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!

Being fucking furious and getting enough people together to force political reform.

The whole 'single mother - irresponsible drain on society' narrative annoys me.

I agree, and it’s such a partial narrative when you consider public spending as a whole.

Single mothers are characterised as a drain on society when other sections of society that necessitate much higher levels of public spending are not seen in this way. Take the prison system for example, which costs a massive amount of money to run. And it is overwhelming men who commit crimes and are in prisons. Yet nobody ever talks about the massive drain men are to the prison (and justice) systems.

I had to read that twice op- to make sure I didn’t write it.

im so with you.

my ex utterly refused to pay. He emptied his account and does cash in hand work as he ‘doesn’t want to give me a penny’ - That’s ok then
he owes the kids £5k but I doubt I’ll see that money

The cms do have the power to go into the NRP accounts and get money and they do take action which could result in being forced to sell assets, confiscate the passport or put them in prison

This is so sad and frustrating to read. Men are gross.
With only a few exceptions.
😑

Well said OP and yes we need to organize and get political reform. Not paying for your children should be a criminal offense, punishable by huge fines or prison. And neglect by fathers should also be criminal and punished.

These societal attitudes - low standards for men and no respect for single mothers and all their hard work - feeds into a society that values women less. It's part and parcel of a bigger picture where VAWG isn't punished.

We really do need change.

Well done to all the single mothers actually caring for their children. It's unbelievably unfair that the fathers aren't forced to be responsible. If it was anything else -underpaying taxes for example - it would be cracked down on hard.

This is a very good point that I'd not considered before.

Absolutely agree

the bar is so so low for men I don’t understand how we have got here

Absolutely this! Couldn’t have said it better!

You get judged in a totally different way to the dad as well. On his half a week off, he can do whatever and see whomever and not get the third degree…
The mum on the other hand, constantly gets reminded that she is a mother and judged for who she is dating… even if she never introduces that person to her children!
Teachers make snide remarks at you for missing one school event, even though you’ve been to all the others on your own
We can never do anything right!

Well said. I think it's sad that we have been convinced for years that women get the 'privilege' to stay at home and run the house, while men do the supposed tough job of going out to work and earn the money.

They all seem a bit sheepish now we have cottoned on. We were getting the raw deal all along!

30 years ago I worked with a woman who shacked up with an absolute low life. I couldn’t believe it when she spouted out that they had moved from Wales with no forwarding address so that he couldn’t be traced to pay maintenance!!!!
Five years later he had done the same to her.
Where I am going with this is that this story is from 30 years ago and NOTHING has changed!!!!
They should be publicly named and shamed, their wages/ benefits tarnished and jailed for non payment. It’s a national disgrace.

Errors… Teachers DO NOT judge single woman , working their arses off to provide for their children. There’s a LOT of sympathy and support.

This.

Completely agree OP.

Dodging child maintenance should be treated as tax fraud. The CMS has some powers (it should have more), but never seems to use them. The reality is that a lot of resident parents are forced to claim benefits because of a lack of maintenance, so it effectively is tax fraud by the non-resident parent.

I also think it's insane that you get to pay less if you live with other children. Isn't this a society that tells people all the time that they shouldn't have more children if they can't afford them?!

This has been done to death on here. Why don't you pop on the single parenting or divorce or relationships thread and see how many women were in years' long relationships and / or married and were blindsided when the man ran off with ow when family life all got a bit dull? I'd love to see stats on how many single parents were in an established relationship of saying 1 year + when child was conceived..I bet it's far more than 50%.

Since the government is determined to tackle child poverty (resulting from the 2 child benefit rule) through encouraging work, forcing men to pay half the nursery fees would be a good start. The fact that so much of childcare in this country depends on private nurseries is a major problem, especially given the extent of state provision in more civilised Western countries.

If it helps, I for one think he’s a useless, responsibility avoiding twat. Anything less than an official 50/50 on time and 50/50 on child related costs is basically not good enough imo. If women can work while having their kids 100% of the time then men can manage having them for 50% of the time.

The USA removes passports and driving licenses for non payment of cm, we should do that.

There needs to be a society change, where this kind of behaviour is frowned upon, like drink driving. People currently 'don't want to get involved' or don't want to be awkward in holding these men accountable. The CMS also needs to be changed but it seems there is no political appetite to do it, from either party.

My ex lied to the CMS and said he had overnights with DC. He doesn't see DC at all for safeguarding reasons. He sent them an out of date court order and I'm having to drag this through a tribunal, being treated as a liar. Even when he sent the tribunal a letter to explain why he doesn't see DC ( I'm a bitch that doesn't let him see DC for no good reason, apparently) they still insisted I have to attend a hearing. I disputed this, asking what more there was to discuss, awaiting response. Everything is weighted in his favour, always. It's exhausting, but I'm the bitch dragging him to court again.

Well I am 10 years deep in a CMS battle. In 10 years I think I've had about £800 in payments, roughly £6.50 a week. In that time I had to leave a well paid career to support my SEN son who could not attend school for 3 years as LA could not meet his needs, sandwiched between PT school and constantly being called by the school. I am now back at work earning what I did 10 years ago.

His Dad became abusive after the birth, so I left. He tried to coercively control me through the court system before this was recognised as a thing. I nearly lost everything I'd worked for before meeting him. I now have a huge mortgage I had to take out to cover the costs of this and to hang on to my son's home.

He now swings between different girlfriends, who he meets online that have the profile of low self-esteem, young kids and most importantly a home He can stay in as he has nothing. He works, earns good money. I am pretty sure he has a gambling addiction or he is hiding his lifestyle from the CMS and his own son doesn't appear to benefit.

I will never get any money, but I have been steadfast at not dropping the CMS claim. He has a court summons where sanctions will be hopefully be handed down.

I agree with all the posts. These men should be named and shamed, with a more robust and systematic way of making them support their children.

My concern is how will society support these men in old age? They have not been making NI contributions and I am pretty confident that my exes pension plan relies on inheritance. Although he has been financially abusing his mum for years so not sure what is left there!

If I ringfenced my salary ..put the CMS amount together with my exes cms my kids would run out of food before the end of the month. No new uniform, no hobby fees or kit, no pocket money, no laptop for school, no phone or contract, no school trips. I'd have bloody loads left to spend on shit for me though. You know ..just like he does. Kids are expensive..and I'm not talking about spoiling with luxuries just general stuff that an average kid should have. Not designer labels or new iPhones but working tech, clothes that fit. Even without the childcare issue, most CMS contributions are paltry.

What a nasty post.

Just to be clear, the dad chose to have a child too, so yeah he is responsible for the maintenance of a child he also chose to bring into the world.

You think all women should just expect to bring up kids alone, but men should be allowed to get as many women pregnant as they want and just walk away? Who are you, Andrew Tate?

@jiarA : 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.

Really well put. Plus everything else you said!

I'm always surprised on MN threads when women complain about their DH not pulling their weight with childcare within a marriage, and the response is "LTB he'll have to do 50% if you separated".
...Except mostly they don't. And if they ignore/don't look after children adequately when there is someone else around/available for back up, would you trust them alone anyway? It's just about a lose-lose scenario.

YANBU, OP.

Society runs on the expectation women will do vast quantities of unacknowledged care work, for free, because they love their families.

And for the most part, it's true.

Single mothers deserve every respect.

OP I agree with your post. Men, especially separated ones, are very often pathetic fathers and allowed to be by society.

God (or karma for the faithless) will deal with those who think single mothers are a drain on the society. I can't believe anybody could think that, let alone say that. Had a colleague who was vocal about 'divorce being disgusting' - like Catherine Z.Jones in one of her interviews. She (colleague) is divorced now and a single mother. One has to be very careful about vocalising things (I remind myself daily about it).