It’s worrying how many conversations I’m having with women whose ex partners showed absolutely no interest in either helping to raise their child, or actually IN their child until the relationship breaks down.

THREAD
#childcontact

It’s worth clarifying that not all the situations mentioned above were abusive relationships. Many were, but not all. This is an observation and I’d be interested to know if there is any research into this area.

In some of the situations, the father had a demanding job, spending long hours either in the office or travelling and therefore simply did not have the time to spend with his children. This is understandable.

In some instances, the father showed little or no interest in the baby. Made excuses when asked to look after their own child and some even INCREASED their time away from the family home.

Yes, it could be that now the family was expanding and having a baby was expensive, the father had to work longer hours. It could also be to compensate for mothers being on maternity leave.

BUT a significant number of mothers believed the father was actively avoiding being home.

In all situations where there was abuse, the abuse got worse following the birth of the baby. This isn’t news.

What IS though is that many of the mothers I spoke to said that their partners were more sexually aggressive, used pornography or sought sex outside of the relationship ( some told me that this started in pregnancy). All felt humiliated by this. And deep shame talking about it.

Many of the fathers had an issue with breastfeeding, in that the mothers said they were jealous of the baby and considered the mothers’ breasts to belong to THEM and even in situations where this was not expressly stated, the mothers believed this to be the reason.

Many of the fathers were sexually aroused by breastfeeding and would masturbate on the mother whilst she was feeding their child. This admission was made with a lot of guilt and would not have been ordinarily freely volunteered because of the shame and stigma attached.

Some of the mothers talked about fathers forcing them to stop breastfeeding for sex and they talked about how they felt they had to get it out of the way as quickly as possible to avoid a row and to get back to a crying baby- to continue feeding.

Nond of the fathers took their child to the doctor, the dentist, to hospital appointments. A few were happy to help with the school run and attend parent/teacher consultations and school plays/sports days etc but it was the exception rather than the rule.

None of the fathers helped when their own children were ill.
They literally avoided their children or the family home like the plague. Some were angry at the children FOR BEING ILL.

Most of the women I talked to said that the fathers of their children considered looking after the children as unfulfilling.
Words used:
“ Boring”
“ Mindnumbing.”
“ Not interested.”

Quite a few said that they weren’t interested in babies/toddlers and preferred older children.

Yet in ALL the cases I’ve talked about, the father expected/demanded 50:50 child contact.

This is REGARDLESS or where they lived/proximity to school etc.

So they were not the primary carer.

In many cases, post-separation, the father didn’t even look after his own children when the children were with him.

Some employed nannies, some sought the help of their own mothers but most left the children in the sole care of their new partner. This included on the weekend.

As already mentioned, not all of the fathers were abusers but all did hold traditional gendered views of parenting during the course of the relationship.
ALL thought parenting was the mother’s role.

This isn’t a thread about the fathers who DO take their role seriously. This is about the insistence on 50:50 contact and what preceded this.

Why is this important? It’s because we need to understand not only what happened in the course of the relationship, before the break-up and what is happening afterwards, in the cases where 50:50 shared *custody* has been asked for and what it has meant for parents and children.