Yeah, if you don’t want kids, that’s a really good choice… 
I know several have said they think this is terribly over-exaggerated, but unfortunately, in my experience, it’s dead on. I know people like this, and I deal with a deadbeat ex who is like this. It sucks, but it is reality for a lot of people. I wish it only happened on tv.
Possibly there is a reason why people would walk away from their children. In fact, I’m sure there is. You may not be privy to it, and may think there’s some universal rule that says such people (women do it too) should be stoned in the public square. Certainly they should not have friends and coworkers who like them!
But really, there are people out there who are not cut out to be parents, or co-parents with the person they had the child with. As long as they pay their child support and aren’t behaving in a criminal manner, I assume that I don’t have enough information to judge. Isn’t that what the OP of the thread is bitching about? People who judge other people’s life choices based on their assumptions of what the Right Thing To Do is, when they have no right to. Basically, other people’s relationships with their own bodies and with their children is none of your business.
Ugh. Honest to goodness, I didn’t intend to put GED. I meant to say QED. Not sure if I’ll be believed, but it’s true.
I believe you and that’s all that should matter. We may butt heads frequently, but I believe you to be fundamentally an honest person.
Even if you are often wrong.
My point was that it’s acceptable in society for dads to do this, and not for moms. I don’t blame any mom for wanting to escape motherhood. Fact is, if she does it, society will condemn her. And this is one reason I’m glad I’m not a mom.
Whenever I was asked if I intended to have children, I always opened my eyes very wide and said very sincerley, “Oh, no! I wouldn’t do that to a child; I’d be a terrible mother!”
If they wanted further explanation, I’d tell them that I had extremely high standards for parenting, and that I would drive myself and the child mad trying to live up to them and failing. I never got the least bit of criticism. It was so obvious I that I was speaking the truth, and I think they really realized that I was a person who shouldn’t be a mom.
Fair enough, but understand that I personally know several fathers, like myself, who have never missed a payment or a visitation, and spend thousands of dollars to get custody of their children, or even just get fair visitation time, from deadbeat mothers who are practicing alcoholics/addicts who continue to have children with multiple men and suck up support payments on top of welfare, because the family court system is still heavily biased towards the mothers. (All this despite being “allowed to be exactly involved with my children as I want to be”?! ha)
Add to this that my ex turned one of our (yet unborn) children into a scrambled, bloody mess in a biowaste heap without my consent and against my express wishes, and I could have all the ingredients to carry one hell of a chip on my shoulder for the rest of my life.
But I don’t. I made an unfortunate choice of the person to have children with, I realize that far from all women are like this, and I don’t expect any accolades for being a single parent (male or female).
I do what I need to do to love and nurture the children I chose to create, and it doesn’t leave a lot of time or energy left over for carrying resentments.
Most of the disgusting assumptions about mothers mentioned (must be something wrong if the father has them) are universally made, in my experience, by nosy old church women who perpetuate SAHM-stereotypes.
That being said, I would like to slap these same biddies everytime I hear “Aww, how cute. Is it your weekend with them?” Yes, my weekend, my week, my month, my year. Don’t you have a bakesale somewhere to go tell nigger jokes and make catty comments about the other women over, you blue-haired, pruned-up, dried-out, bitter old anachronism?
On second thought, GMF, I apologize for my baggage check jab. I’m going to be hogging that counter for a moment.
I probably shouldn’t touch this one with a 10-foot pole, but I’m feeling diplomatic today, so I’ll try to keep this rational.
pantheon, without knowing anything else about your ex or your situation it’s not really valid for me to say much about this, but the one thing I will say is this: assuming that the child was unplanned (the situation changes if the child was planned and she decided to do this after the fact) then what else was she supposed to do?
I’m certainly not one to advocate using abortion as birth control, but I’m also vehemently against expecting women to carry unwanted children to term just because it’s expected. Pregnancy is hard on the body. It brings on a lot of changes. It’s potentially life threatening. Sure, it’s likely that this won’t happen, but why is it fair to expect the woman to endure these changes for an outcome that she doesn’t want?
I know this is a very emotional situation, and I know it’s your child too. But I firmly believe that in this case, while the father has every right to input in the situation, the final decision has to rest with the woman and her doctor. Does it suck? Of course it does. But until they figure out a way to let men carry kids to term, it’s really the only fair way to do it, IMO. Men have the option to walk out on kids they don’t want (yes, they’re scum for doing it and they’ll probably get caught these days, but still)–women don’t. Once they’re pregnant, they basically have two options, both of them unpleasant.
First and most importantly,pantheon, I’m so sorry. Kudos for not letting your experience color your view of all women.
I’m an advocate of father’s rights, but I agree with you that the final decision rests with the mother, because the alternative is to force her to carry the child to term. It’s a terrible situation with no good solution. Here’s where I disagree with you (bolding mine):
I’m sorry to pick on your choice of words, and I certainly don’t mean to pick on you, but the fact is, it isn’t fair. That’s the reason that the issue of whether a woman should have an abortion against the wishes of the father is so difficult to resolve. There is no way to be fair, because biology isn’t fair. We just have to do our best.
It was within wedlock and we weren’t using birthcontrol, I’m not sure if you could call it unplanned, but not sure you could call it an intentional pregnancy either. We had a child before this, and our second child a few years later, and she has had three children since our divorce, so it’s not as if she didn’t want to be a mother…I still don’t understand what happened. She freaked about the stability of our finances and marriage, made a panicked decision, and I have an ultrasound in a cute little carboard Noah’s Ark folding frame that lives in a box on a shelf in the closet that I can’t look at and can’t throw away.
I apologize for the graphic and bitter terms, especially to anyone who has had to make this difficult choice. I am pro-choice (not to hijack my hijack); I was writing in anger.
I guess it came to mind in response to my supposed freedom of “being allowed to be as involved as I want to be”. No; sometimes bitterly, tragically NO, not true. I agree that it had to come down to her choice, and I stayed with her and had another child with her…but nobody will ever sell me on how free I am to be as involved with my children as I want to be while they carry the option to terminate them.
It was also partially in response to the other things listed too- if I work all the time, I’m neglecting my kids, if I don’t- then I’m not supporting them. Nothing about having children is easy or black-n-white.
I struggle like hell to find a balance and be all things to my children, just like any decent parent- single or not, male or female.
Shitty parents come in both genders, as do good ones. Just tired of being stereotyped.
No hard feelings, Pantheon.
When I said fathers can be as involved as they want to with their kids, I wasn’t even considering those fathers who aren’t allowed to be involved with their kids. I feel for them.
I have a lot of sympathy for dads. There are a lot of guys out there who didn’t ask to be dads*, but they took on the responsibilities and did it. Then they didn’t ask to get divorced, but their wives filed for divorce. Then they lost their rights to spend time with their kids. That sucks.
*And millions of women who didn’t ask to be moms. I wish there were an easy way out of that one.
Here’s an example I found today of societal empathy for moms who don’t want to be moms:
Har har har.
Understood, and you have my sympathy. I’ve no doubt that it’s got to be every bit as wrenching for a man whose partner decides to terminate a pregancy that he wants to see through as it is for a woman who wanted the child to lose it. In a way, it really is sad that science hasn’t advanced yet to the point where it can remove a fetus from one woman and implant it in another (willing) surrogate, or incubate it in an artificial womb. It’s not fair to expect a woman to carry a pregnancy she doesn’t want, but I can imagine that many (most) women would be willing to take an option like this if it were available.
Agreed completely. A lot of things in life are screwed up because biology isn’t fair.