Men still get away with this. Why?

[Utmilj]

Yes I probably sound bitter. Yes I could have chosen a better man to have children with… obviously didn’t think he’d be a deadbeat when we were discussing having a family together. But that accusation about women ‘choosing the right partner’ is a good way to start this post because it’s a very good example of how woman are always to blame and men get away with doing nothing, ignoring their responsibilities.

My situation… met who I thought was a lovely man, decent job, income, stable (or seemed to be). Said all the right things. I was pregnant after a few years and he left me after 7 months. I gave birth alone and funded all our child’s things entirely myself until the cms claim came into effect when ds was 7 months old. It took cms 7 months to chase him for payment. I was lucky, I am from a wealthy family, but why the fuck should women have to wait seven months for payment from a deadbeat? It’s disgusting.

Again I am lucky that he earns well so I have just about enough maintenance for it to be objectively satisfactory and covers nursery costs. For women claiming from men who earn much less, they are pushed into extremely difficult financial situations. Childcare costs all fall on them. Why? Why do we let this happen? It’s appalling. Women are told it’s a ‘lifestyle choice’ to use a nursery if they are a resident parent. No, nursery is a requirement if parents are to work.

And many resident parents are not full resident parents by choice. Lots of men enjoy a fortnightly visit to their child or children. They are quite happy with that. The woman just has to accept it, accept all the responsibility, the financial burden and the time. If they complain, they are such a terrible mother! How can a mother want to complain about doing it all because after all that’s their little baby! But men… men aren’t even faced with that question.

Yes, women could hand their child to social services. They don’t HAVE to parent their child. But again, imagine the outcry. What sort of woman would do that! When many dads have done just that, but they have the insurance policy of the woman who will pick up the slack and protects them from the shame of them personally handing their child over to social care.

Ds’s dad sees him. On his terms. When it suits. When he’s not too busy or he’s had time to relax first. He does what he likes and gets away with it. He focuses of his career. He likes the kudos. All while being a deadbeat.

As I said, I could be bitter (and I probably am a bit) but due to financial protection I have been lucky to not feel the full impact of this behaviour by a man. But this experience has made me realise just how shocking things are for women. Why are they still able to get away with this?

My point is that many men don't want to do this. They won't step up. Whatever nice words they say, they won't actually do their full 50%, either before or after splitting up from their child's mother.

It is more realistic to expect this behaviour from men and plan with it in mind, rather than hoping against hope that the man you have chosen will be 'one of the good ones' who is actually willing and able to do 50/50 properly.

Young women should not be misled into thinking that 50/50 is the norm, the default, and a realistic thing to expect. Because it just isn't.

Young women should not be misled into thinking that 50/50 is the norm, the default, and a realistic thing to expect. Because it just isn't.

Yep, it's "prepare for the worst, hope for the best". Sadly it's reality and we need to go into it with our eyes open.

In my experience, parenting was much easier for women who have helpful family nearly. I'd suggest staying close to family (if they're nice), if possible.

You work with over 250 men under 40 and none of them want children because they think a woman is going to screw them over? 🤔

There are definitely more lousy dads than mums. But part of the reason is biological: women bond with their offspring by necessity - carrying the child, providing the child nutrition from their own body. For men it’s a choice. And in some cases, at least historically, men are sometimes not even sure whether it’s their own child.

Women also - rightly - have the sole vote in whether to keep or terminate a pregnancy. And because of the role of primary carer being automatically conferred on women from conception due to biological reality, if a woman chooses to divorce their husband in the early years, even through no fault of the husband, the courts will nearly always rule - again rightly - that the husband should be the one to leave the family home, with only occasional access to his own children.

So basic biology already leaves things very unbalanced, with men having less intrinsic connection to the newborn baby, and this fact being recognised in difffeent strands of law in the majority of developed nations. No need to refer to the supposed patriarchy or anything else.

As for the argument that men should pay their wives for childcare/domestic labour, well good luck with that with many families struggling to pay bills and mortgage WITH one person doing completely unpaid domestic work throughout childhood years. Where’s the magic money tree to make this work?

Although admittedly there are some countries that do this in similar form - where a man (or more correctly, the man’s family) pays a large sum (plus usually providing a house)to his wife/wife’s family upon marrying. This is still very common practice in China for example. But I’m not sure it’s a route we should want to go down, with women being effectively “purchased” into the marriage with all the old fashioned sexist baggage that bring. . I’m not sure that’s the route to improving womens experince of marriage/parenthood.

And you're told you're a man hater if you point it out. My x was ordered to pay 600 pm. I appealed, my own solicitor looked at me like i was mad, afterall, wasn't i being given free money??? He was free to work and earn, like my x, but the concept that 50% of my freedom to be available to work and earn was stolen from me didn't occur to solicitor, or x. My upped his pension contributions to the max so that 11% would be much lower. Even though I paid the childcare, it was not in my power to MAKE the x take responsibility for child half the week. He had the power to take responsibility from me, but didn't. He stopped paying and I just accepted it. He blames me our daughter wants nothing to do with him. It's all connected. He treated me like an opponent. He won. That's who he is. Our daughter sees him but he doesn't see himself so he blames me.

It should be a crime not to pay for your children, not to support them in non/financial ways, or to not see them.

That.

I cannot believe how many men can literally just walk away from a human being aka their child.

Good to remember that there are lots of wonderful dads out there.

It should be a crime not to pay for your children, not to support them in non/financial ways, or to not see them.

^

It is a crime in the US. You can't even buy a donut if you haven't paid your alimony

'He charmed me' in other words. Charmers always know what to say.

My step sons fiancee walked out on him and their three under 5s - refuses to see any of them alone. Its not just men

^

I'd say this is a highly unusual situation. It's more often than not men who pull this kind of stunt

I have a friend in a similar situation - and before the usual suspects tell me how convenient that is, I’ve spoken about it on here before today a good few times.

It’s not just men who abandon kids, and I’m not going to let it be portrayed that way given how much effort I see a good friend go to in terms of looking after his kids while his ex gets drunk and shags about.

Tbf, having grown up in a single parent household after my dad dropped dead when I was in primary school, I went into parenthood with the expectation that I may, for whatever reason, end up solely responsible for any dc.

it seems no one expects divorce or their man to turn into a deadbeat. We see many posts on here from women in vulnerable positions who strongly believe they dh’s won’t cheat, are good dads, and would definitely never leave them in the shit with the kids.

fine. But what if he has a heart attack and dies. Or a car crash leaves him in a vegetative state. Or he has a mental breakdown and disappears. then you won’t even be able to fight for CMS, however paltry.

dh and I shared responsibilities from the start. He had to. I worked shifts, so he had to be the default parent on those days. I was out of work for 6 months, and it was frightening how quickly we slipped into the “man works, woman cleans cooks, and sorts the kids default”. Once I was back at work we got back into the 50:50 routine.

from other couples I know if the woman works the man does step up. I know two dad from the school run who have very high flying wives, so they pick up the slack. It’s it always seems to be women who “volunteer” to be the sahP with no thought as to any consequences.

The dwp needs to do more to get men to pay CMS. Instead they go after people on PIP

I'd still rather be a woman, I'd hate to be a man always thinking I may have knocked someone up and not even know I had a kid out there.

I think the main reason is that most people choose their other half based on attractiveness at the time and not how well they work together as a team or how good parent material they are. Liking the same band at 17 and having a cool haircut is not the basis for choosing a lifetime partner. I know so many couples who have next to nothing in common now - just the kids. They don't have the same interests at all, they don't complete each other, they maybe watch a couple of the same TV shows together sometimes and that's it. Then they wonder why they don't get on and find everything difficult.

Suri daughter of Katie holmes and Tom cruise has apparently changed her surname from cruise now she is 18 as he has nothing to do with her. He chose Scientology over his child and hasn’t seen her since his marriage to Katie ended. There are lots of comments across social media defending Tom and vilifying Katie, suri, all women and the courts.

I wonder if it would’ve been toms fault if it were Katie who made the choice never to see her daughter again 🤔

If that's true why are 98% of homeless people men? Why are the majority of people in Prison men? Why are men more likely than women to be imprisoned for the same offence? Why are only men conscripted to fight in wars?

The patriarchy damages some men as much as it helps others. Class/money driven patriarchy would be more accurate.

I absolutely wish I'd done that too. My ex left for ow and moved 100 miles away. Still have the nerve to argue he'd left me, not the children (obviously he was invisibly doing the school runs and overnight wake ups and everything else) 🙄. I was too stunned when it all happened to do anything but I absolutely wish I'd said, fuck that, I'll move out to a little flat with a sofa bed for them and you can stay in the house and do 26/30 days a month.
He would argue up and down that it was not about being with the ow and he was "sacrificing" being with the kids so as not to be with me as I was so awful (we were married less than two years prior to this having been together a decade) but ran a mile from the day to day once he had the chance. He does see them, but no day to day involvement and it's just different. If my kids need something or want to do a hobby I stretch to manage it. He'd just say no. He doesn't see the day to day impact that would have, it's like their abstract concepts, not actually people and as they're now teens with very definite preferences etc it's getting harder because they don't just fit into the convenient box he wants them in.

Because men frequently don't seek help or have strong support networks; because men commit far more violent crime than women; because women make up 85% of single parent households so custodial sentences are more problematic; women do fight in wars and in countries that don't, or in the past, it was precisely because men were seen as superior that they got the "honour" of fighting. If it was a punishment you can guarantee they'd make women do it. There you go 🙂

Trigger warning - this comment discusses abortion.

I haven't had time to read the full thread so apologies if this has already been said.
I 100% agree that women do the lion share of anything 'children' related and it shouldn't be that way. It really shouldn't in this day and age.

However, to play devil's advocate. A woman's choice to not be a parent would happen when choosing to go ahead with the pregnancy or not so they do get a choice to walk away, it's just at a different time and in a different way. A man tends not to get that choice. Yes, they could both choose to abstein or use protection but sometimes things happen and sometimes protection fails.

I do know two women who have walked out on their children but yes, it's usually the men. I think generally speaking women want to stay with their children and find it much, much harder to walk away. That's the difference. Also, often the women don't want to stay with the men once they've proved they're useless so the men leaving is sometimes a mutual decision!
I agree men have it much easier in this respect.

The two are not comparable. A woman choosing an abortion does not leave behind a person that requires support. They simply remove the "problem". Men get to choose control over their own sperm. There are vanishingly few genuine "tricked" into it where a woman sabotaged the condom and a man who simply takes a woman's word she is on the pill or whatever is foolish. A man who had unprotected sex is aware it could result in fatherhood and, just as a woman knows, protected sex could also end in pregnancy. He also knows he has NO SAY in whether that pregnancy will result in a child.
Women are bashed on here all the time for not choosing a better father for their kids. Let's also save some vitriol then for men who choose to assume someone else will deal with his carelessness or misfortune. And yes, vasectomies and abstinence are absolutely viable options.

I'm not saying they are comparable choices and I'm definitely not talking about sabotage. I'm just saying it could be argued that a woman also has a choice but just at a different stage.
For what it's worth I think men are awful if they walk away from their kids. Kids deserve both parents to love them even if the parents aren't together.

I don't know what you're trying to prove to me? Yes there are reasons these things happen but it still shows that the system doesn't favour men in every aspect of life