Where have all the dads gone?

Paddyann
I’ve had a lot of years to consider this, and I think there’s a grain of truth in there.
But we wouldn’t have pushed her, her brother didn’t go to university and that was fine by us.
I started to feel a little reluctance when she saw the accommodation, but must have asked her a hundred times if she was happy with everything.
She joined the family business, has done extremely well, but two failed relationships, three children, I wish I’d really forced a discussion instead of hearing what I wanted to hear.

Sara1954 maybe your daughter didn't want to go to university ? Maybe she felt she was being pushed down the same path as her sister and didn't feel just telling you would make a difference?
I know a young woman who was almost forced into Uni,she had other ideas for her future but her father decided Uni it had to be .She had a nervous breakdown during her first term.She was forced to go back ,she did and finished her course with good results...she hasn't spoken to her father in the 10 years since . Talk to your daughter dont assume Uni is the right route for her ,she may well have a very different idea .

I think we probably all know of people who fit that category.

It's very unpleasant to be swept into being judged as "one of those", though.

I was offered vouchers for a food bank last week, and I'm so glad I said no, because I now have an insight on how some of the lovely volunteers really feel.

The point being, "some", because all are different.

YGagajo I know of people, young and older, who do choose UC as a lifestyle choice, it’s all they know, single mothers, young men, often living with parent(s) who do the same. They supplement their UC by working ‘on the black’ cash in hand, this market is thriving as well as it’s ever done.
Some mums have arrangements with absent fathers to pay them, erratically though it is, in cash, rather than a more formal arrangement.

trisher

It's funny though when women were needed to work during war time the government funded free day nurseries to care for their children, There was more nursery provision in WW2 than at any time since. So it is possible to provide help and childcare. It's just a choice. And this government shut down Sure Start, so it shows how much they care for mothers and their children.

I think this Government has exhausted itself by its one big gesture of Furlough. Anything as radical as free nursery provision would scare them to death.
They have retreated into their austerity bunker, which harms women and children disproportionately.

On the subject of missing dads: I knew a man who didn't see or pay for his child because "he couldn't bear to see what he had lost". I didn't have much sympathy there.

It's funny though when women were needed to work during war time the government funded free day nurseries to care for their children, There was more nursery provision in WW2 than at any time since. So it is possible to provide help and childcare. It's just a choice. And this government shut down Sure Start, so it shows how much they care for mothers and their children.

Sara1954

The problem with following the work, is that you lose any support system you might have had, not saying it’s always a bad thing, but must need some weighing up.

This is so true. It's all very well saying go where the work is - but what use is that if you end up living somewhere where you don't know anyone and don't have that support system around you. Who is there to look after your child/children - especially in an emergency? It's not always the answer...

Trisher
I agree, whoever came up with that solution obviously didn’t give much thought to the problems.
So, you have a home. You don’t know anyone at all. Your only chances of being able to get back into education or employment are gone because there’s no mum, gran, sister willing to help out.
The days must seem endless, money is tight, I’m sure that mental health problems are common amongst these young women.
Just seems cruel to me.

One of the reasons why there is a huge inequality in wealth is because UK is so London-centric, everything revolves around London and the South East. Job opportunities are mostly In London and down South and not evenly distributed throughout the country especially up North.

After university, my daughter had to go to London for her paid internship and I had to go to my bank to borrow money to send her there. If I did not do that, she will still be working on the shop floor today.

My daughter has an old school friend. She was bullied at school and suffers from low self esteem. When she goes out, she has a tendency to drink too much.

She has a partner as such but she told DWP she is single to get housing benefit and put her status on Facebook as single and not in a relationship. Three lovely children and she is a very good natural mother to them but there is a big question mark as to whether all the children are her partner’s.

With genealogy dna becoming popular nowadays, one day, the poor girls are going to find out that the person they call dad all their life is not their biological father.

Another colleague of mine had a one night stand and the woman fell pregnant. They had too much to drink. He is not an absent father , he was involved in his son's life.
His son does not look like him at all. Not sure whether he did a DNA or just take the woman's word as the truth.

One of the great problems created by the last two governments is the one which offers social housing to single mothers which is a long distance away from their home and family. Girls must choose between inadequate housing and the support of close family or decent housing and isolation. It's just another problem for them.

The problem with following the work, is that you lose any support system you might have had, not saying it’s always a bad thing, but must need some weighing up.

That is the point, Gagajo; if there is no work you have to up sticks and go where the work is,however reluctant you may be., which is what you have done. At present I believe there are many opportunities. I believe. My grandparents did, my father did, my father -in-law did, my ex-husband did and I followed him, and many many migrants are doing so.

Daughter one did everything in the right order. University, career, marriage, babies.
Daughter two, had a top education, was all set to leave for university in a few weeks, then she drops her bombshell, she’s pregnant.
She is by no means stupid, she’ll deny it till her dying breath, but I don’t think it was accidental, but for the life of me, I can’t understand her motivation.

There is a strange logic there somehow, Calendargirl. Her 2 children with the same dad, will grow up together and will appear more like a "normal" family and validate her "decision" as well as being playmates.
I may be completely wrong but there's none so strange as folk.
Allsorts Hormones have a lot to answer for..... people of both sexes get carried away and all sense and judgment flies off with the wind.

Was chatting to an acquaintance the other day. Her daughter is living with her, since having a baby a few months ago. The father is a married man with two other boys. The daughter was working as a teaching assistant, I assume she is still on maternity leave. He doesn’t seem to want to leave his wife and first family, sees the girlfriend now and again, doesn’t seem very interested in the baby. Gives her the odd tenner now and then. What astounded me was my friend saying that the daughter wanted to have a second baby by him asap.

Why? Absolutely no future with him, he sounds a bad lot, awaiting a court case for something or other. What got me was that although my friend didn’t approve, she seemed resigned to her having another baby by him.

And so it goes on.

Why would any girl have unprotected sex with anyone they were not wanting to have a child with. Contraception is easy now, there's abortion or the day after pill. If you are against birth control, well don't engage in sex. Women are not victims, it's their bodies, they have control.. I do think a lot of young people who grew up without role models and love, think sex is a way of getting love, they are just so vulnerable, the history repeats itself. We have a duty as mothers to show our sons to treat girls with respect. I think most do. There's a lot of girls who treat the boys badly, it's not one sided.

Apparently my daughters dad is wonderful with his family, children, and grandchildren.

As I said, he isn't the devil incarnate, or any kind of playboy.
He has been married for years - his children refer to him as their 'rock'.
It's the system that allowed him to walk away and start a whole new life without being accountable..
He was a teen when I had my daughter, so he took opportunity to bail out.

My husband is a good dad, he was great when they were small, not so much bedtime stories and baths, but all the outdoorsy stuff, we always seemed to have a houseful of children, and he was always happy to have them around.
I don’t think I can ever remember him raising his voice to them, and they knew/know they can always depend on him.
He sure as hell isn’t perfect, and we didn’t always agree on how to deal with things, but the main thing is that he was always there, and they knew he was always there.

What I think is sad is the lack of good male role models. Hardly any male teachers in primary schools and fewer still in pre-school.
I and my siblings were brought up by a widowed mother and no living DGP but at least half of our schoolteachers were men and most of our friends had dads so perhaps I was luckier than some. My DH was the best dad ever and all 3 sons and SiL are wonderful dads too.
Thanks for starting this interesting thread Lizbethann
Much food for thought.

Lizbeth your post is exactly what I think.

*Northumberland.

Lyng17

GagaJo

I think the number of women who set out to be single parents is very small. And easy for those who have remained married for their entire lives to sit in judgement.

No one ever sees benefits as a 'lifestyle choice'. Possibly 20 or 30 years ago (I don't know and really can't comment on the past) but living on Universal Credit means living below the poverty line. Not what anyone would consider a 'lifestyle choice'.

So judgemental.

Ridiculously sweeping statement. How do you know that noone sees the benefit system as a lifetime choice. Some albeit a few obviously do.

Because living on Universal Credit leaves people in abject poverty. It is a lot easier and more beneficial to work. So anyone that is able to, works.

I have lived (off and on) for the last 15 years in the part of Northumerland decimated by the closure of the mines and Thatcher's destruction of industry here. There is no work for a large percentage of the population.

I have literally spent 12 years teaching children who are destined to be unemployed unless they up sticks and leave their families and communities. Which most of them are reluctant to do.

Universal Credit doesn't even cover all of most peoples rent anymore. How do you expect people to live a high old life when their outgoings are a lot more than their income?

There may have been days when benefits offered a good lifestyle (I don't know this). But if they ever did, those days are long since gone.

Ilovecheese

Talking about missing dads always becomes about "scroungers" though.
let's just target the right scroungers, the ones that GagaJo is talking about. Not the mothers of little children.

Yes, but some will call the mothers scroungers when they are not, they are bereft and desperate.

It's the dads Going merrily off on their way to fresh horizons with their brand new shiny families
that are the scroungers expecting the rest of us to support their abandoned families.

It's rarely the mother who does this.

Well Urmstongran lets all hope it never happens to your daughter ! Mine was married to a man who we loved and treated as a son.They had two young children after fertility treatment and then he decided to cheat with anyone in a skirt .She rightly left him.He avoided paying for his children and a year later when she met her now husband the ex said he wasn't paying anymore.Nothing the CSA could do about it apparently.
Worse than no money for ther upkeep was his absence,he doesn't see them as he's got a "new " family.If pushed he'll have them for a couple of days twice a year.His son is old enough now to know his dads a waste of space but his lovely daughter is heartbroken,misses her dad and has quite severe mental health issues because of his neglect (confirmed by her councillor) .
There are mothers out there who RAISED these "men" I wonder if they were all as spoiled and pampered as my ex SIL and thats what the problem is

Agree with you Ilovecheese but THIS thread is to discuss missing dads. Once we dash off in other whatabouteries it will just become another Tory/Boris bashing thread (not that it isn’t deserved in some instances). Just not here.