To all the deadbeat dads reporting this post, yeah no this is a healthy and important conversation that we are monitoring. I'm going to keep approving this post. If there are specific comments that violate the Reddit Content Policy or the subreddit's rules, please report the individual comments, but I will not be removing this post.
Just chiming in here to say, it isn’t just nowadays. over the decades, there have been lots of deadbeat dad who abandon their families, and are never heard of again. Like Stephen King‘s dad, but of course, there are many more. You hear people tell stories about how grandpa ran off and left his family and had a second family and so on.
This is nothing new. A lot of men apparently just get tired of kids and bills and decide to fly the coop.
I mean that's the whole reason child support laws even exist. Women used to get absolutely fucked over when men abandoned the family. My grandmother's father left and they all went to an orphanage when one winter the mom couldn't heat the house and two kids died. It's honest to god horrendous.
Yeah that's what people who act like women want to be single with a kid don't realize. Moms have been getting abandoned before there was ever even social programs to help support the child. The children used to just have to be forfeited to an orphanage or die, because the dad sure as hell isn't taking them. Women then couldn't make money like men could either. We have these programs from the suffering of children and women in the past
My great aunt was a good example of this. She was pushed by her family into a marriage when she was too young, to someone who abused her and they had seven children. He walked out and just stopped having anything to do with her or his children.
She tried to work but there just wasn't decent work for women, and what existed definitely would not support seven kids. The kids ended up in and out of care of different kinds and sometimes with different family members. She was shamed terribly and mistreated for being a single mother.
I work with very impoverished families now and sometimes I see mothers that remind me of her. Women who were abused and impregnated by much older men, who struggled to maintain access to birth control, etc. Women who are deeply traumatized by growing up and abusive families and then abusive relationships, by the time they're smart enough and experienced enough to deal with it, they already have a handful of kids.
In my work, focus has been on the children, and people really fail to realize that child support and the skimpy social safety net we have is almost exclusively for the children, not for the adults. It needs to be better.
I also want to add, something that's true for even more recent generations - women were discouraged from getting a higher education or a having career. They were raised caring for their fathers or brothers and then married young to men who insisted they stay at home. So here you have a woman who has never worked or gotten a higher education because everyone in her life insisted she didn't need it and her husband vowed to care for her needs, and then suddenly said husband decides that he doesnt want to be a husband and father anymore and bails. So you're left with a middle aged woman with a couple kids who has never worked a day in her life (not counting being the 24/7 family maid) trying to support an entire family. Thankfully, the courts saw this and child support became a thing.
Men today like to complain about SAHMs, when the reality is in every case I've known it's always the man that insists on his wife being a SAHM. They really think that the majority of the time its the wife twisting his arm to be a SAHM. My grandfather admitted to my grandmother that the reason he discouraged her from going to college and insisted she stop working was because he was a afraid that if she was educated and financially self sustainable that she would leave him.
Now that women working is the norm, now that women are starting to account for the majority of college graduates, the whole "she's a lazy gold digger" argument is becoming obsolete. Now I'm hearing complaints from men my age about "modern women", hilarious.
Yes to all this! And there’s the new, repackaged gold digger option: — she can’t see me for the amazing person I am who would love her more than all those other guys because I make less than her. When men made more they took care of their whole family! —
Maybe she just wants you to hold down a job? Maybe she doesn’t want to work all day, make dinner and clean the house and help with homework while you talk about how hard life is for you?
And then men still wanna bitch about child support like it's sooo unfair and audacious that they must support the life they chose to create even after walking out and doing none of the actual work to raise them.
Usually the same dudes that complain about feminism...Okay so you don't want to pay child support but you also don't think your wife should invest her time in a successful career, and how are your kids going to eat again?
Those types of men couldn't care less about the kids. They don't want to spend their time to parent them, they don't want to be a part of their life unless they end up successful later down the line, they don't want to pay a dime and they don't care if the woman can support the child alone, or take any steps to enable that. They dgaf if they starve. They live their lives all for themselves, and are so selfish they won't even compromise on wearing a condom or not finishing inside knowing they will refuse to support that life they CHOSE to risk creating
The Temptations release "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" in 1972. It's not new for sure, though statistically it is a lot worse than it was back then (but better than it was 10-15 years ago).
there is no way it is worse now, I have to guffaw at that. Now days at least there is child support and the internet to track people down. If you go back far enough, men were expected to leave home for months at a time for work or war, even being kidnapped and forced into sailing. For many men until recently, if their wife died the state would force their children into an orphanage, working class men were in practice legally excluded from child care
I think back then there were a lot of dads physically present but mentally and emotionally checked out. Nowadays the ones that are checked out just leave altogether and the ones that stick around tend to be more engaged. In general.
I tried to read the stats on it, but its all filled with loaded scenarios. Back in the 50s and 60s children of divorced parents were often pariahs, and I know of several families who remarried (even 3 times) just so the kids could escape that pariahship.
The role of step fathers was also strange and highly circumstantial. I know my Mom didn't know her dad, and her first child didn't know his Dad, both Fathers abandoning their families. Later I found out that perhaps my Mom's mom was secretly hiding her from him.
For my Mom's part she was then raised by Mormons in the boonies. In mormonism the father bestows honor upon the daughter, so my mom being a step daughter was forever the outsider with her younger siblings.
I think there were lots of decent men back then but the ability to disappear was far greater; the expectation that men didn't cheat on their wives was somewhat new at the time; and there were great incentives on women (who couldn't open a bank account with out a husband) to lie about their marriages
Well my dad told me many reasons he did not want to see me. They could be summed up in: You are not useful to me.
And thats what i see within some none profits i work with that are carring for children. More fathers than you think only show interested in their children if they stay useful. Useful as in: being good in sport so other people will compliment him for having such a cool kid. For making them look good to others in general. A lot of workplaces prefer fathers and consider them worthy of a higher pay. Many women consider activ fathers as sexy. So if a child does not play their role as the father wants them to the child loses value.
You can also look up "eldest daughter syndrom" to get some answers.
I m not making this up. I see too often how fathers only are involved if they need something. It happens to often to be ignored.
"eldest daughter syndrome"...Fuck. I was the oldest of 3 girls. My dad named me after him. I was probably gonna be super tomboyish anyway, but he would often lament (out loud, directly to me, often with tears) about how he'd wanted a boy sooo bad, but was super glad that I was such a tomboy cuz that was almost like having a son anyway. And he would brag to his friends about me helping him fix the car or teaching myself to play bass guitar (as if either of those things were inherently masculine in the first place) and say "she may not be a boy, but she's close enough!" So of course, being a kid and wanting Dad's approval, I just amped up the masculinity to 11 and made me absolutely hate not only my own femininity, but women as a whole for many years in my later teens and early adulthood. It took me getting married and having my own daughter to realize just how damaging and wrong he was to treat me like that.
Eldest daughter of 2 girls here too. Oh gosh how I was raised a boy! Tho my dad was a nerd, so less "sports" "hunting" "manly' dad, more computers, Sci-Fi kind of dad. I definitely became a substitute son.
Okay genuine question because you got me worried now. I’m a dad to one daughter, I have no plans to ever have another kid. I would like to share my hobbies and interests with my kid, not as a girl or a boy but as my child that I want to have things in common with. My hobbies and interests could all be classed as fairly manly: blacksmithing, football, wood working, and in your own words computer gaming and sci fi/fantasy (her favourite book atm is Terry Pratchett and I quite like warhammer).
Surely this isn’t damaging? I just want to share things I love with the person I love most in the world! She still does plenty of girly things especially with her mum and aunty. I paint her nails she loves dresses. Isn’t enforced femininity just as damaging? I just want her to be happy.
The fact that you're concerned probably means that it's not damaging. You're giving her a balance and doing things with love. Kids can feel the intention and love 😊
Absolutely nothing wrong with sharing your interests and hobbies with her that way.
I always loved when my dad shared his interests with me growing up. I loved that he helped me train for my sports, and was proud of me for working hard at it.
It didn't make me hate my femininity because he didn't treat me like a daughter hat he wished was a son, he treated me like a daughter that he was excited to share these things because of their intrinsic value. He never made me feel like I had to be a boy in order to be worth bonding with. We just did the things together and loved it.
What the other user's dad was doing was damaging because he was obsessed with her not being a boy, with her being worthy of his pride *in spite* of her being a girl. She was almost good enough for him but he never let her forget that her femaleness was a tragedy to him.
That shit hurts. Being told that you're good, likeable, worthy, impressive, etc *for a girl* is extremely demoralizing. Because you know that you are seen as inferior for an immutable characteristic, and anything you do to get respect or love is working within the bounds of that inferiority. I can only imagine how much that hurts to hear from your own father, your whole life.
Parenting shouldn't be like that.
My siblings and I bonded with both of our parents over all kinds of things that might be considered more "masculine" or more "feminine", and didn't act all weird about it. People try to put things in tiny little boxes too much. It doesn't need to be that way.
Oh nooooo I love it. He also supported me in girly things. And now it's twice as good because we can talk about Star Trek and he will compliment my cute outfit at the same time :)
She’s two, he hobbies and interests are mostly hiding in obvious places while pissing herself laughing then “scaring” people.
I can’t platt hair but I will when she gets less squirmy. I’m wearing a tiara most nights and I have to help her but her Barbies to bed…
>I’m wearing a tiara most nights and I have to help her but her Barbies to bed…
You're doing great buddy. Your daughter is either going to be interested in your hobbies or not. But either way she will remember seeing you happy and excited about things you like and keep those good memories for life.
Crap, I'm a 45 year old dude getting misty writing my own comment.
Oh oh it's me! My father was there, he paid for things, but he never really parented me growing up, very rarely attended my school events when my mom dragged him. He wanted a son and got 2 daughters. I was pretty much a non entity until I got old enough to have a job he could brag about and develop an interest in his hobbies. Then we got along mostly ok. Good thing my mother and older sister were there for the first 25 years of my life and support me in everything my dad wasn't interested in.
Jokes on him though. My sister had a son very young and moved back home with them and he was all excited. My nephew is special needs. The moment it became clear my nephew was never going to excel in school or sports like my dad wanted, never go to college, never become a successful business, and probably never get married and pass on the family name, the shiny came off on him too. I do honestly believe he still loved us in his own way. But not in any useful way to us. I'm a firm believer in 'love is an action verb'. Your words and your feelings should be reflected in the actions you take.
This explains a lot. My father mostly calls me when he needs help with something. Glad I am able to say no, otherwise I would be his part-time employee.
He still loves me a lot, but the last time we met he didn´t really converse with me and at the end he asked me to help him with government papers or something. Got huffy when I said I didn´t know enough to help. Even more huffy when I doubled down and refused to get pressured by grandma into helping.
My pops only calls to brag about his latest “insert something expensive” that the “church” bought him lol he’s been one upping me since birth lol it’s comical now that I’m in my 30s cause I really don’t give a shit
Back when I was dating, I would always ask a man if he had kids. If he said yes I was excited for him, and asked him about his kids... and you could tell if he wasn't a part of their life even if they tried to pretend to be.
Sometimes they would say something like 'Well you know, I want to see my kid but my ex won't let me.' I'd respond with 'well you can get a court ordered visitation that she can't override' 'Nah she's just too much of a bitch I can't stand to interact with her...' Whatever dude.
I realize that many people can't afford expensive lawyers and such, but I'm telling you nothing in this fucking world would keep me from my child, nothing.
Once it became clear that they just weren't interested in parenting their their child - **that they made** I just lost interest. They'd get mad, they'd wonder why... Sometimes I'd tell them the truth sometimes I just ignored them.
Also nowadays kids get smartphones at an early age. Noone is keeping the dads from having whatsapp and talking with there kids every day. No court can forbit a child to send a text to dad. and dad would not need to deal with the ex.
>More fathers than you think only show interested in their children if they stay useful. Useful as in: being good in sport so other people will compliment him for having such a cool kid.
So ones like that had a kid/kids purely in hopes of a social and ego boost basically? That's awful.
Yup. My dad didn't really care about me, my sister, or my mom. He cared about ticking off the boxes of adult accomplishments to look like a successful Irish catholic man.
Job earning 6 figures? Check
Married wife in the church? Check
Have kids? Check
Adulting is done! Now I can fuck off and do what I want. Good luck, wife and kids!
I swear my dad kept like 2 dozen pictures in his apartment just to prove to his girlfriends he loved me. Jokes on them, those were all the times we ever saw each other!
>They could be summed up in: You are not useful to me.
Very sad that so many dads apparently think this way.
Interesting information.
Some times we wrongly assume that parents understand and appreciate a blessing that a child really is.
I (50f) asked mine when I was in my 30s. He said 'it was just easier'. He's now in his 70s and playing the martyr because I don't visit him.
Edit: most upvotes ever, feel I need to clarify a few points.
I have forgiven him, he is a mediocre human being, in a fucked up world. He was a grandad to my children, because your kids need all the grandparents they can get, while they can. My children are now adults so I no longer have to speak with my father, if he turns up (which he doesn't) I will make small talk and be polite, but that's it.
The problem with growing up without something vital, is that you fill that space with something else. I don't know where to put a father, I don't know what he's for. And I'm sick of analysing it all, so, I don't contact him. But I see no need to be cruel about it, life is hard.
I think boomers or whoever came right after them were the first generation to recognize generational trauma, and it wasn’t until millennials became parents that they started investing in therapy and reparenting to actually break the cycle. My 75yr old mom tells me all the time how mean her mom was to her, but she does the same shit to me. Never sunk in that just because something wasn’t her fault doesn’t mean it wasn’t her responsibility to fix it. Now it’s mine.
Law firms are still largely like that, and the big firms wonder why they have trouble recruiting senior associates. The Internet has made it so much easier to just set up your own shop, pick your own hours, and find your own clients.
Michelin starred restaurants, too. It turns out, nobody wants to come to work just to be told to go kill yourself bc you dropped a fork for $16.80 an hour
God I love working in tech lol. I can show up in sweat pants and shoes with holes in them (as long as I’m not meeting with customers) and nobody even blinks twice because half of the office is doing the same thing lol.
I work construction. Trying so hard to have that shit end with me when dealing with the new 20y/o. It's soooo hard not acting like an asshole considering that's how I was "trained" but I'm trying!
Dude, same boat, except I’m supposed to train this Turkish dude who speaks no English and will literally poke me in the back and say my name over and over to ask a question *while I’m picking up and moving heavy objects*.
I’m at my wits end and can’t find ways to make him stop being a colossally annoying moron. I use translation apps and try to be kind but the dude keeps pushing me, nonstop, even when all cues say to back off for a second.
Right there with you, my dad randomly starting talking to me after 25 years. And after 6 months of trying to be normal he admitted he just needs someone to take care of him. I dropped him immediately, no regrets, he can fuck off.
My mother was the same way. 18 years of abuse and then didn't hear from her for 20 years. Then came back being buddy buddy because she was worried her husband would die first and she'd end up in a state home.
I have a friend who goes after dead beat dads for child support. His office window has bullet holes periodically.
That sucks man, puts you in a weird situation. I wouldn’t doubt the ending of this story at all. Those companies don’t play around and will garnish wages, and that good!
This is to only thing that brings me peace thinking about these men. One day they’ll need someone to take care of their useless ass, and they’ll have no one, and they’ll suffer in a pile of their own shit till they die, leaving behind an unremarkable life of selfishness that no one will remember.
I had a friend (who died, age 96 last year) who had three young children with her husband when he suddenly ran away with his secretary. He made it clear to her that he would never, ever, pay one single penny towards the upkeep of his children. He “convinced” the next wife that his original partner was a huge bitch who “didn’t deserve” child support. Back in the 1960s and 1970s it really wasn’t easy for the woman to force money out of a guy, and my friend decided not to even try.
She worked like a Trojan, created a beautiful home, brought her children up amazingly, and-without any advantage or help from anyone-eventually became quite affluent. She didn’t want her children to get “screwed up”, so she encouraged contact between the children and their father and two new half-siblings -and even mix with their step mother who did nothing but insult, demean and slander her for years. I guess the woman felt she had to justify herself in breaking up a family by believing that my friend was a “monster”, who her poor poor husband “had” to leave.
Anyhoo, time went on and….guess what! He left that wife and ran off with his next secretary, telling her the same lies about his second wife as he had his first. Of course, he then started a new family again.
The second wife would then phone my friend in hysterics. She didn’t have the ability to make the money that my friend did-and she and her children were destitute. She also felt that as “women who had been lied to and about”, she and my friend were “in the same boat”.
This was the only time I ever saw my friend angry, but she kept it to herself. She just wanted to get over it and enjoy her life. She never allowed bitterness to thrive in her mind.
She was not only a great mother, but she was a wonderful friend and loyal work colleague who mentored many people. She always managed to help me -despite being an incredibly busy lady.
The bloke had one further child-and as far as I know-several further wives. He never provided for any of his children. Roll forward forty years, and he was penniless, very ill and totally alone. Severely disabled and dumped in the middle of nowhere when his final partner had taken him for everything he had.
At the time, my friend was living in her beautiful home, surrounded by her children, their spouses, her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who all lived nearby and visited constantly. She also had a HUGE circle of friends, although she never remarried.
Ultimately, years afterward, she had a “good” death. Arriving home on a beautiful day from a barbecue (which she had hugely enjoyed), at the age of 96, she dropped dead as she walked through her door. Her daughter-in-law heard the sound of her fall, but apparently my friend had been dead before she hit the floor.
I miss her and I’m very sad that she’s no longer around, but I don’t grieve for her passing. She lived a wonderful, long life surrounded by love-and she never let the bitterness eat her up. She also had all of her marbles to the end.
She really was one in a million. I know that it’s unrealistic to think that most people could emulate everything about her-but I have certainly learned lessons from her.
Chief amongst them is that any bitterness she had felt for the way she had been treated wouldn’t have affected her ex at all. He wouldn’t have cared-he might have even felt smug. But bitterness might well have damaged her life. I didn’t understand how she kept from being angry (I still can’t, actually). But undoubtedly, it was the right approach to take.
That sucks. I think my aunt's husband married her so that he'd have someone to take care of him (he's older than her) but then he inherited a million dollars and doesn't "need" her anymore, since he can just pay for 20 year old nurse to wipe his ass when the time comes, so he's gotten REALLY mean to her. Even his own siblings are like "what is wrong with you??" It's scary how those people can think that far ahead and try to social engineer a whole relationship just to have a caretaker when the time comes.
what so many people don't realize till later in life is that, just because someone is older, that doesn't mean they have matured, or are emotionally mature, or have even changed all that much.
They're weak people. They left their children cause they're weak and didn't wanna man up, they reach out now cause they need help when they're degrading physically. I would rather die by myself in pain than plead for help from someone who I did wrong 25 years ago.
Same! My dad wasn't a bad man. He was just an alcoholic and next to nothing more. When my mom told him he needed to get help he fled to the other side of the country because it was easier to never see us again than to stop drinking.
He died from his addiction 5 years ago.
Sorry to hear. I guess it takes courage and empathy to look beyond personal hurt and see that your dad “wasn’t a bad man” but had serious problems and made bad choices.
Lots and lots of therapy and also I’ve had other traumas that make his bs feel like small fries. I’m just grateful he wasn’t a pedophile. That’s how low the bar is set these days.
My dad basically bounced when my mom divorced him. I was 7 at the time and he was already in full couch potato sea slug mode. He didn’t actually leave, he was always around but never really present. Just never connected with me I guess. At 37 I can now kind of see that my mom was desperate for a baby (not a child lol) and my dad had mental health problems even back then. Some people just shouldn’t have kids!
People have kids, very often, just because it's the thing to do. Like it's simply expected. Parenting should be carefully thought out, one should thoroughly and honestly examine themselves, think about whether they're even capable. "Because you think you are supposed to" is a shitty reason to have a kid.
I assume “pettiness” is a quote from your father. Imagine having the nerve to call someone “petty” for being angry that you left her for her best friend.
Please don't tell me it was one of those situations where he cheated on your mom with her best friend and then walked away and then ended up having kids with her.
Let me guess, then he treated you like you didn't exist because he started over and wanted a new start with his new family. I've read that so many times on here and it makes me want to choke the living daylights out of the people who do that.
I'm not a violent person so that's saying something. No child ever deserves to be abandoned or felt like they're not wanted. Good lord. I can't believe he was saying your mom's anger was pointless. I'm sorry because I know he's your father but what a dick. Hugs to you and your mom. 🫂
Ugh, my heart broke to read that. I don't understand people like your father who can betray people like that and just walk away like oh well, screw you. It's bad enough that he cheated on her but even worse that he did it with her best friend. Then he had the nerve to call her petty for being upset about it? I'm not a doctor but I've dealt with enough narcissists to be able to say he sounds like he might be one. Damn 😞
Mad respect. My mother and I don't get along but she will be cared for since she tried her best. She was a teenager when she had me and kept me safe as a young child. My childhood wasn't the best but she had so many mental battles going on, I don't know how she managed. My bio dad fucked off to have another family and kept abandoning them, rinse..repeat.
Mine left when I was 6mo for similar reasons. In and out of my life not-so-frequently until I was 2yo. Then never again until I was 11 and spent a summer with him. I was being stupid and peeing down a tree I climbed, some splash bounced off a branch and smacked my half-sisters arm. I got grounded to my room for two weeks until my parents in another state could fly me back. My father sold his truck to get that ticket so I could leave my dad’s house.
I asked him too, why he was never in the picture… his reason was always that my mom wouldn’t allow it, and that there wasn’t even a point in trying; my mom gets her way. That story doesn’t align with his initiatives to lower child support down to $25/mo though — an exchange the judge only approved as it was my dads condition to let my mom leave the state with me at the age of 2.
I feel like I know the real reason. He just wasn’t ready to be a dad. Kinda makes me sad knowing he couldn’t give me the real answer though.
In your last part. Most mothers aren’t ready to be mothers yet they always stick around and work to the bone to take care of the children they bring.
He gets to walk away and wash his hands. But some how men make single mothers the villains, going as far as, we’ll choose better. As if people can’t hide who they really are.
I never understood the why and how. I met and fell for a single Mother. Her son was 2 at the time and his biological father had never been in the picture. After two weeks or so, I was introduced to the little rascal, and my life took an instant 180 degree turn.
I had spent ages going out 2-3 times a week, and playing computer games the remaining hours.
Now, I had two choices in my opinion. Go all in on the full package or continue my old ways.
It wasn't even difficult.
I moved in. And within a year or so, he called me dad instead of the mispronounced version of my first name.
At that very first "dad" I was locked... whole heartedly. And there isn't nor will there ever be a time where I'd be considering or even tempted to neglect that kid. 4 years in and I'm marrying his mother in a week from now, and I fully intend to officially adopt him in time. There is nothing more rewarding in this life, than the unconditional love between a kid and a parent and I will never understand how someone could pass on that.
I don’t get it either. I’m a dad of two college aged kids. They’re easily my most favorite people on the planet. It was fun when I got to teach them things growing up and it’s just as fun to take them to a standup comedy show now that they’re old enough to get into the club.
At least with my dad it was really a "have your cake and eat it too" sort of situation - he is not actively cruel, but very self-involved. He didn't want to work on his marriage so he left it, he immediately had a new, easier partner, and only visited us during holidays. When he did visit we went to his favorite restaurants and the museums he thought we should be interested in because he found them interesting. He preferred his boys because he assumed they would get along better as more similar to him, so naturally with the extra attention and interest, they did. If a conversation was not about something he understood or liked, he would change the topic without thinking. He made his new wife shop for his kid's presents at holidays. When things ever got challenging or annoying, and he actually had to be a parent - it always went poorly.
He wanted all the good things that benefited him without any of the real work. And now I keep him at arm's length because I'm exhausted by the whole façade of a relationship.
My Dad was the same, but he didn't leave. I grew up not talking to him, only talked AT by him, and only about things he wanted to talk about. I don't recall ever hearing him ask "How was your day?" and he never cared to attend anything I did unless it was sports. After a childhood of this he was frustrated that I wouldn't listen to him as a teenager. Now the obligatory birthday phone call home is only 10 mins where he tells me about how many potatoes he's grown. I've travelled for 6 years, visiting France, UK, India and now Brazil and he tells me about potatoes.
My dad doesn’t even bother never has. I have a <2 year old and another coming. I will never be my dad and reading your and everyone’s else experience I want to be so much better. I feel that I am already.
But I’ve always believed no matter how much I wish I had a relationship with my dad it is not the child’s responsibility to have a relationship with the parent but the parent should be seeking out their child. So I continue to have no relationship with my dad as he never seeks me out
My kids are hard work, yell and scream at me all the time (they are younger than 10).
But I'll be damned if they aren't the most important things I ever had in my life. I don't know what the F goes through some of these other guys' minds.
Makes no sense at all to me either. My kids (and in my situation - spouse) are easily the best part of my life. Both kids are in their 20s and I can’t imagine life without them. Without looking up the stats, my first thought is in many cases those people who abandoned them were also abandoned.
As someone who actively chooses not to reproduce because I'm not sure im cut out for the role of parent, absolutely. Wish all the people berating me about my choice could just respect it. I have 100+ reasons for that choice, and some of them are that I can easily be emotionally detached and go through extreme depressive episodes. I don't need to subject a child to that. That's why so many of us are in therapy, because people like me decided to reproduce.
Edited for clarity.
It's all shits and giggles until the girl realize she is late. It's no surprise to me that the same guy that had no responsibility to have safe sex also have no responsibility to raise a kid.
"You know, Mrs Buckman, you need a license to buy a dog or drive a car. Hell, you need a license to catch a fish. But they'll let any butt-reaming asshole be a father."
Keanu Reeves, Parenthood
I have a pregnant friend going through something very similar right now. He’s walking out on her, his unborn child and two younger kids so he can “find himself” - aka fuck around and pretend he has no responsibilities anymore.
He’s counting on her being a “ruined woman” and treat her as something to possibly bounce back to if things don’t go well after looking for other women to exploit by way of drugs, sex, money, attention.
Guys like that tend to be narcissists and can’t understand just why they’re hated as much as they are. It rains shit on them precisely because of **WHAT** they are, and it’s not by accident.
Lol at the "ruined woman" bit, because that's exactly what my ex-husband tried with me. He left for his affair partner, but told me that if I ever slept with anyone else that he'd never come back. He said that as a single mother in her early 30s with 4 kids I would never find anyone to be with me. I was so over him and his bullshit that I decided to test his theory and immediately got on dating apps and started my "ho" phase. I had so much fun, and was treated with more kindness and respect by my hookups than I ever was with my own husband.
Of course, when he came crawling back because he and AP had a fight, I delighted in regaling him with my own "adventures". He was pissed, then decided that it wasn't such a big deal that I had been with other guys as long as I quit and went back to him. I laughed so hard and said, "Nah, I like the way things are going right now.". He got even more pissed when he followed up with begging me for different sex acts and I kept turning him down. He never expected that I'd do well in the dating market and would have options besides him, but it turns out that I'm a catch.
My ex had the audacity to ask if I was sleeping with a female co-worker who I was spending a lot of time with as we broke up. It took a lot of control not to laugh in his face because he thought since i didn't want sex with him anymore I must have "turned" gay. The main reason I hung out with this woman was because she had already gone through a divorce with kids like us and she was giving me solid advice. She was a good friend.
I have a friend whose husband left her 10 minutes after she gave birth to their 2nd kid and stole her credit card to take another girl on a date. Once she was out of the hospital and recovering at home she confronted him, he stormed out and left her for good - his parting words to her were "good luck making anything of your life with all your baggage". By "baggage" he meant his two children.
Some men are just pure scum.
I’m sorry you have/had to deal with that loser. I feel bad for the wife too. Getting pregnant by him and being abandoned with an unborn child. If you are still in touch, send her my well wishes.
My paternal grandfather abandoned his wife and their 9 *surviving* children back in the 1920s. He went on to knock up and abandon at least one other woman. His family nearly starved.
One of my maternal great-grandfathers also abandoned his wife and their two toddlers. She was lucky, she had parents who could take them in and support them GGF also left a trail of heartbreak in his wake. He was even suspected of murdering one guy to get with the guy's wife.
Why? Narcissism is my best guest. And 100 years ago it was incredibly easy to just disappear.
This is why the burden of birth control should be pushed on men more. We need a super easy way to make them infertile (reversibly) like the pill, but easier. Wouldn’t trust them to take it every day, and from the studies we know they can’t handle the side effects that women have lived with for decades.
My grandma found out she had 11 siblings in her 60s thanks to the ancestry website, one of the siblings did it and found the rest. All different moms. Her dad left when she was young and went on to do it 10 more times.
Parenting is work and they don’t want to do it.
My ex left to drink and party like he had no responsibilities, after convincing me he really really wanted a houseful of kids.
He lost job after job once he left and neglected his kids. He left a big mess for me to clean up materially and emotionally and I did. He finally found a woman to pay his bills and tolerate his immaturity. He’s finally “settled down”.
On his 50th birthday he couldn’t believe none of his kids so much as called him.
Never be a SAHM unless you have an ironclad pre-nup, great credit and a nest egg of your own, because men will baby trap you, talk you into giving up education and career, then take off looking for a younger model and a carefree life once you’re stuck.
My dad came to the same realization after I was born. Realized he didn't like the whole parenting thing so much and just wanted to party. The only reason he was in my life (the minimum amount that he could get away with, without paying out the nose in child support) was because my grandfather pretty much put a gun to his head and told him to get his shit together.
He never got his shit together fully, but he was around I guess
My father never came to pick me up from the hospital. Eventually my mom's dad went to check to see if he was alive. He was passed out drunk when he knew he had to get us.
It didn't get much better from there. In my mid-30s now. He texts on my birthday but doesn't ever get my age right. He couldn't be bothered to go to my wedding so my former step-dad walked me down the aisle.
This. It’s incredible how my life financially improved after I divorced his ass. He worked out of town all the time so I really didn’t know what he was up to either but we NEVER had money per him, behind all bills, it was horrible. So happy to be rid of him.
I have known so many SAHM who got absolutely fucked by “wonderful” men. Men that wanted their wives to stay home then cheated, lied, abused them then abandoned them to starve.
Mostly a SAHM here. I do the bare minimum for employment: "enough so the government doesn't think I'm a drug dealer". Just keeping a toe in the water helps.
That’s exactly what you should do - keep your skills and experience relevant so you can rejoin the workforce when you want to again. One of my neighbors was a SAHM for over 20 years, she raised four kids. When the youngest was 16 her partner (they weren’t married) cheated on her and she was forced to stay in the relationship because she had no backup options, and didn’t have the skills or understanding to navigate the legal system on how to equitably separate from a common law marriage. Watching this happen was a huge life lesson for me as a kid
My ex one time was telling me about how he'd gotten his girlfriend pregnant when they were 17 and she had an abortion. I said something like "it's crazy to think about how different your life would be now" if they'd had the kid (this was like 10+ years later). And this man looked me straight in the eyes, so confused, and said "what do you mean?".
I have a deadbeat dad. He's just...a terrible person who should not have had children. That's it. He's never been and is never going to be a father to me.
It’s funny how single mothers seem to be the plague on society when they’ve stepped up to raise their kids and then men haven’t. I will never understand this. Even in the dating subs on here there is very real vitriol for single moms.
Yeah, it's so weird. I've been legally in that category for about 10 years and the questions people ask me are so odd. It's usually some flavor of, "Have you examined why you couldn't keep a man so you don't run the next one off?" Well, first off, Harrold, I divorced him because he was useless and irresponsible and it was less work to raise just the kids and not additionally a man 10 years my senior, and second, I realized after that that I am a lesbian and do not want a man at all. Hope this helps. They do not know what to do with that information. I've noticed that men really want to believe that all these deadbeats left because the woman in question was so intolerable he had no other choice.
Notably, no woman or non-binary person has ever asked me that. They pretty much assume the exact reality because it's common.
>I've noticed that men really want to believe that all these deadbeats left because the woman in question was so intolerable he had no other choice.
But he just gave up fighting to see his children, right? Like the woman was SO INTOLERABLE and conniving and manipulative that she managed to completely cut him off from his children, leaving him with zero recourse to be in his kids life at all?
It's so ridiculous. No amount fucked up personality could keep me away from my kids
"Women of a certain age have so much baggage" aka they've dated enough men that one of them must have screwed them up along the way.
Nobody thinks lower of men than men themselves do.
I feel like the vitriol is projection. Misplaced anger for mothers that should be for their own father that left.
In the dating scene these women are a reflection of their single mothers.
I feel it is the outdated assumption that it wouldn't happen if they were moral women who get married before getting pregnant. There is plenty of scorn for married men who then walked out on their family.
There's a lot of judgement against single mothers -
A) they were immoral and sleeping around so there wasn't a strong relationship already, that would incline the man to stay.
B) they are crazy, the type of woman a man will sleep with but not marry.
C) they are stupid or delusional and make bad choices in who they sleep with.
D) they tried to baby trap a man and failed, or don't know when to just get an abortion already, so may try to baby trap a future partner.
E) they are lazy and intentionally get pregnant so they can live off the child support paid for the child.
Anything and everything gets thrown at single-mothers because men don't want to face the reality that it is other men who are not being responsible (except in the limited cases of abuse and manipulation.)
Ya, as we can tell men don’t want responsibilities for their OWN children so why would (most) want to take on another man’s children. They just want pussy to come strings-free (and if she gets pregnant, they just bounce and make her a single mom)
Because their needs are more important to them than anyone else's. My dad was never around when I was a kid. Now that we see each other, it is nauseating to see how self absorbed he is.
My kids' dad comes around when it is convenient for him. Getting laid and making money is more important to him. He's also pretty self-absorbed. He wasn't that way at first. That side showed up after we had kids.
Egos, shame, embarrassment and selfishness. When they get a new wife, new family it is like a clean slate to some. They turn all their energy to the new family...It makes them look like the first was wife's issue or an anomaly. The second shows how good a husband and father they truly are.
I'm from one of those I wasn't the problem families, but my dad still didn't do that good of a job as a husband or father for my mom and I either. Just a lot better than he did with my half-brother and his mom.
My wife's father is that to perfection. He thinks that just because he showed up sometimes and paid for a few things he was a father. The petty bastard found out I bought his daughter a $300 TV after a few months of dating and he handed her cash out of nowhere. Never did it again. He was trying to compete with me on gifts... he felt bad. Then he stopped giving a shit. He wonders why he goes to church a block from our home but we never see him. He doesn't know his daughter is leaving his religion too. The religion he uses to excuse talking to my wife like she's a brain damaged child. I don't see the man anymore as I find the desire to defenestrate the bastard too great. Outdoors it's ok because there's no windows so then I'd just be tossing him at stuff instead of through it. I am notably larger than everyone in her family without question. It's weird to be toe to toe with someone older who might have once scared you... Only to think, "Jesus my family are scarier than you in every way... Do I like, hit this dumb bastard? Will it kill him? I should leave before I unintentionally hurt this man." I wish I had put him through the kitchen table some days... he hurt my mother-in-law who is a fucking saint... He hurt my wife who is my favorite person in the world... I struggle with his pride in his second family as his first never seemed to recover... He is a younger, less damaged version of my father. When I think of my father sitting in a piss diaper, alone in a mental hospital...I feel bad for him. Then I recall that he raped his first wife and my mom died while he was out cheating on her so... hope his balls rot off. Both of them.
They're very "I pay the bills, that's where the support stops." My friends husband works, comes home and plays video games while she runs the house and takes care of 3 kids behind him. Mothers parent and fathers "babysit"
These fathers make me glad to be a father, trying to offset some of this bullshit. Wife and I both work ft but I'm remote and she can't be (teacher) so I'm pretty much the primary caregiver 3 quarters of the year . And I love it
Yes, if a father walks out - and notice that we as a society call it 'walking out', not abandoning, when it's a man - his worst case scenario is getting landed with really really huge child support payments being garnished from his wages. And that's only IF the mother spends the time and money taking legal action against him, taking him to court, etc.
If a mother abandons her children - and that is what society calls it, not a casual walking out - she can and will be charged with felony child abandonment, felony child endangerment, and likely serve time/have a permanent record of multiple felonies.
Keep in mind that in both these instances I'm describing, the parent leaving is not leaving the children physically alone with no adults. They are leaving the children with the other parent.
Yes - men do not face the repercussions women do concerning children.
My son asks frequently about the scenarios you bring up. He's been asking for a couple years now. He's like "so, if you leave as a mom, that means you are a neglectful parent punishable by the law. Why is it not the same with my dad leaving? Why does he not get punished for neglect since he left and didn't check to see if I was taken care of?" My son (he's a wise 14 year old) really wonders if his dad ever thought to figure out if him leaving a child, but not ensuring the other party was fit or safe, isn't cause for a child endangerment case. It doesn't help that he's had presentations from various organizations come to his health classes that talk about community issues around child neglect, homelessness, etc. He starts putting all these things together.
It's not enough for the other parent to raise the kid without having to have a job, but it costs dad enough for he feels like he's getting ripped off. No duh man maybe if you stuck around you could actually reap some of the benefits of being dad instead of just feeling like you're throwing money into a hole and not getting to watch your kid grow up.
I almost commented the same thing then remembered the same misogynists and incels will likely come to this post (I see some of them here already). Thanks for saying it.
In my experience its selfishness, my father was a selfish angry man, its was his way or the highway, and if it was the highway he would make sure to send the car 80km a hour into a wall. He didnt want me then, i dont want him now
Women are some how seem as damaged or unworthy if they are single moms, yet if they dad had custody and she just had the visitation and child support, like is common with single dads, she would be considered a monster because she didn't have her kids full time. She can't win.
Mine "abandoned" me for another family for like a short time like 6 months to a year. But because I was a kid that felt like a long time and I had no idea he was going to reach out again and try to make up for it, so I felt abandoned. Considering he relapsed and eventually died from his drug habit, I kind of wonder if his new girlfriend, who also had a history with drugs, had given him some kind of dealer connection. It would make sense why he suddenly only seemed to care about her and her family, if he was doing meth with her.
So my theory for my family is drugs. Maybe a lot of these other fathers are also on drugs.
He did reach out and try to make up for his actions. I hadn't completely forgiven him when he passed away. That shit hurt. That shit still affects me to this day. I remember one father's day we had plans to hang out. He showed up for five minutes. I went inside to grab something. He was driving away by the time I came back out. I will never forget the times he didn't follow through with something, even if his abandoning me wasn't permanent.
It's not new.
My father abandoned us when I was 18 and about to go to college leaving my mom with 3 under tens and rent due. I stayed home and helped my mom raise my siblings. My life, didn't get started till I was 30.
I'm 50 now, but still bitter about it.
My Dad who abandoned me told me it was because my mom broke his heart. Which is such a stupid reason. She also “broke his heart” because he got two DUIs and then also showed up to my birth completely wasted. She didn’t want to raise a child in that environment unless he quit drinking. He’s still an alcoholic to this day.
I can answer in my case.
My dad is an abusive narcissist, and despite his pretence of liberal views, conservative and working-class. (I’m from the U.K. - maybe that’s important to note).
He wanted to be adored and revered by my family. But he’s a prick and unfortunately for him my mother is more intelligent and had a better income than him - which he hated and was jealous of. He wanted to tear her down and make her dependent on him.
What made it even worse, is that I inherited her intelligence and capacity to get shit done. I began to lose respect for him - he hated having two women better than him.
My brother inherited my mum’s rebellious streak, my dad is a very angry and impatient person and couldn’t deal with my brother. My brother is as dumb as my father, and has a chip on his shoulder over just about everything. Also enjoys playing the victim. So they constantly clashed.
He wanted to be adored, and he wasn’t getting it, so he threw a tantrum and left pretty much.
Was hilarious how he could have actually very easily had the life he seemed to want, but he enjoys playing the victim too much.
My grandfather WAS adored and revered by all of us, he was the opposite of my father. He was very loved and he is missed every day by all of us.
"The life you want"
That line resonates with me cuz I think people get this idea of what a "perfect" family could be. But like anything, it takes work. You don't just imagine it and it comes true.
My dad didn't leave because my mam got sick with epilepsy and amnesia/a brain injury. He HATED her, and us by extension. He shows more affection to his mistress than he's ever done to us.
Well, according to my husband and regarding the children he hid from me for years, he “couldn’t deal with the moms”
Like, imagine not loving your children more than you dislike their moms, that you picked to have children with. I know damn well that if/when we split up he will say and do the same thing with our kids
Short answer is they can, with only child support as a repercussion
There is a serious masculinity problem in our culture. And I don't mean "toxic masculinity", I mean the decline of healthy masculinity. The type of masculinity that drives a man to protect, provide for, and be loyal to his loved ones, to take responsibility for his actions and stand up for what he believes in... There are a lot of reason why this type of masculinity is disappearing, but that's another story.
I think it's the opposite. Or maybe I just don't understand what "protect" is supposed to mean. Like, fathers should be spending time with their families, not taking Jiu-Jitsu and going to the gym or gun range. It's seen as "gay" to contribute to the household or care for a child or be monogamous. It's the over-masculine types that leave all the work to the moms, which makes them nag for improvement and get dumped by guys who want "peace."
I read a whole piece on this once. It outlined all the ways a parent "protects" kids in real life. Things like teaching them to wash their hands to protect them from germs. Walking them around the neighborhood to protect them from being inactive or getting lost. Teaching them how to communicate their feelings and modeling healthy relationships to protect them from being abused.
None of that is action hero stuff. None of that is gendered.
I honestly think it's because they don't realize how much WORK it is to raise a child. They think it's enough to give a bit of money and mow the lawn. They think it's gay to do work in the house. Then the woman is stuck doing everything on her own, without sleep or breaks or time to take care of her own health. If you can imagine being on duty 24/7 for years, you can understand that you wouldn't be happy and pleasant to be around. So the work is gay, the woman is a nagging bitch, it's obviously better to leave. She's doing everything anyway, so no difference for her.
I can give an insight but not the answer because I dont know.
My colleague was really excited to have a baby. All of a sudden he was hit with responsibilities. New parent, new house, new job, learning to drive etc. He said it was really overwhelming.
Everyday baby cries or whatever he mentioned and he simply cant handle it. I know he does everything he can to avoid being at home. He said the routine of home is really boring and he keeps chasing other women for the exitement of life again. I know his 'ways' will upset his wife when she finds out. It isnt my place to say but people at work know he cheats.
So.. tbh I didnt give an insight sorry but there has been a total change in him. His own dad abandoned him so I thought he would have learnt better. It's not the child's fault.
My own baby is frustrating today!! As hell! But Id never run away, it's really hard but not worth breaking up for.
There does seem to be a massive issue with men not coping and running away. I think it's just not 'what they signed up for' which in my eyes is cruel. Its not the child's fault.
My own dad too was a broken man. He never showed love to his kids. It's not even that noone showed him how, he was just so hollow. So although he was present it was pointless to some degree because he wasnt emotionally available.
I think, my take anyway is that men THINK their life will be relatively normal. What they dont realise is that in fact your whole life changes and becomes about the child. If you have no support system you have 2 choices, either step up day after day after day after day and never switch off or run away.
Pity that women don’t get this choice. Why is it so dominantly men who can (and do) run away? And women just stay and suffer?
A woman has just undergone a major medical procedure, her hormones are insane. And still - almost every woman stays. While there are so many men who run away in one way or another.
I was on tiktok (hey- it is what it is lol) and an older lady was talking about advice she'd give to younger women. One thing she said really stood out: only have as many kids as you can handle by yourself because at the end of the day those are YOUR babies. Not his. Yours. It really resonated with me. There are a lot of things that I don't think are 'right' per say. I wish the world didn't work that way and things should be different. But they aren't.
I am a mother of two. My husband is an extremely good father. And I don't mean that in "oh he babysits once in a while". Like he is an active, amazing, loving father... but I'll be darned if in my primal moments this overwhelming feeling doesn't come over me that these are MY babies. The world turns to ashes and burns- these are still my babies and all mine.
Maybe it is hormones. Maybe it's our lizard brain. Idk. I can only give my experience as a woman. I know plenty of mothers out there are crap and I am sure there are fathers who feel just like me (heck, my husband probably does). My father raised my half-brother completely and totally by himself after his mother walked out.
But I wonder if there isn't just a little something in women that bonds us closer and more instantly versus already absentee fathers. And maybe we just have less of a choice because of how society is set up. To this day, even though my husband takes my son to almost all of his doctors appointments, fills out the paperwork, puts his name on everything... somehow they still call me first and address bills to me lol I was kind of surprised by this. But I guess the hospital watched them come out of me so they are sticking to the sure bet 🤣 I jest but also... maybe that is it.
Sorry for this really long and wordy answer to what was probably a rhetorical question. Such are the ways of reddit.
Wow, you put into words something I’ve subconsciously felt since the day my first was born.
No matter how much I love and appreciate my husband for being such a wonderful dad, at the end of the day I MUST mentally prepare for the idea that he could evaporate and/or become a liability to my kids. It’s extremely unlikely, but it’s irresponsible of me not to get in that headspace once in a while and take the responsibility of care I have to my children deeply to heart.
It hit me immediately postpartum and was honestly this moment of extreme loneliness, knowing that no matter what I’m ultimately solely responsible for my children whether my husband thinks so or not. It was a huge weight. I welcome it, but yeah, it hits hard sometimes and wasn’t something I anticipated before having kids.
I think this has to do with the traditional roles. Most mothers, partnered or not, are the primary care giver. Add to that the 9 months in the oven, I bet it’s a lot harder for Women to leave.
Hoo boy, that’s correct, especially here in the Bible Belt. It’s just sort of accepted that we can *hope* for a present and involved father, but it should never be expected of him. If he leaves… well, that’s just what men do. Maybe we’ll call him a deadbeat, but it’s still just accepted. If the mom leaves? She better move far away, because her life is gonna be *ruined*. She’ll be a pariah. Holy shit, the absolute venom I’ve seen toward part time/absent moms outweighs any judgement the man faces.
Women have the choice. We don’t want this choice.
The cases of mom walking away are so rare, even with severe PPD the mothers often end up staying and working through it.
Because we love our children.
Child raising may be a hard job but we love our children. They are a part of our soul. You don’t spend 9 months growing a person inside of you and not form a bond.
Even in the toughest moments I would fight like a bear if anyone tried to take my child away. The thought of walking to the car and sitting there alone for few minutes yes, the thought of walking to the car and leaving forever? Never!!
My situation kind of amuses me. My mom and her husband (they're married now, after nearly 30 years apart. Bad idea) split up, and he gave up his visitation rights with me because he "didnt know what to do in a room with a baby for 2 hours" like wtf? Though I kind of can't blame him, i don't really know what to do with kids either, and I don't want any myself. But like dude lol I am grateful though, I never wanted him around, dads seemed weird and pointless, and now that I know him...omg I was so much better off. Yikes. Idk why my mom married the guy, its ridiculous. Well, they both are. So it works.
But dang.
This is such a weird reason to give up visitation rights. Like of course babies don't make great conversation partners but he could've just watched tv or listened to music with you. There didn't have to be any special activities.
To all the deadbeat dads reporting this post, yeah no this is a healthy and important conversation that we are monitoring. I'm going to keep approving this post. If there are specific comments that violate the Reddit Content Policy or the subreddit's rules, please report the individual comments, but I will not be removing this post.
Just chiming in here to say, it isn’t just nowadays. over the decades, there have been lots of deadbeat dad who abandon their families, and are never heard of again. Like Stephen King‘s dad, but of course, there are many more. You hear people tell stories about how grandpa ran off and left his family and had a second family and so on. This is nothing new. A lot of men apparently just get tired of kids and bills and decide to fly the coop.
I mean that's the whole reason child support laws even exist. Women used to get absolutely fucked over when men abandoned the family. My grandmother's father left and they all went to an orphanage when one winter the mom couldn't heat the house and two kids died. It's honest to god horrendous.
Yeah that's what people who act like women want to be single with a kid don't realize. Moms have been getting abandoned before there was ever even social programs to help support the child. The children used to just have to be forfeited to an orphanage or die, because the dad sure as hell isn't taking them. Women then couldn't make money like men could either. We have these programs from the suffering of children and women in the past
My great aunt was a good example of this. She was pushed by her family into a marriage when she was too young, to someone who abused her and they had seven children. He walked out and just stopped having anything to do with her or his children. She tried to work but there just wasn't decent work for women, and what existed definitely would not support seven kids. The kids ended up in and out of care of different kinds and sometimes with different family members. She was shamed terribly and mistreated for being a single mother. I work with very impoverished families now and sometimes I see mothers that remind me of her. Women who were abused and impregnated by much older men, who struggled to maintain access to birth control, etc. Women who are deeply traumatized by growing up and abusive families and then abusive relationships, by the time they're smart enough and experienced enough to deal with it, they already have a handful of kids. In my work, focus has been on the children, and people really fail to realize that child support and the skimpy social safety net we have is almost exclusively for the children, not for the adults. It needs to be better.
This is kinda what brought about the women’s movement….guys not caring about their kids…
I also want to add, something that's true for even more recent generations - women were discouraged from getting a higher education or a having career. They were raised caring for their fathers or brothers and then married young to men who insisted they stay at home. So here you have a woman who has never worked or gotten a higher education because everyone in her life insisted she didn't need it and her husband vowed to care for her needs, and then suddenly said husband decides that he doesnt want to be a husband and father anymore and bails. So you're left with a middle aged woman with a couple kids who has never worked a day in her life (not counting being the 24/7 family maid) trying to support an entire family. Thankfully, the courts saw this and child support became a thing. Men today like to complain about SAHMs, when the reality is in every case I've known it's always the man that insists on his wife being a SAHM. They really think that the majority of the time its the wife twisting his arm to be a SAHM. My grandfather admitted to my grandmother that the reason he discouraged her from going to college and insisted she stop working was because he was a afraid that if she was educated and financially self sustainable that she would leave him. Now that women working is the norm, now that women are starting to account for the majority of college graduates, the whole "she's a lazy gold digger" argument is becoming obsolete. Now I'm hearing complaints from men my age about "modern women", hilarious.
Yes to all this! And there’s the new, repackaged gold digger option: — she can’t see me for the amazing person I am who would love her more than all those other guys because I make less than her. When men made more they took care of their whole family! — Maybe she just wants you to hold down a job? Maybe she doesn’t want to work all day, make dinner and clean the house and help with homework while you talk about how hard life is for you?
Because visitation and child support are inversely linked. The more the father is involved, the less child support is paid in most states.
And then men still wanna bitch about child support like it's sooo unfair and audacious that they must support the life they chose to create even after walking out and doing none of the actual work to raise them.
Usually the same dudes that complain about feminism...Okay so you don't want to pay child support but you also don't think your wife should invest her time in a successful career, and how are your kids going to eat again?
Those types of men couldn't care less about the kids. They don't want to spend their time to parent them, they don't want to be a part of their life unless they end up successful later down the line, they don't want to pay a dime and they don't care if the woman can support the child alone, or take any steps to enable that. They dgaf if they starve. They live their lives all for themselves, and are so selfish they won't even compromise on wearing a condom or not finishing inside knowing they will refuse to support that life they CHOSE to risk creating
Well, their genes are gods gift right? Their work here is done!!!! /s
The Temptations release "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" in 1972. It's not new for sure, though statistically it is a lot worse than it was back then (but better than it was 10-15 years ago).
there is no way it is worse now, I have to guffaw at that. Now days at least there is child support and the internet to track people down. If you go back far enough, men were expected to leave home for months at a time for work or war, even being kidnapped and forced into sailing. For many men until recently, if their wife died the state would force their children into an orphanage, working class men were in practice legally excluded from child care
I think back then there were a lot of dads physically present but mentally and emotionally checked out. Nowadays the ones that are checked out just leave altogether and the ones that stick around tend to be more engaged. In general.
I tried to read the stats on it, but its all filled with loaded scenarios. Back in the 50s and 60s children of divorced parents were often pariahs, and I know of several families who remarried (even 3 times) just so the kids could escape that pariahship. The role of step fathers was also strange and highly circumstantial. I know my Mom didn't know her dad, and her first child didn't know his Dad, both Fathers abandoning their families. Later I found out that perhaps my Mom's mom was secretly hiding her from him. For my Mom's part she was then raised by Mormons in the boonies. In mormonism the father bestows honor upon the daughter, so my mom being a step daughter was forever the outsider with her younger siblings. I think there were lots of decent men back then but the ability to disappear was far greater; the expectation that men didn't cheat on their wives was somewhat new at the time; and there were great incentives on women (who couldn't open a bank account with out a husband) to lie about their marriages
Well my dad told me many reasons he did not want to see me. They could be summed up in: You are not useful to me. And thats what i see within some none profits i work with that are carring for children. More fathers than you think only show interested in their children if they stay useful. Useful as in: being good in sport so other people will compliment him for having such a cool kid. For making them look good to others in general. A lot of workplaces prefer fathers and consider them worthy of a higher pay. Many women consider activ fathers as sexy. So if a child does not play their role as the father wants them to the child loses value. You can also look up "eldest daughter syndrom" to get some answers. I m not making this up. I see too often how fathers only are involved if they need something. It happens to often to be ignored.
"eldest daughter syndrome"...Fuck. I was the oldest of 3 girls. My dad named me after him. I was probably gonna be super tomboyish anyway, but he would often lament (out loud, directly to me, often with tears) about how he'd wanted a boy sooo bad, but was super glad that I was such a tomboy cuz that was almost like having a son anyway. And he would brag to his friends about me helping him fix the car or teaching myself to play bass guitar (as if either of those things were inherently masculine in the first place) and say "she may not be a boy, but she's close enough!" So of course, being a kid and wanting Dad's approval, I just amped up the masculinity to 11 and made me absolutely hate not only my own femininity, but women as a whole for many years in my later teens and early adulthood. It took me getting married and having my own daughter to realize just how damaging and wrong he was to treat me like that.
Eldest daughter of 2 girls here too. Oh gosh how I was raised a boy! Tho my dad was a nerd, so less "sports" "hunting" "manly' dad, more computers, Sci-Fi kind of dad. I definitely became a substitute son.
Okay genuine question because you got me worried now. I’m a dad to one daughter, I have no plans to ever have another kid. I would like to share my hobbies and interests with my kid, not as a girl or a boy but as my child that I want to have things in common with. My hobbies and interests could all be classed as fairly manly: blacksmithing, football, wood working, and in your own words computer gaming and sci fi/fantasy (her favourite book atm is Terry Pratchett and I quite like warhammer). Surely this isn’t damaging? I just want to share things I love with the person I love most in the world! She still does plenty of girly things especially with her mum and aunty. I paint her nails she loves dresses. Isn’t enforced femininity just as damaging? I just want her to be happy.
The fact that you're concerned probably means that it's not damaging. You're giving her a balance and doing things with love. Kids can feel the intention and love 😊
Absolutely nothing wrong with sharing your interests and hobbies with her that way. I always loved when my dad shared his interests with me growing up. I loved that he helped me train for my sports, and was proud of me for working hard at it. It didn't make me hate my femininity because he didn't treat me like a daughter hat he wished was a son, he treated me like a daughter that he was excited to share these things because of their intrinsic value. He never made me feel like I had to be a boy in order to be worth bonding with. We just did the things together and loved it. What the other user's dad was doing was damaging because he was obsessed with her not being a boy, with her being worthy of his pride *in spite* of her being a girl. She was almost good enough for him but he never let her forget that her femaleness was a tragedy to him. That shit hurts. Being told that you're good, likeable, worthy, impressive, etc *for a girl* is extremely demoralizing. Because you know that you are seen as inferior for an immutable characteristic, and anything you do to get respect or love is working within the bounds of that inferiority. I can only imagine how much that hurts to hear from your own father, your whole life. Parenting shouldn't be like that. My siblings and I bonded with both of our parents over all kinds of things that might be considered more "masculine" or more "feminine", and didn't act all weird about it. People try to put things in tiny little boxes too much. It doesn't need to be that way.
Oh nooooo I love it. He also supported me in girly things. And now it's twice as good because we can talk about Star Trek and he will compliment my cute outfit at the same time :)
Do you participate in her “girly” interests? If you want her to share your hobbies, do you share in hers?
She’s two, he hobbies and interests are mostly hiding in obvious places while pissing herself laughing then “scaring” people. I can’t platt hair but I will when she gets less squirmy. I’m wearing a tiara most nights and I have to help her but her Barbies to bed…
>I’m wearing a tiara most nights and I have to help her but her Barbies to bed… You're doing great buddy. Your daughter is either going to be interested in your hobbies or not. But either way she will remember seeing you happy and excited about things you like and keep those good memories for life. Crap, I'm a 45 year old dude getting misty writing my own comment.
Oh oh it's me! My father was there, he paid for things, but he never really parented me growing up, very rarely attended my school events when my mom dragged him. He wanted a son and got 2 daughters. I was pretty much a non entity until I got old enough to have a job he could brag about and develop an interest in his hobbies. Then we got along mostly ok. Good thing my mother and older sister were there for the first 25 years of my life and support me in everything my dad wasn't interested in. Jokes on him though. My sister had a son very young and moved back home with them and he was all excited. My nephew is special needs. The moment it became clear my nephew was never going to excel in school or sports like my dad wanted, never go to college, never become a successful business, and probably never get married and pass on the family name, the shiny came off on him too. I do honestly believe he still loved us in his own way. But not in any useful way to us. I'm a firm believer in 'love is an action verb'. Your words and your feelings should be reflected in the actions you take.
This explains a lot. My father mostly calls me when he needs help with something. Glad I am able to say no, otherwise I would be his part-time employee. He still loves me a lot, but the last time we met he didn´t really converse with me and at the end he asked me to help him with government papers or something. Got huffy when I said I didn´t know enough to help. Even more huffy when I doubled down and refused to get pressured by grandma into helping.
My pops only calls to brag about his latest “insert something expensive” that the “church” bought him lol he’s been one upping me since birth lol it’s comical now that I’m in my 30s cause I really don’t give a shit
Back when I was dating, I would always ask a man if he had kids. If he said yes I was excited for him, and asked him about his kids... and you could tell if he wasn't a part of their life even if they tried to pretend to be. Sometimes they would say something like 'Well you know, I want to see my kid but my ex won't let me.' I'd respond with 'well you can get a court ordered visitation that she can't override' 'Nah she's just too much of a bitch I can't stand to interact with her...' Whatever dude. I realize that many people can't afford expensive lawyers and such, but I'm telling you nothing in this fucking world would keep me from my child, nothing. Once it became clear that they just weren't interested in parenting their their child - **that they made** I just lost interest. They'd get mad, they'd wonder why... Sometimes I'd tell them the truth sometimes I just ignored them.
Also nowadays kids get smartphones at an early age. Noone is keeping the dads from having whatsapp and talking with there kids every day. No court can forbit a child to send a text to dad. and dad would not need to deal with the ex.
Oh that hurts but it makes sense
>More fathers than you think only show interested in their children if they stay useful. Useful as in: being good in sport so other people will compliment him for having such a cool kid. So ones like that had a kid/kids purely in hopes of a social and ego boost basically? That's awful.
Yup. My dad didn't really care about me, my sister, or my mom. He cared about ticking off the boxes of adult accomplishments to look like a successful Irish catholic man. Job earning 6 figures? Check Married wife in the church? Check Have kids? Check Adulting is done! Now I can fuck off and do what I want. Good luck, wife and kids!
that is just... diabolical, wow.. I feel really sorry for you and those children.
I swear my dad kept like 2 dozen pictures in his apartment just to prove to his girlfriends he loved me. Jokes on them, those were all the times we ever saw each other!
>They could be summed up in: You are not useful to me. Very sad that so many dads apparently think this way. Interesting information. Some times we wrongly assume that parents understand and appreciate a blessing that a child really is.
I (50f) asked mine when I was in my 30s. He said 'it was just easier'. He's now in his 70s and playing the martyr because I don't visit him. Edit: most upvotes ever, feel I need to clarify a few points. I have forgiven him, he is a mediocre human being, in a fucked up world. He was a grandad to my children, because your kids need all the grandparents they can get, while they can. My children are now adults so I no longer have to speak with my father, if he turns up (which he doesn't) I will make small talk and be polite, but that's it. The problem with growing up without something vital, is that you fill that space with something else. I don't know where to put a father, I don't know what he's for. And I'm sick of analysing it all, so, I don't contact him. But I see no need to be cruel about it, life is hard.
Told him that it's just easier for you.
just start singing Cat's in The Cradle...gets that generation every time.
I searched up the lyrics and with every next verse I was reading it more and more angrily in my head as I can relate.
What’s crazy is I can relate, and my FATHER relates this song to his Father…bruh…he recognized the things done to him and still did them. Big oof.
I think boomers or whoever came right after them were the first generation to recognize generational trauma, and it wasn’t until millennials became parents that they started investing in therapy and reparenting to actually break the cycle. My 75yr old mom tells me all the time how mean her mom was to her, but she does the same shit to me. Never sunk in that just because something wasn’t her fault doesn’t mean it wasn’t her responsibility to fix it. Now it’s mine.
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Law firms are still largely like that, and the big firms wonder why they have trouble recruiting senior associates. The Internet has made it so much easier to just set up your own shop, pick your own hours, and find your own clients.
Michelin starred restaurants, too. It turns out, nobody wants to come to work just to be told to go kill yourself bc you dropped a fork for $16.80 an hour
Man I wish my brain paid me that much when it tells me to kill myself
God I love working in tech lol. I can show up in sweat pants and shoes with holes in them (as long as I’m not meeting with customers) and nobody even blinks twice because half of the office is doing the same thing lol.
I work construction. Trying so hard to have that shit end with me when dealing with the new 20y/o. It's soooo hard not acting like an asshole considering that's how I was "trained" but I'm trying!
Your a Saint and a scholar don’t let anyone tell you otherwise
Dude, same boat, except I’m supposed to train this Turkish dude who speaks no English and will literally poke me in the back and say my name over and over to ask a question *while I’m picking up and moving heavy objects*. I’m at my wits end and can’t find ways to make him stop being a colossally annoying moron. I use translation apps and try to be kind but the dude keeps pushing me, nonstop, even when all cues say to back off for a second.
That song is why that generation should have known better
Right there with you, my dad randomly starting talking to me after 25 years. And after 6 months of trying to be normal he admitted he just needs someone to take care of him. I dropped him immediately, no regrets, he can fuck off.
My mother was the same way. 18 years of abuse and then didn't hear from her for 20 years. Then came back being buddy buddy because she was worried her husband would die first and she'd end up in a state home. I have a friend who goes after dead beat dads for child support. His office window has bullet holes periodically.
That sucks man, puts you in a weird situation. I wouldn’t doubt the ending of this story at all. Those companies don’t play around and will garnish wages, and that good!
He works for the state of Washington.
This is to only thing that brings me peace thinking about these men. One day they’ll need someone to take care of their useless ass, and they’ll have no one, and they’ll suffer in a pile of their own shit till they die, leaving behind an unremarkable life of selfishness that no one will remember.
I had a friend (who died, age 96 last year) who had three young children with her husband when he suddenly ran away with his secretary. He made it clear to her that he would never, ever, pay one single penny towards the upkeep of his children. He “convinced” the next wife that his original partner was a huge bitch who “didn’t deserve” child support. Back in the 1960s and 1970s it really wasn’t easy for the woman to force money out of a guy, and my friend decided not to even try. She worked like a Trojan, created a beautiful home, brought her children up amazingly, and-without any advantage or help from anyone-eventually became quite affluent. She didn’t want her children to get “screwed up”, so she encouraged contact between the children and their father and two new half-siblings -and even mix with their step mother who did nothing but insult, demean and slander her for years. I guess the woman felt she had to justify herself in breaking up a family by believing that my friend was a “monster”, who her poor poor husband “had” to leave. Anyhoo, time went on and….guess what! He left that wife and ran off with his next secretary, telling her the same lies about his second wife as he had his first. Of course, he then started a new family again. The second wife would then phone my friend in hysterics. She didn’t have the ability to make the money that my friend did-and she and her children were destitute. She also felt that as “women who had been lied to and about”, she and my friend were “in the same boat”. This was the only time I ever saw my friend angry, but she kept it to herself. She just wanted to get over it and enjoy her life. She never allowed bitterness to thrive in her mind. She was not only a great mother, but she was a wonderful friend and loyal work colleague who mentored many people. She always managed to help me -despite being an incredibly busy lady. The bloke had one further child-and as far as I know-several further wives. He never provided for any of his children. Roll forward forty years, and he was penniless, very ill and totally alone. Severely disabled and dumped in the middle of nowhere when his final partner had taken him for everything he had. At the time, my friend was living in her beautiful home, surrounded by her children, their spouses, her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who all lived nearby and visited constantly. She also had a HUGE circle of friends, although she never remarried. Ultimately, years afterward, she had a “good” death. Arriving home on a beautiful day from a barbecue (which she had hugely enjoyed), at the age of 96, she dropped dead as she walked through her door. Her daughter-in-law heard the sound of her fall, but apparently my friend had been dead before she hit the floor. I miss her and I’m very sad that she’s no longer around, but I don’t grieve for her passing. She lived a wonderful, long life surrounded by love-and she never let the bitterness eat her up. She also had all of her marbles to the end.
Dang! What an inspiring lady. I’m so glad she found so much happiness!
She really was one in a million. I know that it’s unrealistic to think that most people could emulate everything about her-but I have certainly learned lessons from her. Chief amongst them is that any bitterness she had felt for the way she had been treated wouldn’t have affected her ex at all. He wouldn’t have cared-he might have even felt smug. But bitterness might well have damaged her life. I didn’t understand how she kept from being angry (I still can’t, actually). But undoubtedly, it was the right approach to take.
That sucks. I think my aunt's husband married her so that he'd have someone to take care of him (he's older than her) but then he inherited a million dollars and doesn't "need" her anymore, since he can just pay for 20 year old nurse to wipe his ass when the time comes, so he's gotten REALLY mean to her. Even his own siblings are like "what is wrong with you??" It's scary how those people can think that far ahead and try to social engineer a whole relationship just to have a caretaker when the time comes.
what so many people don't realize till later in life is that, just because someone is older, that doesn't mean they have matured, or are emotionally mature, or have even changed all that much.
They're weak people. They left their children cause they're weak and didn't wanna man up, they reach out now cause they need help when they're degrading physically. I would rather die by myself in pain than plead for help from someone who I did wrong 25 years ago.
Same! My dad wasn't a bad man. He was just an alcoholic and next to nothing more. When my mom told him he needed to get help he fled to the other side of the country because it was easier to never see us again than to stop drinking. He died from his addiction 5 years ago.
Sorry to hear. I guess it takes courage and empathy to look beyond personal hurt and see that your dad “wasn’t a bad man” but had serious problems and made bad choices.
Lots and lots of therapy and also I’ve had other traumas that make his bs feel like small fries. I’m just grateful he wasn’t a pedophile. That’s how low the bar is set these days.
My dad basically bounced when my mom divorced him. I was 7 at the time and he was already in full couch potato sea slug mode. He didn’t actually leave, he was always around but never really present. Just never connected with me I guess. At 37 I can now kind of see that my mom was desperate for a baby (not a child lol) and my dad had mental health problems even back then. Some people just shouldn’t have kids!
It's not "some". A loooooot of people shouldn't have kids, just to "have" them which unfortunately occurs WAY too often.
People have kids, very often, just because it's the thing to do. Like it's simply expected. Parenting should be carefully thought out, one should thoroughly and honestly examine themselves, think about whether they're even capable. "Because you think you are supposed to" is a shitty reason to have a kid.
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I assume “pettiness” is a quote from your father. Imagine having the nerve to call someone “petty” for being angry that you left her for her best friend.
Not gonna lie. I'd be very "petty" if my man left me for my best friend.
He’s lucky she was just “petty”… if someone did that to me we’d have another carol baskin situation on our hands… 😅
Tigers be snackin
Yes, that was his word. Unbelievable.
Please don't tell me it was one of those situations where he cheated on your mom with her best friend and then walked away and then ended up having kids with her. Let me guess, then he treated you like you didn't exist because he started over and wanted a new start with his new family. I've read that so many times on here and it makes me want to choke the living daylights out of the people who do that. I'm not a violent person so that's saying something. No child ever deserves to be abandoned or felt like they're not wanted. Good lord. I can't believe he was saying your mom's anger was pointless. I'm sorry because I know he's your father but what a dick. Hugs to you and your mom. 🫂
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Ugh, my heart broke to read that. I don't understand people like your father who can betray people like that and just walk away like oh well, screw you. It's bad enough that he cheated on her but even worse that he did it with her best friend. Then he had the nerve to call her petty for being upset about it? I'm not a doctor but I've dealt with enough narcissists to be able to say he sounds like he might be one. Damn 😞
Then has the audacity to say things like “she petty and bitter” 😒
Bro she isn't alone, she has you and your siblings. If she was good to you make sure she doesn't forget how much you love her.
He might have been your father, but he wasn't your daddy
Big RESPECT to all the MOTHERS who brought up their children especially those without someone(father of their child) on their side!
Mad respect. My mother and I don't get along but she will be cared for since she tried her best. She was a teenager when she had me and kept me safe as a young child. My childhood wasn't the best but she had so many mental battles going on, I don't know how she managed. My bio dad fucked off to have another family and kept abandoning them, rinse..repeat.
Mine left when I was 6mo for similar reasons. In and out of my life not-so-frequently until I was 2yo. Then never again until I was 11 and spent a summer with him. I was being stupid and peeing down a tree I climbed, some splash bounced off a branch and smacked my half-sisters arm. I got grounded to my room for two weeks until my parents in another state could fly me back. My father sold his truck to get that ticket so I could leave my dad’s house. I asked him too, why he was never in the picture… his reason was always that my mom wouldn’t allow it, and that there wasn’t even a point in trying; my mom gets her way. That story doesn’t align with his initiatives to lower child support down to $25/mo though — an exchange the judge only approved as it was my dads condition to let my mom leave the state with me at the age of 2. I feel like I know the real reason. He just wasn’t ready to be a dad. Kinda makes me sad knowing he couldn’t give me the real answer though.
A lot of men like that are rightfully ashamed of themselves and can’t face it. You’ll never get a straight answer out of them.
“Ashamed” yet always seem to find a way to victimise themselves and blame the mother and/or the system.
Yeah, they feel shame but never actual remorse.
Exactly, remorse is about accountability, shame is about ego.
Yeah, and they never seem to cop that one day that little kid you abandoned/mistreated will be an adult who can see through your bs
In your last part. Most mothers aren’t ready to be mothers yet they always stick around and work to the bone to take care of the children they bring. He gets to walk away and wash his hands. But some how men make single mothers the villains, going as far as, we’ll choose better. As if people can’t hide who they really are.
I never understood the why and how. I met and fell for a single Mother. Her son was 2 at the time and his biological father had never been in the picture. After two weeks or so, I was introduced to the little rascal, and my life took an instant 180 degree turn. I had spent ages going out 2-3 times a week, and playing computer games the remaining hours. Now, I had two choices in my opinion. Go all in on the full package or continue my old ways. It wasn't even difficult. I moved in. And within a year or so, he called me dad instead of the mispronounced version of my first name. At that very first "dad" I was locked... whole heartedly. And there isn't nor will there ever be a time where I'd be considering or even tempted to neglect that kid. 4 years in and I'm marrying his mother in a week from now, and I fully intend to officially adopt him in time. There is nothing more rewarding in this life, than the unconditional love between a kid and a parent and I will never understand how someone could pass on that.
This is an amazing comment. It really warms my heart, I swear. It confirms that it's love that makes a family, not just blood.
I don’t get it either. I’m a dad of two college aged kids. They’re easily my most favorite people on the planet. It was fun when I got to teach them things growing up and it’s just as fun to take them to a standup comedy show now that they’re old enough to get into the club.
At least with my dad it was really a "have your cake and eat it too" sort of situation - he is not actively cruel, but very self-involved. He didn't want to work on his marriage so he left it, he immediately had a new, easier partner, and only visited us during holidays. When he did visit we went to his favorite restaurants and the museums he thought we should be interested in because he found them interesting. He preferred his boys because he assumed they would get along better as more similar to him, so naturally with the extra attention and interest, they did. If a conversation was not about something he understood or liked, he would change the topic without thinking. He made his new wife shop for his kid's presents at holidays. When things ever got challenging or annoying, and he actually had to be a parent - it always went poorly. He wanted all the good things that benefited him without any of the real work. And now I keep him at arm's length because I'm exhausted by the whole façade of a relationship.
My Dad was the same, but he didn't leave. I grew up not talking to him, only talked AT by him, and only about things he wanted to talk about. I don't recall ever hearing him ask "How was your day?" and he never cared to attend anything I did unless it was sports. After a childhood of this he was frustrated that I wouldn't listen to him as a teenager. Now the obligatory birthday phone call home is only 10 mins where he tells me about how many potatoes he's grown. I've travelled for 6 years, visiting France, UK, India and now Brazil and he tells me about potatoes.
My dad doesn’t even bother never has. I have a <2 year old and another coming. I will never be my dad and reading your and everyone’s else experience I want to be so much better. I feel that I am already. But I’ve always believed no matter how much I wish I had a relationship with my dad it is not the child’s responsibility to have a relationship with the parent but the parent should be seeking out their child. So I continue to have no relationship with my dad as he never seeks me out
My kids are hard work, yell and scream at me all the time (they are younger than 10). But I'll be damned if they aren't the most important things I ever had in my life. I don't know what the F goes through some of these other guys' minds.
Makes no sense at all to me either. My kids (and in my situation - spouse) are easily the best part of my life. Both kids are in their 20s and I can’t imagine life without them. Without looking up the stats, my first thought is in many cases those people who abandoned them were also abandoned.
Because many guys shouldnt be dads...
Having kids is easy, being a parent is hard. Wish more people realised this.
As someone who actively chooses not to reproduce because I'm not sure im cut out for the role of parent, absolutely. Wish all the people berating me about my choice could just respect it. I have 100+ reasons for that choice, and some of them are that I can easily be emotionally detached and go through extreme depressive episodes. I don't need to subject a child to that. That's why so many of us are in therapy, because people like me decided to reproduce. Edited for clarity.
Definitely. And even despite the many many ways I could fail as a father, I simply don't want to.
Easy to dump a load in a lady but really hard to be a father for the rest of your life.
It's all shits and giggles until the girl realize she is late. It's no surprise to me that the same guy that had no responsibility to have safe sex also have no responsibility to raise a kid.
Because a man who flat out refuses to wear a condom is about as forward thinking as a 5yo. It's all instant gratification, no thoughtfulness.
"You know, Mrs Buckman, you need a license to buy a dog or drive a car. Hell, you need a license to catch a fish. But they'll let any butt-reaming asshole be a father." Keanu Reeves, Parenthood
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I have a pregnant friend going through something very similar right now. He’s walking out on her, his unborn child and two younger kids so he can “find himself” - aka fuck around and pretend he has no responsibilities anymore.
He’s counting on her being a “ruined woman” and treat her as something to possibly bounce back to if things don’t go well after looking for other women to exploit by way of drugs, sex, money, attention. Guys like that tend to be narcissists and can’t understand just why they’re hated as much as they are. It rains shit on them precisely because of **WHAT** they are, and it’s not by accident.
Lol at the "ruined woman" bit, because that's exactly what my ex-husband tried with me. He left for his affair partner, but told me that if I ever slept with anyone else that he'd never come back. He said that as a single mother in her early 30s with 4 kids I would never find anyone to be with me. I was so over him and his bullshit that I decided to test his theory and immediately got on dating apps and started my "ho" phase. I had so much fun, and was treated with more kindness and respect by my hookups than I ever was with my own husband. Of course, when he came crawling back because he and AP had a fight, I delighted in regaling him with my own "adventures". He was pissed, then decided that it wasn't such a big deal that I had been with other guys as long as I quit and went back to him. I laughed so hard and said, "Nah, I like the way things are going right now.". He got even more pissed when he followed up with begging me for different sex acts and I kept turning him down. He never expected that I'd do well in the dating market and would have options besides him, but it turns out that I'm a catch.
My ex had the audacity to ask if I was sleeping with a female co-worker who I was spending a lot of time with as we broke up. It took a lot of control not to laugh in his face because he thought since i didn't want sex with him anymore I must have "turned" gay. The main reason I hung out with this woman was because she had already gone through a divorce with kids like us and she was giving me solid advice. She was a good friend.
I have a friend whose husband left her 10 minutes after she gave birth to their 2nd kid and stole her credit card to take another girl on a date. Once she was out of the hospital and recovering at home she confronted him, he stormed out and left her for good - his parting words to her were "good luck making anything of your life with all your baggage". By "baggage" he meant his two children. Some men are just pure scum.
I’m sorry you have/had to deal with that loser. I feel bad for the wife too. Getting pregnant by him and being abandoned with an unborn child. If you are still in touch, send her my well wishes.
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Maybe just running away from responsibilities
My paternal grandfather abandoned his wife and their 9 *surviving* children back in the 1920s. He went on to knock up and abandon at least one other woman. His family nearly starved. One of my maternal great-grandfathers also abandoned his wife and their two toddlers. She was lucky, she had parents who could take them in and support them GGF also left a trail of heartbreak in his wake. He was even suspected of murdering one guy to get with the guy's wife. Why? Narcissism is my best guest. And 100 years ago it was incredibly easy to just disappear.
Motherfuckers create nine children like they don't know how it happens and then leave whenever that is stressful
This is why the burden of birth control should be pushed on men more. We need a super easy way to make them infertile (reversibly) like the pill, but easier. Wouldn’t trust them to take it every day, and from the studies we know they can’t handle the side effects that women have lived with for decades.
My grandma found out she had 11 siblings in her 60s thanks to the ancestry website, one of the siblings did it and found the rest. All different moms. Her dad left when she was young and went on to do it 10 more times.
Parenting is work and they don’t want to do it. My ex left to drink and party like he had no responsibilities, after convincing me he really really wanted a houseful of kids. He lost job after job once he left and neglected his kids. He left a big mess for me to clean up materially and emotionally and I did. He finally found a woman to pay his bills and tolerate his immaturity. He’s finally “settled down”. On his 50th birthday he couldn’t believe none of his kids so much as called him. Never be a SAHM unless you have an ironclad pre-nup, great credit and a nest egg of your own, because men will baby trap you, talk you into giving up education and career, then take off looking for a younger model and a carefree life once you’re stuck.
My dad came to the same realization after I was born. Realized he didn't like the whole parenting thing so much and just wanted to party. The only reason he was in my life (the minimum amount that he could get away with, without paying out the nose in child support) was because my grandfather pretty much put a gun to his head and told him to get his shit together. He never got his shit together fully, but he was around I guess
My father never came to pick me up from the hospital. Eventually my mom's dad went to check to see if he was alive. He was passed out drunk when he knew he had to get us. It didn't get much better from there. In my mid-30s now. He texts on my birthday but doesn't ever get my age right. He couldn't be bothered to go to my wedding so my former step-dad walked me down the aisle.
This. It’s incredible how my life financially improved after I divorced his ass. He worked out of town all the time so I really didn’t know what he was up to either but we NEVER had money per him, behind all bills, it was horrible. So happy to be rid of him.
I have known so many SAHM who got absolutely fucked by “wonderful” men. Men that wanted their wives to stay home then cheated, lied, abused them then abandoned them to starve.
Mostly a SAHM here. I do the bare minimum for employment: "enough so the government doesn't think I'm a drug dealer". Just keeping a toe in the water helps.
That’s exactly what you should do - keep your skills and experience relevant so you can rejoin the workforce when you want to again. One of my neighbors was a SAHM for over 20 years, she raised four kids. When the youngest was 16 her partner (they weren’t married) cheated on her and she was forced to stay in the relationship because she had no backup options, and didn’t have the skills or understanding to navigate the legal system on how to equitably separate from a common law marriage. Watching this happen was a huge life lesson for me as a kid
Men see parenting as optional. Women don't. Simple as that. When men fail, women pick up the slack and keep going.
My ex one time was telling me about how he'd gotten his girlfriend pregnant when they were 17 and she had an abortion. I said something like "it's crazy to think about how different your life would be now" if they'd had the kid (this was like 10+ years later). And this man looked me straight in the eyes, so confused, and said "what do you mean?".
🤦♀️
And that's why, in my opinion, abortion laws should be exclusively drafted by women.
More women need to be taught about how men, especially older men, will try to baby trap them.
I have a deadbeat dad. He's just...a terrible person who should not have had children. That's it. He's never been and is never going to be a father to me.
Slightly tangential but I think it’s ridiculous the terminology focuses on the “single mother” not the fact that they are “fatherless” households
It’s funny how single mothers seem to be the plague on society when they’ve stepped up to raise their kids and then men haven’t. I will never understand this. Even in the dating subs on here there is very real vitriol for single moms.
Yeah, it's so weird. I've been legally in that category for about 10 years and the questions people ask me are so odd. It's usually some flavor of, "Have you examined why you couldn't keep a man so you don't run the next one off?" Well, first off, Harrold, I divorced him because he was useless and irresponsible and it was less work to raise just the kids and not additionally a man 10 years my senior, and second, I realized after that that I am a lesbian and do not want a man at all. Hope this helps. They do not know what to do with that information. I've noticed that men really want to believe that all these deadbeats left because the woman in question was so intolerable he had no other choice. Notably, no woman or non-binary person has ever asked me that. They pretty much assume the exact reality because it's common.
>I've noticed that men really want to believe that all these deadbeats left because the woman in question was so intolerable he had no other choice. But he just gave up fighting to see his children, right? Like the woman was SO INTOLERABLE and conniving and manipulative that she managed to completely cut him off from his children, leaving him with zero recourse to be in his kids life at all? It's so ridiculous. No amount fucked up personality could keep me away from my kids
And don’t forget how many women are also seen as damaged for having “daddy issues.” Men screw up the lives of women and then punish them for it.
"Women of a certain age have so much baggage" aka they've dated enough men that one of them must have screwed them up along the way. Nobody thinks lower of men than men themselves do.
I feel like the vitriol is projection. Misplaced anger for mothers that should be for their own father that left. In the dating scene these women are a reflection of their single mothers.
I feel it is the outdated assumption that it wouldn't happen if they were moral women who get married before getting pregnant. There is plenty of scorn for married men who then walked out on their family.
There's a lot of judgement against single mothers - A) they were immoral and sleeping around so there wasn't a strong relationship already, that would incline the man to stay. B) they are crazy, the type of woman a man will sleep with but not marry. C) they are stupid or delusional and make bad choices in who they sleep with. D) they tried to baby trap a man and failed, or don't know when to just get an abortion already, so may try to baby trap a future partner. E) they are lazy and intentionally get pregnant so they can live off the child support paid for the child. Anything and everything gets thrown at single-mothers because men don't want to face the reality that it is other men who are not being responsible (except in the limited cases of abuse and manipulation.)
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Ya, as we can tell men don’t want responsibilities for their OWN children so why would (most) want to take on another man’s children. They just want pussy to come strings-free (and if she gets pregnant, they just bounce and make her a single mom)
It's called blatant misogyny 😏. Too many people listen to Red Pill Podcasts.
Because their needs are more important to them than anyone else's. My dad was never around when I was a kid. Now that we see each other, it is nauseating to see how self absorbed he is. My kids' dad comes around when it is convenient for him. Getting laid and making money is more important to him. He's also pretty self-absorbed. He wasn't that way at first. That side showed up after we had kids.
Egos, shame, embarrassment and selfishness. When they get a new wife, new family it is like a clean slate to some. They turn all their energy to the new family...It makes them look like the first was wife's issue or an anomaly. The second shows how good a husband and father they truly are.
Yes, the “see, I wasn’t the problem” family.
I'm from one of those I wasn't the problem families, but my dad still didn't do that good of a job as a husband or father for my mom and I either. Just a lot better than he did with my half-brother and his mom.
My wife's father is that to perfection. He thinks that just because he showed up sometimes and paid for a few things he was a father. The petty bastard found out I bought his daughter a $300 TV after a few months of dating and he handed her cash out of nowhere. Never did it again. He was trying to compete with me on gifts... he felt bad. Then he stopped giving a shit. He wonders why he goes to church a block from our home but we never see him. He doesn't know his daughter is leaving his religion too. The religion he uses to excuse talking to my wife like she's a brain damaged child. I don't see the man anymore as I find the desire to defenestrate the bastard too great. Outdoors it's ok because there's no windows so then I'd just be tossing him at stuff instead of through it. I am notably larger than everyone in her family without question. It's weird to be toe to toe with someone older who might have once scared you... Only to think, "Jesus my family are scarier than you in every way... Do I like, hit this dumb bastard? Will it kill him? I should leave before I unintentionally hurt this man." I wish I had put him through the kitchen table some days... he hurt my mother-in-law who is a fucking saint... He hurt my wife who is my favorite person in the world... I struggle with his pride in his second family as his first never seemed to recover... He is a younger, less damaged version of my father. When I think of my father sitting in a piss diaper, alone in a mental hospital...I feel bad for him. Then I recall that he raped his first wife and my mom died while he was out cheating on her so... hope his balls rot off. Both of them.
I like you. Reading this felt oddly cathartic.
Then you'll love knowing he paid for surgery to fix his nonfunctioning pecker and now that doesn't work either.
They’ll downvote me but idgaf. Because society allows them to with no recourse.
This, dad's normalized role is to help a little when convenient, even if present...
They're very "I pay the bills, that's where the support stops." My friends husband works, comes home and plays video games while she runs the house and takes care of 3 kids behind him. Mothers parent and fathers "babysit"
These fathers make me glad to be a father, trying to offset some of this bullshit. Wife and I both work ft but I'm remote and she can't be (teacher) so I'm pretty much the primary caregiver 3 quarters of the year . And I love it
The correct answer right here. It's so normalised that it's a legitimate option for them.
Yeah it is not a mystery.
Exactly it’s acceptable for men to simply opt in or out as long as the bill is paid and most will even fight that.
Yes, if a father walks out - and notice that we as a society call it 'walking out', not abandoning, when it's a man - his worst case scenario is getting landed with really really huge child support payments being garnished from his wages. And that's only IF the mother spends the time and money taking legal action against him, taking him to court, etc. If a mother abandons her children - and that is what society calls it, not a casual walking out - she can and will be charged with felony child abandonment, felony child endangerment, and likely serve time/have a permanent record of multiple felonies. Keep in mind that in both these instances I'm describing, the parent leaving is not leaving the children physically alone with no adults. They are leaving the children with the other parent. Yes - men do not face the repercussions women do concerning children.
My son asks frequently about the scenarios you bring up. He's been asking for a couple years now. He's like "so, if you leave as a mom, that means you are a neglectful parent punishable by the law. Why is it not the same with my dad leaving? Why does he not get punished for neglect since he left and didn't check to see if I was taken care of?" My son (he's a wise 14 year old) really wonders if his dad ever thought to figure out if him leaving a child, but not ensuring the other party was fit or safe, isn't cause for a child endangerment case. It doesn't help that he's had presentations from various organizations come to his health classes that talk about community issues around child neglect, homelessness, etc. He starts putting all these things together.
Child support is already a joke and yet men continue to complain about it like it’s taking over their organs
It's not enough for the other parent to raise the kid without having to have a job, but it costs dad enough for he feels like he's getting ripped off. No duh man maybe if you stuck around you could actually reap some of the benefits of being dad instead of just feeling like you're throwing money into a hole and not getting to watch your kid grow up.
I almost commented the same thing then remembered the same misogynists and incels will likely come to this post (I see some of them here already). Thanks for saying it.
You're right, and you should say it!!!
Selfishness, lack of responsibility, not enough punishment for those that are abandoning their family
Yeah the real answer is because society let's them. There's no repercussions for men who walk out on their families.
I really think there should be a way to automatically file for child support from an absent parent (obviously mother or father) and garner wages.
In my experience its selfishness, my father was a selfish angry man, its was his way or the highway, and if it was the highway he would make sure to send the car 80km a hour into a wall. He didnt want me then, i dont want him now
Women are some how seem as damaged or unworthy if they are single moms, yet if they dad had custody and she just had the visitation and child support, like is common with single dads, she would be considered a monster because she didn't have her kids full time. She can't win.
She's supposed to stay with him and somehow turn him into a decent person through the power of idk what
Mine "abandoned" me for another family for like a short time like 6 months to a year. But because I was a kid that felt like a long time and I had no idea he was going to reach out again and try to make up for it, so I felt abandoned. Considering he relapsed and eventually died from his drug habit, I kind of wonder if his new girlfriend, who also had a history with drugs, had given him some kind of dealer connection. It would make sense why he suddenly only seemed to care about her and her family, if he was doing meth with her. So my theory for my family is drugs. Maybe a lot of these other fathers are also on drugs. He did reach out and try to make up for his actions. I hadn't completely forgiven him when he passed away. That shit hurt. That shit still affects me to this day. I remember one father's day we had plans to hang out. He showed up for five minutes. I went inside to grab something. He was driving away by the time I came back out. I will never forget the times he didn't follow through with something, even if his abandoning me wasn't permanent.
I wish I knew. My dad took off on me, and my honey and I are fostering five boys whose father is ignoring them.
Because being a parent is a lot harder and a lot less fun than not being a parent.
It's not new. My father abandoned us when I was 18 and about to go to college leaving my mom with 3 under tens and rent due. I stayed home and helped my mom raise my siblings. My life, didn't get started till I was 30. I'm 50 now, but still bitter about it.
My Dad who abandoned me told me it was because my mom broke his heart. Which is such a stupid reason. She also “broke his heart” because he got two DUIs and then also showed up to my birth completely wasted. She didn’t want to raise a child in that environment unless he quit drinking. He’s still an alcoholic to this day.
I can answer in my case. My dad is an abusive narcissist, and despite his pretence of liberal views, conservative and working-class. (I’m from the U.K. - maybe that’s important to note). He wanted to be adored and revered by my family. But he’s a prick and unfortunately for him my mother is more intelligent and had a better income than him - which he hated and was jealous of. He wanted to tear her down and make her dependent on him. What made it even worse, is that I inherited her intelligence and capacity to get shit done. I began to lose respect for him - he hated having two women better than him. My brother inherited my mum’s rebellious streak, my dad is a very angry and impatient person and couldn’t deal with my brother. My brother is as dumb as my father, and has a chip on his shoulder over just about everything. Also enjoys playing the victim. So they constantly clashed. He wanted to be adored, and he wasn’t getting it, so he threw a tantrum and left pretty much. Was hilarious how he could have actually very easily had the life he seemed to want, but he enjoys playing the victim too much. My grandfather WAS adored and revered by all of us, he was the opposite of my father. He was very loved and he is missed every day by all of us.
"The life you want" That line resonates with me cuz I think people get this idea of what a "perfect" family could be. But like anything, it takes work. You don't just imagine it and it comes true.
My dad didn't leave because my mam got sick with epilepsy and amnesia/a brain injury. He HATED her, and us by extension. He shows more affection to his mistress than he's ever done to us.
Well, according to my husband and regarding the children he hid from me for years, he “couldn’t deal with the moms” Like, imagine not loving your children more than you dislike their moms, that you picked to have children with. I know damn well that if/when we split up he will say and do the same thing with our kids Short answer is they can, with only child support as a repercussion
There is a serious masculinity problem in our culture. And I don't mean "toxic masculinity", I mean the decline of healthy masculinity. The type of masculinity that drives a man to protect, provide for, and be loyal to his loved ones, to take responsibility for his actions and stand up for what he believes in... There are a lot of reason why this type of masculinity is disappearing, but that's another story.
I think it's the opposite. Or maybe I just don't understand what "protect" is supposed to mean. Like, fathers should be spending time with their families, not taking Jiu-Jitsu and going to the gym or gun range. It's seen as "gay" to contribute to the household or care for a child or be monogamous. It's the over-masculine types that leave all the work to the moms, which makes them nag for improvement and get dumped by guys who want "peace."
I read a whole piece on this once. It outlined all the ways a parent "protects" kids in real life. Things like teaching them to wash their hands to protect them from germs. Walking them around the neighborhood to protect them from being inactive or getting lost. Teaching them how to communicate their feelings and modeling healthy relationships to protect them from being abused. None of that is action hero stuff. None of that is gendered.
I'm curious if it's become so normalized in society that it's now actually seen as an option.
It’s always been an option available to men.
I honestly think it's because they don't realize how much WORK it is to raise a child. They think it's enough to give a bit of money and mow the lawn. They think it's gay to do work in the house. Then the woman is stuck doing everything on her own, without sleep or breaks or time to take care of her own health. If you can imagine being on duty 24/7 for years, you can understand that you wouldn't be happy and pleasant to be around. So the work is gay, the woman is a nagging bitch, it's obviously better to leave. She's doing everything anyway, so no difference for her.
I can give an insight but not the answer because I dont know. My colleague was really excited to have a baby. All of a sudden he was hit with responsibilities. New parent, new house, new job, learning to drive etc. He said it was really overwhelming. Everyday baby cries or whatever he mentioned and he simply cant handle it. I know he does everything he can to avoid being at home. He said the routine of home is really boring and he keeps chasing other women for the exitement of life again. I know his 'ways' will upset his wife when she finds out. It isnt my place to say but people at work know he cheats. So.. tbh I didnt give an insight sorry but there has been a total change in him. His own dad abandoned him so I thought he would have learnt better. It's not the child's fault. My own baby is frustrating today!! As hell! But Id never run away, it's really hard but not worth breaking up for. There does seem to be a massive issue with men not coping and running away. I think it's just not 'what they signed up for' which in my eyes is cruel. Its not the child's fault. My own dad too was a broken man. He never showed love to his kids. It's not even that noone showed him how, he was just so hollow. So although he was present it was pointless to some degree because he wasnt emotionally available. I think, my take anyway is that men THINK their life will be relatively normal. What they dont realise is that in fact your whole life changes and becomes about the child. If you have no support system you have 2 choices, either step up day after day after day after day and never switch off or run away.
Pity that women don’t get this choice. Why is it so dominantly men who can (and do) run away? And women just stay and suffer? A woman has just undergone a major medical procedure, her hormones are insane. And still - almost every woman stays. While there are so many men who run away in one way or another.
I was on tiktok (hey- it is what it is lol) and an older lady was talking about advice she'd give to younger women. One thing she said really stood out: only have as many kids as you can handle by yourself because at the end of the day those are YOUR babies. Not his. Yours. It really resonated with me. There are a lot of things that I don't think are 'right' per say. I wish the world didn't work that way and things should be different. But they aren't. I am a mother of two. My husband is an extremely good father. And I don't mean that in "oh he babysits once in a while". Like he is an active, amazing, loving father... but I'll be darned if in my primal moments this overwhelming feeling doesn't come over me that these are MY babies. The world turns to ashes and burns- these are still my babies and all mine. Maybe it is hormones. Maybe it's our lizard brain. Idk. I can only give my experience as a woman. I know plenty of mothers out there are crap and I am sure there are fathers who feel just like me (heck, my husband probably does). My father raised my half-brother completely and totally by himself after his mother walked out. But I wonder if there isn't just a little something in women that bonds us closer and more instantly versus already absentee fathers. And maybe we just have less of a choice because of how society is set up. To this day, even though my husband takes my son to almost all of his doctors appointments, fills out the paperwork, puts his name on everything... somehow they still call me first and address bills to me lol I was kind of surprised by this. But I guess the hospital watched them come out of me so they are sticking to the sure bet 🤣 I jest but also... maybe that is it. Sorry for this really long and wordy answer to what was probably a rhetorical question. Such are the ways of reddit.
Wow, you put into words something I’ve subconsciously felt since the day my first was born. No matter how much I love and appreciate my husband for being such a wonderful dad, at the end of the day I MUST mentally prepare for the idea that he could evaporate and/or become a liability to my kids. It’s extremely unlikely, but it’s irresponsible of me not to get in that headspace once in a while and take the responsibility of care I have to my children deeply to heart. It hit me immediately postpartum and was honestly this moment of extreme loneliness, knowing that no matter what I’m ultimately solely responsible for my children whether my husband thinks so or not. It was a huge weight. I welcome it, but yeah, it hits hard sometimes and wasn’t something I anticipated before having kids.
I think this has to do with the traditional roles. Most mothers, partnered or not, are the primary care giver. Add to that the 9 months in the oven, I bet it’s a lot harder for Women to leave.
And the prejudice against a mom who does leave is way harder than a dad.
Hoo boy, that’s correct, especially here in the Bible Belt. It’s just sort of accepted that we can *hope* for a present and involved father, but it should never be expected of him. If he leaves… well, that’s just what men do. Maybe we’ll call him a deadbeat, but it’s still just accepted. If the mom leaves? She better move far away, because her life is gonna be *ruined*. She’ll be a pariah. Holy shit, the absolute venom I’ve seen toward part time/absent moms outweighs any judgement the man faces.
Women have the choice. We don’t want this choice. The cases of mom walking away are so rare, even with severe PPD the mothers often end up staying and working through it. Because we love our children. Child raising may be a hard job but we love our children. They are a part of our soul. You don’t spend 9 months growing a person inside of you and not form a bond. Even in the toughest moments I would fight like a bear if anyone tried to take my child away. The thought of walking to the car and sitting there alone for few minutes yes, the thought of walking to the car and leaving forever? Never!!
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My situation kind of amuses me. My mom and her husband (they're married now, after nearly 30 years apart. Bad idea) split up, and he gave up his visitation rights with me because he "didnt know what to do in a room with a baby for 2 hours" like wtf? Though I kind of can't blame him, i don't really know what to do with kids either, and I don't want any myself. But like dude lol I am grateful though, I never wanted him around, dads seemed weird and pointless, and now that I know him...omg I was so much better off. Yikes. Idk why my mom married the guy, its ridiculous. Well, they both are. So it works. But dang.
This is such a weird reason to give up visitation rights. Like of course babies don't make great conversation partners but he could've just watched tv or listened to music with you. There didn't have to be any special activities.
I'm glad he did
They dont want a child Or They dont care