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?

For those talking about the women they know - yes it happens (my mum left us all when I was 15 so I know and understand both the specific trauma and the vilification of the woman around this). But the reason you are citing these examples is exactly BECAUSE it's so rare - these examples stand out and the woman is seen as awful, shocking, uncaring etc etc etc

For every one of you mentioning a woman doing this, I bet you easily know 15 men but they don't even occur to you because it's so normalised. And the woman you know sticks out because it's seen as SO MUCH WORSE

My mum leaving fucked me up for a long time. But we have a very close relationship now (much closer than with my dad who still managed to leave us kids for a new woman, in spirit and body at least - barely there but paying for us). I understand the reasons my mum did it - I don't agree and would never do it - but many of the reasons above regarding patriarchy was exactly why it got to breaking point for her.

No matter how many anecdotal stories you provide of women doing this - on a societal level it's men who are the issue. (Oh and I also bet the men in those situation are sympathised with and supported above and beyond the same situation reversed!)

The message being that men should not trust women either.
No sex until after marriage and possibly only then when both want to have a child. Great.

If you’re going to make it a crime not to pay for your own children how would that apply?

firstly you’ve got redundancy, job loss, disability, what happens then?

secondly presumably it won’t only apply to men. So if a woman refuses to work or won’t work full time, particularly once the kids are in school, do we also say she is guilty of not paying for her own kids?

if a woman is on benefits, or can’t find a job, will she be guilty of the same as the nrp?

it can’t really be argued that women can’t get jobs with kids, because many can, and do. Sen etc excepted obviously.

it’s a massive can of worms which knowing bureaucracy will end up with many people finding themselves arrested while others manage to evade.

I have lost my job. I still have to pay for my kids. If my exH lost his, he’d be let off paying the £37.50 a week he currently pays me.

A lot of people try and evade taxes.

Do you think HMRC go "Oh well" and just leave it? No, they do a full tax investigation and prosecute people.

Child support agency should have the same powers and capability of investigation.

You're right.. your one example completely negates the actions of the many, many shitty men out there, well done!

I also know two men doing the same, one of whom is my bf! That doesn't blind me to the fact that society is set up to support men to walk away and women to get blasted by doing the same (just re-read your final sentence!)

If it’s his child they are his nursery fees too. Unless of course he’s offering to give up work to care for his child. And I think the point is that he categorically isn’t. CSA is ridiculously low and in most cases doesn’t even cover the basics. I know very few men whose payments (always made begrudgingly) would actually cover nursery fees and these are not low earners. Frankly i’d be embarrassed to complain about contributing to the care of my own child. It says a lot about society that these disgusting specimens feel free to own up to this disgusting behaviour. As my dear departed mother used to say, only the lowest of the low rejects their own flesh and blood.

Yes and I’m assuming they are all being super careful and always using protection, or even better abstaining completely from sexual contact to ensure that they don’t become a parent. After all, you can’t trust those conniving women, always putting themselves into vulnerable situations to get those huge CSA payments that we all keep hearing about.🙄

It often isn't about money - more about cannot be bothered. John Lennon abandoned his first wife and son Julien with barely any money so he could move on with Yoko. His ex wife struggled for years and could barely get by.

Men are just crap at times - everything has to work out on their terms or they are not interested.

I think they're safe enough anyway, I can't imagine any women wanting to go near them or to procreate with them 😂 They sound like a very odd bunch!!

Such a stupid remark. The reason we hear this side of the story on MN and pretty much everywhere else, and very rarely the reverse, is because one is a significant problem worthy of discussion, the other is something that effects a tiny minority of men very occasionally. If you have stats to show the number of households headed by single fathers struggling to claim child support from mothers is a comparable problem to the one this thread is about, then I'm sure we would discuss that too.

Why should they be odd. There are several of my daughters friendship groups both male and female who've decided to stay single no kids.

It's the side of the story that reflects the true picture. 90% of lone parents are women and the huge amount owed in missing child support is owed by men (Gingerbread and ONS)

There is the stereotype of a deadbeat dad for a reason.

We need a system like many other countries have whereby child maintenance is taken directly from the paycheck, from employers. If you aren't employed by PAYE company you should be investigated regularly to check you aren't living beyond what you are claiming to earn. We do it for other tax evasion and this has a bigger effect on the economy and benefits claimants nationally.

If a man isn't committed enough for marriage it's a warning sign that he won't be committed to any kids. Unless the woman in independently wealthy, babies outside marriage are usually not in her interests.

You don’t need to be “independently wealthy”.

i owned my house and had a decent job. That’s all.

i did get married due to family pressure.

however it has left me vulnerable as should we split I have to buy dh out my own house as he is entitled to 50%.

had I not got married the house is mine and he would have left with nothing.

i can support myself and the kids on my salary easily. If I had to remortgage to pay him off I’d be in the shit.

I'm not talking about individuals or small groups of people who choose to stay single and not have kids though am I?

I was responding to a comment from a poster who said she works as a supervisor in a facility with 250 men under 40 and that NONE of them want to get married and have children.

Reading it again as 'facility' I'm wondering are they not allowed to leave this place and their jobs are just to keep the facility going because apart from that yes it would be extremely odd to work with 250 men and none of them want kids because they're worried about women screwing them over. 🤔

I wouldn’t dwell too much on the 50/50. Its merely a starting point. If you brought the property into the marriage, unless the marriage was decades long and he completely sacrificed a good career to be a SAHD, then its extremely unlikely he'd get half of your house.

This is really unbalanced. So many comments say that "men" are unreliable etc. No. Some men are. Some are not. Some Women are. Some are not. I managed to parent my children despite not being the resident, and I watched their mother spending the children's maintenance on her own social life, therefore having to support them twice over. I paid maintenance in full, on time. I never missed a time when I had the children, and dedicated the entire time to them. As a result, I have a superb relationship with them now they are adults. So stop generalising.

And the man arrives to say NAMALT.

You should be furious that men get away with this then?
Why aren't you out there calling them out? Calling for change?
Do you feel like a chump or something, because why on earth would you come on here to declare NAMALT and ignore the majority of single fathers who are?

I quite agree. Only a scumbag would abandon their children.

However, if women should have the legal freedom to kill them (her body her choice), then men should have the legal freedom to not provide for them (his body his choice).
It's the fair thing, distasteful or not.

In my world, people would be doing neither of those things (except in fringe cases), and then the absent parent would have their wages garnished or go to prison.

What!?
So what happens when they bugger off after the baby is born, infanticide?

Men complain when women have abortions and when we don't. They also complain about single mothers being a burden on the state, yet do nothing about the fathers who create that problem.

More men should sort out not impregnating women they have no intention of becoming fathers with.

It's biology that dictates that a men and women have choices at different stages to not have a baby, men and women before conception and women after.
That's just the way it is, it's how sex and pregnancy works. It's a fact of life in the same way a woman carrying the child and giving birth is.

And when do you implement this choice for men? At what point can they choose to walk away? After the abortion cut off? Birth? 1 year old? Forever? It's pretty much the system we have now isn't it? Only men manage to walk away at whatever point they want and with very little concequences - even after a committed relationship and planned family.

@ArthurTheBadger I take it then that your ex had absolutely no income of her own then? That the only income she had for the children and herself was the maintenance? Because that's the only way she could have been exclusively spending maintenance money on her social life.
You sound like a good father who has invested in the relationship with your children to good end, but you also sound bitter that your ex dared to have a social life because you were paying money to her for the children. I never got a penny in maintenance, yet still managed a modest social life at times - was that allowed because I wasn't getting any money from a man for the child we created together?!

You chose this man to impregnate you and chose wrong.

Of course he should pay his share and is by all accounts.

However you chose to go through with the pregnancy and therefore it's only right that you bare the brunt of the long term consequences.

Like most single mums you desperately wanted a kid and ignored the red flags this dud was almost certainly waving.