Where are the fathers in these stories?

[BernardBlacksBreakfastWine]

Very sad news piece about mothers struggling to cope with their disabled children. But I couldn’t see any reference to what the fathers might be doing to help. Call me cynical, but it very much seems as if they might have fucked off at the first sign of difficulty. Then the news story becomes ‘mother abandons son’, and everyone gasps in shock.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2lnd5wj9z5o

Just a bit sick of society giving fathers a free pass.

Should journalists ask these questions?

That was me in the 90s and 00s. ExH managed to wreck my life, ruin me financially from which I never fully recovered, build a career as he was a once a fortnight Disney dad, yet I was the one who was villainised and blamed by society.

All the absent parents just say is you get benefits and me paying CM doesn’t change your benefits. This is how they justify it.

I think largely it's that mothers are much less willing to see their children suffer and go without than fathers are. The number of men who put their own needs and wants before their family's needs is quite large.

Yes.

Some act as if men don’t lie, pretend or put up a mask and don’t reveal themselves til much later or change their minds once a baby comes and even more so when there are issues beyond the parents’ control with said baby. Plenty of men want the title of father but don’t actually want to be a parent with plenty of people making excuses for them and shaming women for not having a crystal ball.

Too many stories where men have come out to be a certain way blindsiding people that have known them longer than their own spouses with a handful of people who met the person once or twice saying they thought they were off but didn’t say anything.

Well, no shame needed because I read the story and my first thought was the same too - despite years of working in a profession where I needed to be socially aware. It was only after a pause that I thought: ‘Hang on, what about the father?’

Thanks, I did not know that. But still, it’s an incredibly low bar for him as an absent parent… ‘We will overlook your parenting responsibilities because you are already serving a long jail sentence!’

I remember that the judge thanked the boy’s uncle for bringing him to court - which is probably fair enough - but again it seems that absent fathers get overlooked or forgiven, substitute father figures get a lot of kudos whereas mothers are just expected to get on with it and are shamed if they don’t meet the required standard.

Yes, they should. At the very least, it would be a very incurious journalist who interviewed a mother struggling with a disabled child who didn’t even ask ‘where’s dad?’ Journalists know exactly what they’re doing when they choose what information to present to the public and what to leave out.

But that's exactly what the article is saying. The only was she could get help was by leaving her child at school so SS had to do something.

How awful that it is Lowe's to get to that point

Yes and single dads looking after children on their own with no wife or partners are seen as hero's . I can remember once in my local rag an article praising a single dad on benefits on his own with 3 kids as a superhero . Hello 👋 women are doing this too day in and day out .

Have you seen Katherine Ryan's bit on the praise she'd get if she were a man?

At a period of great stress my partner said he could just leave and help out when he could etc, and I said not if I left first.

He was gobsmacked. The thought hadn’t occurred that I might be the one to walk out the door and just leave everyone myself. (I wouldn’t)

Suffice to say the topic hasn’t be raised again.

I had an argument with a man on FB on a right wing page who was spouting "If you can't feed em don't breed em" argument. I pointed out that life isn't black and white and that circumstances can change due to redundancy , illness and men up and pissing off and leaving women in the lurch .

I absolutely agree OP and hope lots of people complain to BBC, its very biased reporting.

Not surprised.

It’s an accepted norm that a man will leave, little is done about it nor is he particularly judged. Yet, if a woman decided to do it, she is judged way worse by all. Regardless if a woman stays or leaves, she is going to be blamed in some way.

You’re absolutely right - all the shit single mums have to put up with and the moral judgements - when THEY are the ones who STAYED/were abandoned, along with the children! (And were most likely treated like garbage and left in the lurch by their partners and husbands). So unfair.

Oh this story has really stuck with me. She was a local mother. Oh the father was just an archetype narc asshole. The chutzpah he had to even speak out, as if he had something to say, something important, 'as his father', to add to the situation he himself was the very architect of! Fathers like him are criminals walking free.

It’s infuriating that the assumption is always that the mother stays. Not just by the fathers but by the wider family, community, society.

The children are the product and responsibility of both parents but it’s just inexplicably accepted that the mum will stay with their children no matter what and the father has a license to choose to stay or to leave. If they’re a functioning adult who can hold down a job, why is it any easier for the mum to look after the kids alone? Women are possibly more nurturing and have a stronger bond due to carrying and giving birth, but a lot of this is societal expectations and norms. Men can be just as nurturing. They should be taught as children in schools if this ‘doesnt come naturally’ - which I think is bollocks.

I also think there should be a strong focus on what being a parent actually involves in the curriculum, if it isn’t there already - not just the physical day to day of taking care equally - but just how much of an impact it has on relationships. It seems totally unexpected to a lot of men that their lives will be affected when they have kids bc they expect the chief responsibility to fall on the mother. Even if it does they resent the time and attention she spends on their child and that leads to bitter resentment and jealousy, and in a lot of cases separation.

They need to go into parenthood with their eyes open and not just think they fancy having a cute little baby and mini me and still do the wknd cycling/golf and late nights straight from work down the pub etc.

It’s insane they need to be told, but from the sheer volume of threads on MN it seems that they do! 🤷🏼‍♀️

Here are some fathers doing some difficult parenting.

BBC News story

But some women choose to have children without a stable relationship/no relationship; uncomfortable truth

Let's not forget that for some women, single parenthood is a choice

There’s four families in the BBC programme this is extracted from. 3 of the 4 have a two parent household.

Choose how? What do you mean? Do you mean that they can’t face having an abortion once they have accidentally fallen pregnant during a two-person sexual encounter? Are they choosing parenthood here any more than the male participant? Or do you mean ‘choosing’ by leaving/rejecting an abusive or useless partner? I genuinely don’t know what you’re trying to say, but I can’t help detecting some misogyny in there somewhere.

So I agree men are shitheads. But we know that women bear the brunt of having children more than men and although it shouldn’t be the case it is the case. So I don’t disagree that women should take more care than men. Because of reality, and life isn’t all even and fair.

No, none of those things at all.
I am referring to those women who make an informed choice to get pregnant whilst not in a relationship.
FYI, I am a single parent ( not by choice)