To not believe no dad is better

[NotConvincedd]

I often hear people say "no dad is better than a crap dad", and I'm not sure I completely agree.
What strikes me is that a lot of the people who say this then go on to explain that their child has an amazing stepdad who's raised them as his own. But that's not really the same as having no father figure at all, is it?
To be clear, I'm not talking about abusive fathers in those situations, no contact is obviously the better option. I'm thinking more about fathers who are unreliable, inconsistent, or just a bit rubbish.
My thoughts are that for many children, some sort of relationship is better than none. It's often said children who grow up with absent fathers tend to have worse outcomes overall, and most children seem to want a relationship with their parent, even if that parent isn't perfect. Being rejected or feeling unwanted can be incredibly painful and I think a lot of people are dismissive of how hurtful this can be.
AIBU to think that "no dad is better than a crap dad" is often too simplistic?

Exactly, if you only focus on the outcome you completely miss that it's the circumstances of the absence that are going to have a greater effect. If your father is absent because he's in jail then you're also likely to be poor and have other social issues going on which are all going to play into a bad outcome.

Why should he go to court. Thats sad.

How is it sad to want to have official parental responsibility for his child...does he already have this then?

Interesting that you only answer the parts of replies you want to OP😂

Your kids fit the fatherless household outcomes regardless of him visiting every few months, he doesn’t care about his own kids, so why do you care?

Why would he need to go to court though, fathers only need to go to court if the mum is stopping them. I would not stop my kids dad from having a relationship with them so no need for court

I'm more and more convinced OP is a dad or a mate of one who hasn't been seeing them, hasn't been paying maintenance and doesn't want any sort of formal arrangement in place that he would be held to.

Well he either has parental responsibility for them or he doesn't in which case he wouldn't need your permission to see them / have them overnight. If he had a CMS arrangement in place this would be affected by how much much he's already seeing them. Applying to the court to mediate a regular access arrangement to your kids is a very common procedure by people who genuinely want to come back into their kids lives.

Some mum’s want to protect their children from being hurt by someone who doesn’t have their best interests at heart… clearly you just can’t understand that though.

And FYI, if all he wants is to pop in once every few months, he doesn’t want a relationship with them.

No need for courts, do you think all separated parents go through court for child arrangements? The vast majority just sort it out between themselves!

It's very unclear that you're separated parents tbh, I would consider separated parents to be those who have parented the child together and the relationship has broken down and court mediation is a very very common service even those parents use. You seem to be keen not to clarify how long you (or this man..) actually lived with and raised these kids prior to "separating" and what the contact / financial maintenance situation has been.

And the vast majority of mother’s don’t just let a dad who has fucked off and abandoned his kids walk back in and out of a child’s life when it suits him, hope that helps!

Sure, my ex-husband didn't care enough to fight me in court, but some men will take you to court out of spite or to avoid paying child maintenance or simply take the child and not return it, in which case you will be forced to go to court.

Why should he have to? That just makes it sound like you stopped him from seeing them.

Ok, this is clearly a troll thread 🤦‍♀️

No troll here, im just not anti fathers

Simple! If he had simply kept in contact with the child regularly when the relationship ended then there's nothing to fight or request. I'm not sure how you think a mother is stopping a man seeing their kids because he's gone AWOL and wants to show up our of the blue without any arrangement in place he actually has to stick to.

You're pro child maintenance I hope? Have you been paying any?

It makes me so sad because the mothers I've known who did allow this all did so because of this fear that they were somehow being mean not to, they didn't want to be an obstruction, wanted to give their child a chance to have a relationship with them. As I said above, none of these worked out or were consistent and one friend the "Dad" hit her son on the first occasion he had.him unsupervised. Men who go AWOL in this way are effectively strangers and if OP is so worried about safeguarding she would know you can't assess if a an almost total stranger is safe to have around your child.

People do change you know, they wouldn’t be handed over to a “stranger” as I’d be there for the first few times

Couldn't you just not tell the kid Dad was coming and let it be a surprise if he did turn up? Then the kids wouldn't be so let down constantly

So have they ever raised this child in the past or not?

Their father himself is anti father, he’s the one who ran off😂

And now he is back and deserves another chance. People change

No they’d rather upset their children to spite the father

I couldn't disagree more. My dad is a judgemental narcissist and the best thing he could have done for both me and my brother is fuck off sooner than he did.