of respect.

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

At the end of the day, it's no ones business how children come to be except their parents and they should 100% pay for them. It should not be easy for fathers (I know its not always them but statistically...) to dodge the responsibility of paying for their offspring.
Don't want a baby? Try your best to prevent it happening. If it does happen, teach responsibility. Accept that with sex comes the responsibility and probability of reproduction.
The government needs to make absent parents pay for the children they walk away from rather than allowing loop holes and leniency.

I think what a lot of people don't consider is that the DC are 100% innocent and don't deserve to be caught in the crossfire between warring parents, and also don't deserve to live in poverty.

I'm a single mum. Was never in my life plan. I did it all the "right way round" (that's my elderly relative's pov not mine). Dated stbxh for a few years, got married, forged careers, bought our own house. Had 2 very much planned DC. Only when lockdown hit and he lost his job did I realise how utterly selfish he was because not only was I still expected to run the house and do all the child rearing, I was also expected to earn all the money as well and put up with him going on dating sites. I didn't want my DC to grow up thinking that was normal, like I had. So I told him to leave. That was my choice, lots of people were shocked that I had even considered it a viable option and that I didn't just put up with misogynistic bullshit.

For a couple of months stbxh did all the right things. Saw the DC several times a week, paid maintenance and bought extras. Then my dad died and stbxh's selfishness reared it's ugly head again, he was far too busy with his girlfriend to consider anyone else, let alone his own DC.

Now he does still pay the minimum maintenance but the DC see him maybe once a fortnight, if that. Every time I suggested he makes more effort to see them he responds that he has "too much to do". He doesn't see them as his responsibility despite originally wanting them very much, he acts like a babysitter. He also makes it obvious he favours one of the DC over the other, which is awful to witness.

I thought I'd had it all made. A lovely supportive husband who wanted the same things and had the same values as I did. Took me 11 years to realise that he didn't. Or maybe he changed his mind.

The one thing I'm grateful for is that I didn't ever give up work. Got a promotion a few weeks ago and should be divorced and will have bought out stbxh's share of the house by the end of the year.

It shouldn't be that any single mother needs to justify her position with the 'right', virtuous story about how her child(ren) came about, without which it's OK for anyone/everyone she ever meets to judge her and punish her.

Moreso the man is only sleeping with her because of her lies. Thinking, "great, I don't want any (more) kids and neither does she" so that's why he dates her and sleeps with her, thinking they are both compatible in what they want from life. He would not be the father at all if she told the truth. So then when she peddles out that she's some kind of hero for raising the child she always intended to have, it's actually grim. He's only the father because of the level of lies and manipulation she went too
Oh please 🙄
It is very clear that someone in YOUR life was stupid enough to have unprotected sex.
Poor menz wouldn't fall for evil women if they were not so eager to believe every woman who says she's 'on the pill' because it is much more enjoyable for them to do so.
Especially the above scenario of the woman 'running out of time' so goes off and gets pregnant to random man. Honestly, who would be dumb enough to have sex without a condom in that scenario?
A lot of women pick shit men to father their children. It just is.
A lot of men are too stupid and too selfish to protect themselves.

I wouldn't go near a man who did not expect to wear a condom. It's basic respect and respect of self and others is the lesson I drilled in to MY boys

For all the arguments about everything under the sun from politics, rights, brexit, covid.....

Surely the one thing that everyone agrees on is full fair and consistent payment by parents.

I for one would vote for anyone who sorted it out. Surely the cost of paying support to counteract their shitty shortfall plus the principle of fairness, they hands down beat the cost of putting a proper process in place

Boils my piss just thinking about the injustice. Their time is one thing that probably can't be forced. But their money can

Also naming and shaming