Why do we just accept the gap in gender equality when separating?

[overripemelon]

Ex that barely sees his children. Can’t force him to. He manages a few weeks a year, on his terms when it suits him. Takes on zero of the mental load or upbringing responsibilities.

Why is it still seen as acceptable by society for a male to behave this way but if I walked out people would be absolutely aghast? Men are excused just for being a man.

How is it in 2023 this massive gap still exists? Do you think it will ever improve?

It starts at day dot when parents don't buy their young sons baby dolls and sons don get the opportunity to sit and watch their dads parent infants whilst helping with their own dollies.

It starts when men get a cursory 2 weeks off, and the majority see it as some sort of Jolly. Or opportunity to hit the golf course.

It's exacerbated by the fact that men have hobbies. Important jobs and important hobbies. Seemingly. Women usually drop their hobbies when they become mothers, at least in the short term. Men are excused this, "he works hard" etc. Ridiculous.

Just to go against the grain.
DP has his kids full-time, and his ex-wife is detached and a high-functioning career-driven alcoholic.
He's been the stable involved parent, the one to drop off and pick up, parties etc since they were born, they're older now. What he doesn't do however is flood his life with dozens of extracurricular commitments, nor does he micromanage his life to the enth degree.
Although his dad was very hands-on.

It is not acceptable but unfortunately it is commonplace, and as you say, men do just seem to be able to get away with it.

@Foxblue I agree with you, but I have so many women around me who want to have a child so badly and approaching 40. At this point they'd rather have them with a questionable men and hope the experience will change them rather that no have them at all. I would not blame women for choosing the wrong men. I think society has to view men not being involved in parenting as not normal.

Agree with this. We can't control men and make them be great. We can control ourselves and raise our bar.

Society just accepts it, although I'd like to think this is changing.

XP has the kids every other weekend, will not have them any more, and does absolutely zero parenting. But what incentive does he have to change when he seems to find an endless supply of girlfriends (with kids!) willing to accept his flimsy excuses as to why he doesn't step up? 🤷‍♀️

Image is everything to him, and he will not change until he's the subject of social censure.

It is not widely acceptable, not for many and thankfully is changing and will change for good.
I agree it is smell of old damp patriarchal shit, however we are the ones that need to change it.

Meanwhile there are women excusing those men and taking them they will exist. The moment we cast them out as possible partner they will have to change. But you know, there is always someone deluded/silly enough to believe some sort of crap and they go away with it on an on.
It is up to us to stop their privileges, nobody renounce to privileges so they are not going to do it.

Yep, and his x1000.

Women need to stop mating with shitty men. We have 100 percent control over which men become fathers and which do not.

"Women need to stop mating with shitty men. We have 100 percent control over which men become fathers and which do not."

This is a bit of a problem. Women who had shitty men in their lives as kids, expect no better and women who had good men in their lives, believe the lies told and excuses made by shitty men because they don't realise how many shifty men there are out there.
Often, the men only change after children come along anyway so even harder to suds the shitty men out.

Often, the men only change after children come along anyway so even harder to suds the shitty men out.

I really struggle with this one. The few women I've known whose partners were shit dads were shit long before kids were in the picture. They just lied to themselves because they wanted a baby and believed it would fix everything.

I know one woman who's been seeing a guy for nearly a year, she's never been to his place or met his family. The amazing job he allegedly had when they met suddenly disappeared and he picks up odd jobs here and there but she mostly supports him. She's talking about having a baby with him. She's been told more than once he's hiding something. She doesn't want to know. He won't magically transform into a shitty person once a baby is born. He'll just become a shitty father in addition to a shitty partner and a shitty person.

@TinkerTiger you're probably right about that. I'm just going by what I've heard from others but it makes sense that most of the shitty behaviour is overlooked. There are probably lots of excuses that are believed.

I agree with all of this and the only thing I do to change it is not give DH credit for everything he does. My dm was surprised to learn he does all the ironing “because I’d never mentioned it”. Well no cause it’s housework and not worthy of a special mention. Likewise if I go out and he’s at home with the kids inevitably someone will say to him “oh that’s good of you” and he looks at them blankly and says “why?”

the only thing women could do differently ( I heavily qualify this by saying men need to be ready willing able and that’s on them) is when they have a baby let him try and settle/feed etc them. I’ve seen so many friends take the baby back after an attempt or 2 then refuse to let them do it again. But blokes have to accept it sometimes takes an hour to settle a child.

I'd love for you to argue this with a close friend of mine - he's a man, early 30s, who's wife just upped and left one day.
She went back to her home country, leaving him with the kids - no explanation and now she's for all intents and purposes uncontactable.

I'm sure he'd love to be told he's doing the 'bare minimum' holding down his quite high-stress job, along with looking after 3 kids (with help from family, granted)

I agree. It's a very weak excuse that gets trotted out to excuse women's poor choices, and is seldom true.

People don blinders when they are hellbent to find a man and have baybees. Very few people do a 180-degree character transformation; the signs are always there (ask their friends and family members!)

Right here on Mumsnet there are endless numbers of threads in which women describe utterly abysmal behaviour in men during the dating period, or even describe what shit fathers they are to children by other women, yet they choose to conceive with these men. Aside from what they do to themselves, the utter, complete and selfish disregard for the lives they are bringing new human beings into is just reprehensible and despicable.

As I said earlier, WE have total, 100 percent control over who does and does not sire children. Why are women not using that control more wisely? Why do they hook up with any rag, tag and bobtail who will give them five minutes' attention?

There may be a tiny, tiny percentage of sociopaths who can conceal bad traits for a while, but generally, for people who are truly trying to be responsible in their choice of mate, the indications are ALWAYS there.

There will be fewer shit fathers and broken homes if we give fewer shit men the opportunity. Bottom line.

Absolute BS.

Hardly. I know several really dedicated fathers who are having to go through the courts for contact because the mums won't let them see the children and won't stick to agreements made during mediation. Meanwhile the mums are leaving them with aunties, cousins, GPs a few evenings a week but won't let them see their fathers. Recent break ups. Two of the men are close friends and have been on the phone sobbing looking for advice. They were faithful and didn't instigate the separation, in two cases the woman decided she didn't love them anymore.

I haven't said this is a frequent thing because dads just walking out without a backward glance is not a common thing amongst people I know either, but it is definitely not BS to say that sometimes the primary caregiver prevents the other caregiver from seeing children during breakups, and weaponises them.

As I said - separation can be hard on both sexes. Depends on the situation. We shouldn't blame everything on men because that's the exact reason men who are in tricky situations can become scared of speaking up.

Ah, I see the usual suspects are already here twisting things to put the blame on women. Plus ca change....

Erm novody I know would see this ad acceptable or normal

I dont know any men that abandoned their children.
My husband would 100% bot associate with this type of male loser.

Very 1970s!

I know several men that were shitty people before they had kids, they are still shitty people now that they have kids.

All of the women that have had children by these men (in one case 4 kids by 4 shitty men) knew that they were crap before they had kids with them.

I can see how the first woman that they had kids with should/could be excused but not the rest.

I agree with you OP.

But then again the men who do fight get slapped down by the court and the 'mother' wins. And some women play on it.

Broken system broken society.

I like this.

Its an amusing thread when there is a MN sponsored (essentially an) AD for a feminist legal group so that women can "win" in family courts.

In fairness to her, I don’t think she would have left her kids if he was an awful and unsafe dad. He was obviously just an awful husband. So many men are unsafe dads however, so I get it’s not often viable. Though would they be unsafe if forced to step up? Hmmm …

Women who choose bad, feckless, immature, lazy, indifferent, criminal, abusive, or otherwise loser men to sire their offspring ARE to blame, 100 percent.

LaurieStrode
I prefer to ask: why are so many men bad, feckless, immature, lazy, indifferent, criminal, abusive or otherwise losers? Because, believe me, a lot of men- I would say the majority- fall into at least one of those categories. Which kind of makes them difficult to avoid.

What can men do to make themselves- and other men- less shit?

I may be a part of the problem, but the maternal instinct in me meant I wasn’t leaving without my daughter. It wasn’t even a thought.

When I left I stopped carrying the load for ex. I barely even called /texted him. It wasn’t my business to be updating him on what’s happening etc, so he’s now on the email list, attends as many events as I do, does as much chauffeuring as I do etc - we’re pretty much equal and they have a great relationship.

He’s a million times better than when I was facilitating him being a parent. Just the kind of parent I knew he could be.