Why is a man a good dad to one kid but not the other?

[TheCosySeal]

I had a friend over last night for a catch up. She’s a single mum to a 14 year old. She was really upset and venting about how her child gets treated compared to the kids her ex went on to have with his now wife.

She couldn’t understand how he can be what appears a great dad to his youngest two children but pretty mediocre to their child.

A few examples are he’s never shown any interest in their DC school life, never took their DC to school, picked up, been to assembly, parents evening, he leaves it all to her saying he’s working so can’t. Yet he does the school run for his kids, he goes to their celebration assembly’s, parents evening.

Has took his DC on abroad holidays and some of these are long haul. Her child only gets invited to UK breaks when they go.

Never spends any 1:1 time with their DC as he says it unfair to leave his other DC out but takes his other kids out 1:1 When their DC isn’t around! Posting about his daddy/daughter days on his social media or her DC gets told all about it when she’s over.

Never been to a docs, dentist app.

How it appears from the outside is that he really is a hands on capable dad to the children with his wife but can hardly lift a finger to send a text to their child.

What makes someone act like this?

Incase it’s relevant my friend and her ex were only together a very short amount of time when she got pregnant and they split up before their DC was even born.

^ This is exactly it.

There's never really been a relationship. And whilst that in no way excuses it, the situation between the 2 lots of kids is very different.
The children he lives with now, come as a package deal with all the benefits he's come to enjoy, including a home, food, washing, cleaning, sex, and the status of socially approved of "family man/family life".

There's none of that with the 14yo, other than she is something he has to pay for. There is also a stigma of "I have a child that I pay for and rarely see" that he won't like acknowledging. Which seems in glaring contrast with "the wife and 2.4 children" he has otherwise.

Give the 14yo a few more years, and she'll work this all out for herself. And will likely wash her hands of him.

I asked a man this many years ago. It was worse in some ways as he had left his partner and child, new relationship and treated her 2 kids, who had a loving dad. as his own and ignored his own children. He said, basically, he didn't see much difference and preferred the gfs kids as they were happier and more fun (well they have 3 parents and lots of treats so yeh). Some men are just shit, really really shit.

I see the quote "women love children", that you used.
You are right, most men really don't want children (I'm old enough to have observed this).
I'm also child free - since the age of 13 I knew I would be the same as these men.
I wonder how many women in reality feel the same. 😊

Because her son is a product of her. And if the ex sees her as the enemy or problem, by proxy her son is too.

He will never meet his expectations and will possibly pine for a bond that he sees his father have with his siblings.

This is a very common attitude in abuse cases.

I think some examples of your last point are coming through with my friends DC. She’s recently stopped going over as much as she’s ‘busy’. Dad is just saying that’s fine and ok and not making any extra effort to do anything else that may make her want to come over.

Because hes playing a game...i bet when he got with your friend he was different person, nice, kind etc then ut changed when next woman came along..they can only keep up the charade for so long. It always looks better from your friends side ..but it wont be

He's probably closer to the kid he lives with and wanted that one?

I don’t really think there is any game playing to be honest. She’s just said he was a normal bloke when she met him and he split up with her a year or 2 before he met his now wife. Him and his wife have been together about 12 years I think.

Very true also

My Dad walked out for the OW without a backward glance when I was 3 months old and didn't lay eyes on me again until I was 17. I grew up in a council house with next to nothing as he had us evicted from the family home and then dodged maintenance payments, meanwhile the Son he went on to have had the best of everything, private schooling, regular holidays, lots of support etc.

After a few years of sporadic contact in my late teens and early 20s I decided he brought nothing to my life and ceased all contact. Last time I saw him was at aforementioned half-brothers wedding (we've built a relationship as adults) where I blanked him throughout.

I was made privy to an email conversation between my Dad and another member of the family recently and apparently he 'has no idea' why I don't speak to him.

That has to be some prize-winning level of lack of self-awareness surely, even in a crowded field of absolute twats.

Because there is more to relationships than biology.

He sees his 2nd family day in day out so becomes woven into the fabric of his dcs daily lives working in partnership with his wife.

His first child he only sees for contact and has a difficult relationship with his ex. It is easier to let the RP make decisions so he feel less involved, bonded, connected and part of their life.

Is it fair on the first child? No. Should he be trying harder? Yes.

But it is realty the relationships with non resident children with a ex will nearly always be very different from resident children you are living with and raising together with your partner.

The only thing that your friend can change about the dynamic is her reaction to it, that will be beneficial to her dc.

Ready OP’s latest answers: he never wanted his first child and left the mum during the pregnancy.
So not completely surprising that he doesn’t want a relationship. He pays CMS and sees her every other week. The minimum.
When women come on here to ask if they should keep a baby against the dad’s wishes everybody says yes, your choice etc (rightly so!) but not a lot of people point out that there is a great risk of the dad behaving this way.

Some men seem to only play dad with the woman they're currently fucking.

My ex wasn't. He was committed to our child even when we split.
He drive miles at weekends to see child and he worked full time.

Pretty much this.

If you know you are keeping a baby that only you want (entirely your right) you have to respect if the other parent says they don't want the child (entirely their right as well). There seems to be a complete double standard where if the woman didn't want to have the baby, this is fine, and the baby never exists, but if the man says "listen, I'll pay you child support, but I don't want this child" the mother is up in arms, when actually he's just made a different decision that is equally valid. The woman needs to own her decision and be accountable for actively choosing to have a child that she knew would have no/very limited contact with the father.

It seems to be more the case that the mother then chastises the father for simply doing exactly what he told her because she can't respect he didn't want the child and she did. She sees how shitty it is for the child, and doesn't want to take responsibility for the situation she chose.

It’s easy to see why, because a lot of men’s feelings towards their kids are also related to their feelings towards the mother. Also if the child was unplanned then there is probably an element of resent there.

Humans compartmentalise.

My dad did thus.
Me and my sister were an inconvenience. Never bothered with us as young kids, did the bare minimum (gave my mother £7.50 per week maintenance, only saw us for Sunday lunch which my nan cooked
He had 2 more children when I was 15 years old. He's done everything I wanted him to do with them, gives them his time, invests in schooling etc, takes them on holiday and I recently found out after my youngest half sibling bought they're first house that my dad has saved £200 per month every month since each of my half siblings were born until 18 years old for a deposit for they're first home.
We were tossed aside, and needless to say I don't have a relationship with him now.

Nothing to do with the 14 year olds mother putting obstacles in the in the beginning of course ?🙄

Some men really love their kids as people. Some aren't capable of loving like that. That's true of some women too, but women are far less likely to be in a position or to be willing to completely abandon their caring responsibilities. I think many people in the second category are able to get on with parenting and be "good enough" parents if kids are part of the day-to-day. But if they're removed from the daily equation - so it's no longer "pack Theo's school bag, drop Mila at nursery, do the swimming-lesson, sit down to dinner together" - then I think some men are happy just to fade quietly out. And of course if they've never lived with their children, they would have had to put in even more effort to build a bond with them. I think some do generally see their children as just part of the furniture/a somewhat annoying chore that their partners nag them to "do", rather than as a worthwhile investment of their time.

If they are motivated by external validation, one thing that can make a difference is being around people who place a high premium on "successful" family life and investing in family. If taking kids to football or being out on a family bike ride or cooking Sunday lunch for a group of friends is what the men around them do (and a mark of "success" in their personal lives) then this may influence their behaviour.

Can I ask does he seem like he actually cares that you don’t have a relationship with him? Does it bother him?
Or is he happy with life and his younger kids.

I see a lot of people say they now have no contact with their parent for X Y or Z but I always wonder if the parent even cares if they didn’t care in childhood anyway?

Men get a choice about whether to conceive a child. That's the point at which their decision making power ceases. Here in the UK women have the choice of whether a pregnancy should be continued to term.
Men shouldn't be surprised when sex leads to conception.
I've already started dropping into my kids heads that sex can lead to pregnancy and it is the act not the intent that determines this.

That's why I made the complete distinction between conception and the decision to then keep and raise a child for 18(+) years.

A conception isn't a surprise. Both parties then have a choice whether to participate in actively raising a child. The mother much more so, and rightly so. But mothers who choose to knowingly go it alone, shouldn't then be chastising the other parent for not reversing their equally valid choice to align with theirs. There's a lot of "well I've had the child now so you have to raise them" expectation, when actually no, if you've been told from the outset that the other parent isn't going to raise the child, you have no right to start demanding this because it's your preference.

I do feel for situations where the child was very much planned, so the woman made her decision based on thinking she would therefore raise a child with someone, and may have made a different decision had she known she would have been solo parenting following the end of the relationship.

A male friend told me a long time ago that it was unrealistic to expect a father to keep in touch with his DC if he splits up with the mother. The children were just part of the mother somehow, or they were like her pets or something. So if he was done with her he was done with the DC too. He wasn’t all that interested in how this might affect the DC.

I have two friends with husbands who each have a kid from a previous relationship. The blokes barely see their children and my friends paint their “crazy” exes as the cause… their men are blameless it seems!

These blokes come across as perfectly nice and seem like good hands on dads to their children with my mates but I seriously judge them both for being shit dads first time around. I would never get with a man like this and don’t understand how my friends buy their bullshit.

I have another friend whose husband does have a crazy ex - he’s fought in court to see his son with her and is a brilliant father to him and his two kids with my friend. As he should be.