Just a rant about how blatantly unfair this is for women?

[jiarA]

And yes it is mainly women.

My ex does next to no parenting. I do 95% of it because he is ‘busy with work.’ Many women actually would criticise me for this and say I should TELL him to step up. I have… newsflash, he won’t.

He pays CMS which is 12 percent of his salary. Despite being a reasonable amount as he earns well, this doesn’t touch the sides of 50% of the actual costs due to nursery. He gets away with this while I meet the shortfall…and do all drops offs and picks ups and 95% of personal care for our child.

The narrative of single mothers being a drain on society.. sorry what? You mean the mothers picking up the physical, emotional and financial shortfalls of these largely absent men? The narrative is so deeply wrong it is shocking it has become a narrative at all.

Ex doesn’t need to be there if his child is unwell or needs to be picked up from nursery. But if I wasn’t there I would be considered neglectful.

My earning potential is hampered by the fact I am doing more than the lion’s share of care for our child while he does almost nothing. He will be applauded for his career and his standing in society while I am forced to fade out at least until our child is older.

There’s lots more.

These men should surely be noted for their lack of involvement with their children? Even if they cannot be forced to actually parent, it should be publicly available for all to see exactly what they pay and what they do for their child.

I know I sound bitter. I’m actually quite good fun usually - honest 😂 but all of this bollocks absolutely drains me. It feels unfair because it is!

It’s not the norm and it’s not socially acceptable in the same way. You know that.

IMO when women have children they are seen as a liability to employ. When men have a family they are considered more reliable - they need to provide.

Why did you not agree to a 50:50 custody arrangement?

Did you read the OP?

Total agree with the OP, Disney dads have no clue the cost of raising children and also the dent on our career not to mention all the mental load.
But yet it's always single mothers who are blamed and slammed for everything.

No no no no no no no

It's not up to me to have raised my girl to recognise a good owner of sperm.

It's up to men to step up in their parenting and finances, and being made to step up if they don't do it willingly.

DDs dad was a pretty decent dad and husband until his mid life crisis kicked in when DD was about 10. I "chose" well. His choices since that point have made him lose his daughter.

I’ve been going back to this thread a lot today. It’s truly depressing seeing how many women are in similar situations. I don’t know how we change this.

I had my exes mother sending me emails a few nights ago about how generous her son is for going through a solicitor to sort things spending lots of money on legalities and not taking their advice to cast us out of the family home and how I should basically in a nut shell be grateful and if anything how awful I am that he will be paying the mortgage whilst I now pretty much solely raise our children and when I make a dim more then the essentials I’ll be paying the mortgage on his house anyway whilst he will have the best of everything and the luxuries of life whilst avoiding all the hardships of parenting all together. How I will be signing something with the first paragraph stating to respect his privacy and especially new relationships. Within a few months I should be happy and stop being negative that he left us for the women he cheated on me with it’s insane I have had to bite my tongue for almost a year, ignore the nasty emails.

Within two weeks of her son leaving with his ‘breakdown’ aka affair she was here saying I needed to sort my daughters lisp out completely ignoring the elephant in the room and that what her son had been doing was so much worse. She is fine was due to her age at the time but goes to show what people say any school anything like dentist, doctors school clothes will always be on the mother and even another mother will also expect this of you 9/10 times. I have a business and now a part time job too but that means nothing to him working. He can’t do any school days as it would be too much on him and his family whilst I have no family support.

I feel angry for myself and others I’ve read on here. I’m hoping the anger goes soon still early days for me and seeing others a few years on letting go of what I’m feeling now gives me hope.

I am grateful my situation isn’t worse financially I’m really sorry there are mothers on here receiving peanuts it’s an absolute joke.

I haven’t done a Christmas as a single parent yet what do you guys do to make it easiest for your kids?

Totally agree. It's a joke.

We need our legal system to stop supporting Disney Dad syndrome.

Apparently single parents have historically been the group that is more prone to poverty than any other demographic. No doubt due to their exes not paying enough maintenance and in many cases none at all.

I never had family support and although a mortgage free home owner it has always been a struggle. A bit easier now ds is working full-time and paying household money to me monthly. Plus I stopped running a car a year ago once his extra curricular activity stopped. I am lucky in that I work at home.

Those spoilt by family support generally come off better financially.

He sent them home naked?🤯
He's a lunatic!
Just when you've heard everything about these disgusting deadbeats, you hear some new horror.

100%.

The reality is that if you want children (and most women do) you are going to have them with somebody who is likely to be little more than a sperm donor when it comes to parental responsibilities, no matter how "nice" he seems. So the only way to avoid it is to not have children at all.
Stop acting as if the world is teeming with good, reliable men and we can all have our pick of them.
Wake up and face reality.

Stop acting as if the world is teeming with good, reliable men and we can all have our pick of them.
Wake up and face reality.

If that's the reality, then marry before having children and never give up work. Have children knowing you're by yourself and make sure you can afford them.

It doesn't, so get off Fantasy Island and join the real world. Most of the time you don't find out how useless they are until it's too late. It's easy to seem like a good guy when there aren't many responsibilities and stressors. They start to show their true colours when the first child arrives. They may not be useless enough to leave them for it yet, plus you're too frazzled by raising a child while holding down a job to do much but get through the day. Then more responsibility comes in the form of another child and the man gets worse. Each new responsibility brings out his essentially worthless nature more and more. He becomes increasingly lazy and nasty. He cheats. The marriage breaks down. He's not hiding who he really is any longer because he doesn't care about keeping the relationship. Then once you split up, he's giddy with his freedom from responsibility and takes every advantage he can.
This is how it normally plays out.

Why should we have to? That's the point. Why are we charged with the duty of compensating for male inadequacy?

This is all great in hindsight but life doesn’t go that way. It shouldn’t be socially acceptable for men to be able to create families and walk away often in the most destructive manner whilst contributing bare minimum for their children. I know I’m reading a few comments of mothers doing this but it must be less than 5% judging by the comments on here.

You are right though it’s needs to be in schools or somewhere for women to get that having children is a 50% chance of going it alone but how it normally goes is you meet a guy think they are amazing and would never hurt you until one day they do. Even being married doesn’t stop it being shit being a single mum.

The worst part for me is just feeling like I’m looked down on whilst he isn’t. How it is so emotionally draining at times and I how I feel I need to have this energy and enthusiasm like I’m some sort of CBeebies presenter of cheerful gratefulness to have children I raise by myself. 😂

Because that's reality, apparently.

Because everything, every mechanism, every opportunity - and every single loophole - is skewed towards men. Every single time.

Since women are literally left 'holding the baby' then every concession and 'right' that we can accumulate in preparation for this is necessary.

Should it be like this? Of course not, but it is. Until such time as society does a complete U-turn and men are not allowed to shirk their responsibilities to their children then that ^^ is sage advice.

Yeah, I know. It was a rhetorical question.

I do think young girls should be taught how iffy a proposition it is marry or live with men and that if they want children, they had best prepare to do it alone. If they do decide to marry or live with a man, they need a solid plan B both for raising children and in case he is abusive as well. That's the awful reality.

You're absolutely right.

The worst aspect for me personally is when I have to try to find the words to explain to my sons why their father isn't in their lives. I've worried and agonised over this since we split 3 years ago. They are 3 now and it's starting to rear it's head, noticing other daddies and I'm waiting and dreading when the inevitable questions start. I've done nothing wrong, I've been here every day for my sons physically, emotionally, mentally and financially yet this is another burden I have. The worry of how to explain it without screwing them up forever. All the conflicting advice - be honest with them then it's don't say anything negative about him to keep the door open if he decides he does want to see them in the future. It feels like whatever you do is wrong. Why should I have to have these conversations with my precious children whilst he is yet again not accountable for his actions and choices? My biggest fear is they will welcome him into their lives at some point and he will disappoint and let them down and I'll be having to pick the pieces up again. These shitty men are the gift that just keeps giving.

I also resent the frequent studies I read about that children from single families are basically doomed and that's our fault as well. How do they think we, the mothers, feel reading this when we are doing everything we can for our children and even that isn't enough.

Just this. My ex was not a high earner (I earned more, but it was all my fault because I had married him and ruined his career) but refused proper custody arrangements. Foolishly (stupid solicitor) I did not go to the divorce hearing and ex told court that maintenance (from me to him) was fixed and also visiting. The maintenance was fixed but he would keep the DC away. Eventually I went to court and got 50% custody and every other week-end. If that's not the arrangement then an ex-DH is not doing his bit at all.

@ErrolTheDragon yes and just re read. She has asked exH to step up but there is nothing about the custody arrangement and how it came about .....

It doesn’t need to be all men. It needs to be a large enough proportion of men to leave a swathe of children in poverty. And it is.

Absolutely. And I know that probably 99% of parents who abandon their kids ARE men. But it's not JUST men. It's NRP that need to step up and pull their weight. I resent people just saying "men" need to. That just means cases like my life don't matter.