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!

I saw this case earlier today and thought of this thread. The man faked his own death to avoid paying child support!! https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/08/20/jesse-kipf-kentucky-fake-death-sentenced/74877556007/

Jesse Kipf, 39, of Somerset, Kentucky, hacked into the Hawaii Death Registry System in January 2023 with the username and password of a physician living in another state to certify his death, resulting in Kipf being registered as a deceased person in several government databases, the U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of Kentucky said Tuesday. He also infiltrated other states' death registry systems and private business networks, and governmental and corporate networks using credentials stolen from real people tried to sell access to these networks to potential buyers on the dark web.
"This scheme was a cynical and destructive effort, based in part on the inexcusable goal of avoiding his child support obligations," said Carlton S. Shier, IV, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky, in a statement. "This case is a stark reminder of how damaging criminals with computers can be, and how critically important computer and online security is to us all."

@Truetoself i can tell you easily how it came about. We separated (I’ll spare the details there). I asked him if he wanted 50/50 as I was also working and would find it hard to do anything other. He told me his job would never fit round 50/50 and has refused to discuss it since. I don’t know if you’re aware but courts can’t force a parent to actually parent so I haven’t bothered asking the court to make an order of 50/50 for him to then not comply with (not that they would make the order at all if he objected, which he would). Hope that helps and perhaps you can stop suggesting I have brought this situation on in some way myself or by my own deficiency in taking some sort of action.

If he's abandoned them, ignore the people who say you have to be positive and keep the door open for him to come back (and go away again) whenever he pleases. It's not in the best interest of your children to be dangled on his string like that. It will only cause them more pain down the line. If they get used to him being gone and grow to accept it they will at least have a sense of stability.
People say things like "keep the door open" with good intentions, but they are not taking into account that the person they are talking about is not going to contribute to a healthy, happy childhood at all. Quite the opposite actually. In theory it's better to have two parents, but when one of them is such a toxic, selfish scumbag, it is only detrimental to their well-being to have a relationship with him. I wish people would stop promoting the falsehood that any father is better than no father, no matter what a prick he is.

May I assume you have had his parental rights legally terminated because of the abandonment? If not, do so and go no contact with him.
I would just tell them that he's gone away and you don't know why. It's the truth.

I'm sorry, but she's not a model candidate for this at all.

@WildTwins i am so so sorry you are experiencing this stress and you are right, it’s just another thing to cope with when you’re there doing everything right. More mess for you to clear up that you didn’t create. I had the same worries as my ex actually didn’t see our child for the first year of their life. Even writing that I still can’t believe that it happened. He’s since been involved to some extent (minor but consistent). I live in fear that he will damage dc emotionally as he seems to have no sense of responsibility and quite literally does whatever suits him. For this reason I spent a long time looking into what I would say to dc and concluded I would be honest that he couldn’t cope with being a dad as he wouldn’t have been able to keep dc safe due to his own problems. No idea if that’s actually the best thing to say but I did spend a long time considering it. One thing I think is positive for you (obviously in the context of a stressful situation for you) is that the twins will have each other. I think that will certainly help them if it is that their dad doesn’t make an appearance and I have been told many times that if you’ve never met your dad it can be easier than one who dips in and out.

Ultimately though I agree wholeheartedly that it is horrendous that after all the emotional, physical and mental care you are providing for his children, he also leaves you with this extra stress and problem to try and solve. These men are truly abhorrent.

Did you think he would? I thought my ex genuinely would and was really shocked he didn’t. Like you said you can’t force it and if they spend a few hours here and there they haven’t technically completely abandoned them so they fall into this grey area it feels like as on paper yes they see the kids. It’s a joke.

I tried 50/50 but he said the same work can’t fit around it yet he is self employed and will drop his work to go on dates, holidays for himself. It’s a cop out honestly.

Here's what I did with my ex asshole. I gathered up proof of all the disgusting things he had been doing that I had been previously unaware of. It was sufficiently vile that he did not want anyone to know.
I let him know that I'd be papering his workplace and neighborhood with what I had and contacting everybody following him on SM. I got the home addresses of his coworkers and friends in order to be able to send it to them.
He has never given me trouble about money and no doubt that is why. He knew I was serious and would not only do it, I'd enjoy it.
Our kids are grown, but one has special needs and lives with me. I do all the care, naturally (she can't stand to be around him anyway) but he pays whatever I ask.
I know this is not a typical situation at all, and most people won't have the opportunity to do this, but I do tell women to be ruthless and play dirty if they have to, if they can and if it's safe to do so. If these bastards are going to do us and their kids dirty, they should buckle up and prepare to receive the same. Women have been conditioned to make allowances for men and forgive them matter what they do. I say turning the other cheek to a man only gets you slapped on both sides of your face.
As a result of this and of my indifference to him, I get on well with ex on the rare occasions I do see him. However, he knows he's not ever going to be forgiven.

@jiarA I am also sorry you find yourself in the same position. I'm sure when the time comes I will manage to find and the words and I know children are very accepting and don't over think things when they are very young so all I can hope is if I get the groundwork right then it will be OK. That's all I can hope! I really hope for their sakes he stays away but as he gets older these men tend to come out of the woodwork as lonely old age approaches. I just hope my sons don't fall for his lies and waste their time having anything to do with him. The reasons you outlined are the reasons my ex husband doesn't see them. I gave him chance after chance and each time he was inconsistent and refused to prioritise them. The final time they had just turned 2 and I warned him it was his final chance because they were getting to the point that they would know who he was and I wasn't having them being upset when he couldn't be bothered to see them. He managed 2 weeks of twice a week for an hour visits before he started being late and making excuses and that was it. I told him they deserved better than him and whilst he might not care about the damage he was doing I did. I told him he could take me to court and represent himself so minimal cost and he would be given contact. i hoped for the boys sake he would do it, to prove that he did care and wanted to be in their lives. No court summons has appeared and apart from reducing his maintenance I have had no contact with him. In a way it breaks my heart for the boys that they don't get to have a loving, invested father but I also know it could be much worse if he did see them and wasn't consistent. It's awful whatever way it goes, we just have to make the best of it and try not to let them ruin our lives. I wish you all the best xx

Ex was useless. I occasionally got £5 via CMS, but he owed loads (a whole long boring story where cms were crap)
11 years after he was no longer responsible for 'paying' and 2 years AFTER HE HAD DIED the cms wrote to me asking if I wanted them to chase the arrears.
@jiarA thank you for laying this out here. I have no idea what the answer is, but the problem is definitely dead beat DADS.
Every government we've ever had is so smothered in misogyny that I fear nothing will change in my lifetime 🤬

I wonder if men were forced, by threat of prison, to support their children, they would be much more careful about having them? And we would then have even more women, desperate for children, but with none? This isn't any kind of criticism of women, or defence of the current 'men can just walk away' culture we have. Just musings.

@BorrowersAreVermin

That's awful. Your poor mum. 61 is no age.

I think the threat of castration would do the job too. Children shouldn't be born into a world where the father walks away and the mother has to work herself to a frazzle to give them what she can.

Men that walk away should never be allowed to reproduce again.

My child support calculation (Australia) is $5000 per year. Her braces cost me $8000 this year. I had to turn down a $200 000 job last year beacuase I cannot move more than 80km from her father who sees her, on average one day per month. Child support calculations are an absolute joke.

Frankly, if an NRP is only seeing their child EOW then there's really no excuse for them to be on a NMW. They can train for better things, do overtime, take a second job in order to provide an acceptable level of support. Lots of options, none of which are easy for an RP.
If we're talking about what should happen, in my world CMS is a dept within HMRC with instant access to all the same info. A minimal but sensible level of universal support is agreed via consultation with an independent body that can have a childcare component added as needed. This amount is the minimum an RP should get and will be paid by the state if the NRP can't or won't. It accrues as debt to be deducted off the NRPs wage or pension if necessary. There will be no "writing it off" and no feeble attempts to find elusive self employed NRPs.

Here here! How about men put on a big fucking act of how they will look after you and do this that and the other…then when you are locked in the true colours show!! Not that easy to pick and choose someone decent in this scenario is it!

Lots of men reproduce again with women who come on here, half the threads seem to be about how disposable the first children seem to the new partner once a new baby is born with them and how the ex-partner is asking for too much money

I don't think there are lots of women "desperate for children" (very long explanation below. You don't have to read it but I cant make it shorter...)

There a lot of women who really want children/who are trying to find the right partner/worrying about their biological clock etc and decrying the lack of men wanting to settle down. And some women who never find the right man in time and end up without children despite desperately wanting them. But part of the "problem" for those women is that they are not "desperate enough" to lower their standards. Most of the women I know want a partner, children but they have a minimum level of what they want from a partner, below which they would rather be single. Which is actually reasonable. The problem is, you could find someone who seems super committed, who says all the right things, who even marries them and then bails. And in some cases it is fairly obvious from the outside that the man is not reliable but, even then, the women with them seem convinced they are OK. Its very rare for women to deliberately look for a man who is going to leave them with kids (even if in some cases you think "really?")

So, it would be interesting if, in the hypothetical case that men suffered much greater consequences for abandoning their children to see if it affected men's willingness to have children in the first place. If it did, I don't think you would get large numbers of women being more "desperate" than they are now. If they were, they could use sperm donation. Which is less ideal (fathers are important for children, single mums have less financial security) but if the father was going to walk out anyway, meh. There would be more certainty, if male behaviour did change, that the man actually did want children. Which might make women less likely to prevaricate.

What we are seeing at the moment, is women being picky about having children, and the availability of birth control, is already lowering the birth rate (about 50% of the reduction in American birth rates is due to the reduction in teenage pregnancies. A good thing). But the people malding about it, are mostly right wing, mostly male sources. There are women upset about not having a man to have children with. But its a quality issue not a quantity issue. That wouldn't change.

This was exactly me!!! He was genuinely amazing, literally perfect in my eyes - ticked a lot of boxes... hit 36/37 (typical 'mid-life crisis' age for a man) and suddenly wanted his single style life back with a woman that had no children. Now out every weekend on the sauce and taking fancy holiday's, while I'm worrying about where I'll find the money for their school shoes this month and he'll have seen the kids a total of 12 hours 🤷🏼‍♀️

Really? It's not up to you to teach your children and to recognise goos people? OK well as long as women like to plead stupid and not take any self responsibility then this will continue to happen. FYI it's your job as a parent, so you are failing miserably. This is exactly why that cycle of poverty and shit continues

This thread is a bit of a joke. If prior to getting pregnant the man told the women there was no guarantee he'd stick around, 99% sure the woman would still happily get pregnant. Its very rare these men suddenly turn into shitty people, the signs were always there. The real issue is that most women think they need a man and children to be successful and happy. That's literally the root cause.

Then why don't those men do that? What do they have to lose?

They don't turn into shitty people. They just stop hiding who they really are because they no longer care if they keep the relationship or because they think the woman is stuck and will never leave.

But by all means take the complexity out of it and just bleat some simplistic garbage that blames women for the deeds of men.

I agree they stop hiding, but it was always there if people bothered to look. I say this from my own personal experience!

Because the men don't care. They don't actually want to get married and have children. Well not many anyway.

Look at all the threads on here with women who have chosen to have multiple children with men who don't even want to have a joint bank account with them and share finances, let alone marry them. They aren't some poor innocent victims, they are just stupid