Real reasons behind the "Fatherhood Crises"...

er how about we don't and say we did

 

I don't think I or my opinion's are better than anybody else's. Its just a fact I stated, though I don't know what the cause of it is. I hate gender inequalities and inequalities in general way more than most people do, including most people on these forums.

 

Shane,

Emma Goldman had plenty to say about marriage and family under the repressive weight of a Patriarchal Hierarchy, check it out.

It's been too long for me to quote accurately, but I remember she would have us rethink the whole thing.

And I would agree.

The Patriarchal Nuclear Family is behind the "Fatherhood Crises".

Free-Love within our extended Global-Family, free and unhindered by any neurotic Patriarchal State, will be the eventual solution to this un-necessary Patriarchal Fatherhood Crises.

 

Hi, I am the product of a divorced family, and I have a child with a woman I am no longer married too; I am not a convict nor ner'do-well, so i think I have a right to make a few points.

One: it takes two to make a marriage, and one to pull the plug. Unless both people are 100 % on board the marriage will fail. There are also a lot of stresses in relationships and we as a generation are struglling to redifene marriage and family in a way that works given today's reality (I would suggest the book "The Way We Never Were" for an accurate look at marriage historicaly). Be that as it may I know for a fact that; one my dad is a sociopath, there is no WAY that I would have been better of growing up with him. My mom's brother was bad enough, but my dad is a fruitcake.

two: through the divorce I have maintained a good relationship with my son, I see him often and my ex and I get along well. We do this because we forgave one another for the mistakes we made and moved on. we are polite to one another, take eachother's concerns seriously. I dont know how many divorced dad's i see whose loathing of their ex is so large that they simply can not hold a conversation with them. Once its over its over and you have to do what is best for the kids...

And I bet that plenty of those guys who "never thought to leave their family", it was bceasue they were treating their wife like a made and fucking their assistant.

 

i agree with shane, when my parnets devorced my father was only allowed to see me on certin days between certin hours if it was ok with my mother and she was there to supervise, my dad told me when i was older that i asked him if we could go out for ice cream and he said because it wasnt allowed just a simple thing as going out for ice cream isnt allowed that was realy hard on my father, there was no reason behind any of this court bullshit other then my mom hated my father. he never abused, threated, mistreated, my mother, my sister or me, my mom told the courts that he abused us which was a total lie the even more fucked up part is my mother attacked my father twice and throw a phone at him, and my father never even raised a hand to her. i now live with my father because i feel like in this part of life i need to be around him more and i need someone to look to for help and guidence, i am a male teenager and alot of feelings and male related questions and talks arnt the same and sometimes hard to do with my mother having both a mother and father(or mother and father figure) is very important.

 

WHAT, doesnt want his kids, alot of my father firends are devorced they had to struggle to even see there kids, no abuse or crimnal records, please go tell that to them, tell that to my father.

 

my parents divorced when i was about 3.
my mom got sole custody and my dad was able to see me on the weekends for a couple hours, unsupervised. he ended up moving to virginia(we were in michigan--later he told me because the lifestyle was hellish, i'm not sure if they were supervised either...but i don't think so)

anyways, growing up mostly without a father(i visited him on school vacations and talked on the phone, but never felt very close to him) has been very hard on me, and i think it effects me all the time. ive been depressed for years now and think this had something to do with it.

so, while i agree that a marriage going sour shouldn't stay like that, divorce rates are too high. i think some kind of counseling should be required before divorce, to me this just seems like a logical thing to do....

i think that having both parents is a very important thing for a child to have, unless a parent is not fit(abusive, neglectful, etc)


anyways, my main point is that i grew up from a divorced marriage with my mom and feel i was raised in a skewed way, i most always got a female perspective on things when its crucial to have both, especially because i'm a male.

edit: i also think the statistics on social problems and the correlation between fatherlessness and these crimes are astounding. are they fairly accurate?
and correlation doesn't necessary mean causation but that is a pretty interesting thing to note, and if it is main culprit .....then fixing it would fix a ton of problems...

 

No amount of anecdotal personal stories about broken homes turning out fine will change the fact that there is a crisis, so stop trying to minimise the issue.

It scares the shit out of me that when I have children, I will have almost no power over weather and how those children will be in my life. If I stay on the mother's good side, everything's fine. But if she takes a hating to me for whatever reason, I'm out on my ass with no rights.

I think the solution starts in our minds. We have to unlearn an idea that we've started taking for granted. The idea is that you can raise a kid well flying by the seat of your pants. And it's just not true. Sure, sometimes things turn out OK. But that's good luck, not good parenting. Children need stability and multiple role models.

Going back to my second paragraph, the other idea that really needs to be attacked on a massive scale is that fathers suck. In this case, the courts are a reflection of our collective beliefs. Most people believe that fathers are not worth much, in fact often do more harm than good. Bring home the bacon and that's all you're really good for. The child suport set-up is as clear an enforcement of a gender role as I've ever seen. The kid just needs your money, and you get to see him a couple times a month. That's what men are good for. And a deadbeat dad, instead of being someone who ignores his kids, is someone who doesn't give their mother money to take care of them with.

 

"And a deadbeat dad, instead of being someone who ignores his kids, is someone who doesn't give their mother money to take care of them with."



what a sentence to close on. i agree

 

Not supporting a child is a form of neglect. How is the child supposed to eat, go to school, have clothing ect? Dudes who object to opening their wallets, as if it were really a HUGE deal, I don't understand, especially when it is thier own children. Good parents, of either sexes, make sure thier children don't go without, even if THEY have to.

 

i also agree.

i think there may be some sort of miscommunication here, ...at least it seems so.

i certainly think a parent not supporting their child financially is certainly neglect....but i also think TOO often males are stripped of their role as fathers, whether partly from their own lack of care or mostly the way the system works....and they're not necessarily considered deadbeat dads because they financially support their children. IMO this isn't the role of the father in it's entirety.

my only real evidence is from my own upbringing....it's still fairly upsetting to me that i was raised mostly by one parent--my mother. i've had to deal with many things on my own because i didn't feel i had any1 to talk to , and many of the issues i didn't feel comfortable at all talking to my mom about


while friends have helped me i think it's the support of two parents consistently that would have helped more

 

Maggie, you're trying to change the frame of the debate. Deadbeat dads are a side issue. My point was that while it's important that children be materialy provided for, that's turning into the full extent of the masculine gender role, as enforced by the courts.

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There's an entire facet of the crisis that hasn't even been brought up yet. I read in the paper the other day that right now, 1 in 136 Americans are behind bars. This number just floored me. I knew that it was big, but not that big. Now the vast majority of those people are male. Consider also that it's much more extream in some communities (Black and Latino) than others.

This next part is just personal opinion, not backed up by research at all. This crisis in fatherhood creates a need for a paternal figure. Cultural institutions, good and bad, are growing to fill its place. Big Brother government and street gangs are two of the less benign effects of this. Institutions are also taking the place of the female gender roles in childcare, as in daycare.

 

i also saw on the news today(think it was the today show) males have a higher drop out rate suicide rate and jail rate then girls and also that schools are more female focused and that the majority of teachers are females, not only is there a fatherhood crisis there is a crisis in schools, its even harder for males to have a positive rolemodel, i realy think this is becoming a huge problem

 

Exactly.

Holy shit, i started this thread in november...
Glad it's a hot topic.

 

and of course, that comment killed it...

 

"it is a mystery..."

 

I have a theory. MALES arent being given the chance to show that we CAN properly
care for our children. Society is geared to make the female the prefered choice.
Which is NOT always true. Sometimes, DAD can be the best parent!

 

that figures misleading. you have to take in account all the people that marry 3 or 4 or more times that raise up that figure. point said, most people who marry for the first time... stay together It's all those sluts that distort the figures

 

Even if that's true, that does not make the figues misleading.

Who the people are or how many times they've married before isn't the point and doesn't really affect the stastics in any way. It's still roughly 1/2 of marriages, doesn't matter if it's short term or long term. it's people getting married and people getting divorced. Unless you're talking 3-4 times with the same couple.... As long as it's a different partner it's a new marriage.

 

1st, the thing about men having a higher suicide rate is not true. Women attempt suicide more often than men do, however, when men do attempt it they succeed more often than women, because the method they choose is usually one that is more extreme (ie, they will shoot their brains out, but a woman will try to overdose on asprin which rarely works).

2nd. I agree that it is very important for both girls and boys to have a stable loving father figure. As a matter of fact, I personally feel that it is more important for a little girl to have a good father figure than it is for a boy, but that is a different topic. I don't think that it is just for a court to give custody of children completely to the mother.

And I know this has been touched on already in this thread, but it is very personal to me. I was raised in a home where my father believed that we kids were better off having two parents. Now, on the level that we had a good income and things of that nature, sure it was good. But my father suffers from a mental illness and he liked to self medicate with pot and beer. He was an abusive alcoholic. And the abuse wasn't just physical. He didn't love us. And even as a child you can feel, if not understand fully, when someone doesn't really love you. He stayed out of obligation. The day that my sister and I moved into our apartment together, my dad left my mom. Growing up, he never hugged nor kissed my mom. We had no idea how a relationship was supposed to work. He didn't show us any love or affection either. Honestly, living with him being so miserable was hell for us, and I'm certain that it contributed to my problems today.

It would have been much better for everyone involved, my father included, if he had just left when we were younger and saw us on the weekends (or whatever). My mom is the one who loved us and took care of us, my dad was just a paycheck. And that is pretty much how our relationship works today. That is how his relationship with his father was too. Grandpa would send us a check every year for about $500.00 and we would never see or hear from him. Now, my dad sends me money every once in a while and I never hear from him, even when I call him, he doesn't say much, just asks me if I need any money. And I have tried to tell him that what I need is love and support and it goes in one ear and out the other. I guess my point is that there is more than one way to be a deadbeat dad.

Anyway, back to your discussion. I know I'm sort of off topic.