Do you think it's luck your child's father is around

[vroom321]

Is it luck, money, circumstance or is it down to the woman choosing wisely?

No one can 100% know how good a father can be until the child arrives can they?

I've read the thread about other men taking on kids as their own as the bio dad isn't around and it made me think.

He loves me and wouldn't leave me on my own just because I was having a baby

I don't know if you could call it any of them things

It's partly luck, but not wholly.

I do really wonder when I see women having children with men who they wouldn't want to have as a friend, neighbor and coworker. If a man wouldn't be a kind and supportive friend, a helpful and considerate neighbor and a hard-working, competent coworker, I wouldn't get married to him, and I sure as hell wouldn't have a baby with a man who wasn't prepared to get married to me at all. It seems odd to me to not apply the same kind of criteria to the father of your children that you would apply to other human relationships; when you are running a home and raising your children, it's mostly day-to-day tasks, organizational stuff, hard work, ordinary daily interactions, spending time together--not romance and lust. And some women really do fail to apply these sorts of criteria when selecting partners.

On the other hand, it is possible for a guy to "turn," and to end up being a very different type of person to the one the woman thought she was marrying. So I'd refrain from judging if I didn't actually know the guy from before. Perhaps he genuinely seemed really nice and stable and like a great partner at first. I have known these kinds of men as well.

No not luck, I think most of the time (not all) there are indicators of what kind of man he is. I'm amazed by how many women have kids with such dead beats. You do need to take some time to get a know a bloke properly first.

Luck plays a part, but mostly you need check out what sort of a person be is.

My own father was an arsehole. I deliberately avoided repeating the pattern. All DC now grown up and I think I chose a good one.

@NC12345665 I don't understand?

Nothing to do with luck.

It's about the person, if they are decent or not.

A bit of luck but mostly choosing your partner carefully I think. I didn’t want a guy like my dad. I kissed a lot of frogs before my DH. I did things in the right order. Dated for a year, moved, got engaged and married ( discussed children before getting married) and only then started trying when Married and happy and relatively stable financially.

The type of person means luck has nothing to do with it? Presumably the not dying type? Well done some PPs for identifying those with certainty early on. Such a loss to the medical and life assurance industries.

Very lucky over here given I got accidentally pregnant 3 months into a relationship with a man who thankfully turned out to be a wonderful husband and father. I can’t really take any credit for “good decision making”!

I don't know. I put a lot of thought and effort into choosing ex-h and there was nothing that I saw as a red flag: we were married and both working in decent jobs before trying to conceive; we had known each other for 10 years, of which 6 living together; his family background was stable and loving; we were good friends; he did his share of housework; my family liked him; he wanted children (and indeed works with children, so it's not as though he doesn't know what they're like, albeit past baby stage); he said he would stick around ... and yet he still walked out on us when dd was a toddler, leaving me for another woman. There may have been subtler clues there that this might happen, but I don't think I overlooked any major warning signs. So in that sense I do think it's down to luck.

What rubbish.

I don't understand your post. Did you have a children with a man that left you and you're saying this gave you mental health problems and made you regret having children?

I think some women find the bad boys attractive. So many women looked past my DH. He got turned down quite a lot. he’s loyal, dependable and is a bit of a nerd and isn’t in the gym all the time.

I feel very lucky I managed to snare him! He’s a wonderful father and now earns really well, and he makes me laugh every day. He’s also grown into his looks and is very handsome now! (My opinion but some friends have also said things). So some women I think choose poorly, based on attraction alone and ‘passion’. That being said some men don’t show their true colours until a child turns up.

How so?

Because fertility defines with age, risk factors rise, and so do adverse outcomes for mother and baby?? Incentivising people to have riskier pregnancies seems pretty fucking stupid for a country who's health service is breathing it's last breaths.

It's also very offensive to assume that no one is ready to have kids pre-30.

I think a lot of women underestimate just how selfish some men will be when the going gets tough.

Theres a reason why most women stay with the children and the man leaves, or he is the one who has an affair. I say most/some and not all. Yes, I agree ‘not all men’.

I think a lot of times most women just put up with what life throws at them. But some men just won’t accept something less than they feel they ‘deserve’.

So, yes some are lucky, some choose well, and some women just get fucked over, through no fault of their own.

I absolutely lucked out.

Fell in love with my DH when we were both career driven, party-loving, pretty irresponsible.

We decided to have a baby 3 years into our relationship, not married, only just moved in together. It was bonkers and a stupid romantic decision we hadn’t planned for and weren’t prepared for. We hadn’t discussed finances, childcare, career implications. I wouldn’t recommend it!

But somehow it worked out. He’s a thoroughly decent bloke and a fantastic father and supportive husband (we did eventually marry and have another child).

Together 22 years now, kids are teens. My DH is the best. Totally committed to his family. I thank my lucky stars my ‘foolish’ decision making turned out so well

Pregnancies in early thirties are not significantly more dangerous than those in mid twenties, and fertility has not significantly dropped.

Come on, we can’t base policies on your ignorance no matter how acceptable you think it is for people barely out of their teens to have children with men they hardly know.

Council-estate ethics are no way to design health policy.

@NC12345665 I have quite a few illnesses including autism. I don't regret my children. I'm married to their father.

You're a few small steps away from eugenics, dear, and historically that's never a good position.

Luck.

Yes, some of the disaster situations we read about on here could have been spotted miles away. But no matter how carefully you vet your partner, no matter how he says he wants children, no matter how his past looks stable and his employment record spotless... it could still go very wrong.

Your 'best friend' could sleep with a co-worker, become addicted to porn, refuse to change nappies and do the housework. Dp could become injured or very ill.

Like everything in life, it's luck.

Don’t use words that you don’t understand petal. Offering money from the state to anyone who delays having children isn’t eugenics.

It's still deeply ethically dubious. And did you miss where I said "a few small steps away"?

I know more women who rushed into having kids in their late 30s because they felt their biological clock ticking and were desperate to have a child by any means/with anyone than those that had kids in their 20s

Partly luck. Equally it was quite obvious that he was a steadfast, honest character with integrity and strength of character. He is close to his family, treated his widowed mother well and adored his late father. All his brothers were the same, and all in long lasting marriages and his parents had been. All the examples around him were good, if you see what I mean.