The mom was not the one to leave the dad to basically be a single parent. I would find being a single parent daunting. I have seen several women go through this very situations where the dead beat dad just up and leaves the mom holding the bag, so to speak. Most of the moms do what they can, but it's incredibly difficult for them without any family support. |
Stop it. Any responsibility for the dad? Or is that just 1 big part of male privelege? |
Why did these bozos have THREE kids? |
No one goes into a marriage thinking that the man is going to have a midlife crisis and leave the wife and kids for the AP.... well, most people don't. But, when marriages do break up, most of the times, it's the moms who get stuck with raising the children by herself, while the deadbeat dads see the kids once in a while and barely offer any financial help. |
Boarding school or au pair.
Usually the oldest gets parentified. Parenting in a divorce often becomes a race to the bottom. Sad. |
True. But what option is there? The rate of sexual and physical abuse in foster care, not to mention trafficking in group homes, is not insignificant. |
I think this is the point of OP's hypothetical. Why is one parent "allowed" to walk away and the other forced to carry the weight of parenting alone? Why aren't both forced to carry equal weight? |
If mom wants 50/50 custody then the court should force dad. Why should the father be able to take less? They are his kids too. Legally, can he really just refuse 50/50? |
Why is the burden of parenthood only on women? |
Project 2025 |
I went into a marriage thinking this way, sadly, because I watched it happen to a loved one. I saved aggressively for college, starting at the birth of each child so I wouldn't be left cash-flowing college as a single parent someday. I'm still married, and my anxieties have little to do with DH. I don't think all women need to be like me, but I do believe all women who get married and have kids need to consider that this is a real possibility and plan for the future of themselves and their kids accordingly. My friend in this situation already had a nanny because her ex was useless during their marriage, too, and because they had had one for so long, she got a 50% contribution from the ex toward the nanny's salary, in addition to child support. One small thing that helped. |
In this scenario, where do the kids go on this break you get every other weekend if the dad is gone? |
Per the courts in Virginia, men only have to pay roughly $400 per month per child. Good luck getting a nanny and paying for housing and food with that. |
Look at Soviet and modern Russia. Lots of male abandonment of mothers. It's more normal there not to know your dad or not to have a dad than in US. You could call it male "privilege" but there's a lot of female biology behind why mothers are the ones keep children (more bonded with them, more altruistic as a gender). Maternal grandmothers are also tightly linked in the support chain. OP, the mother just needs to focus on getting financial support. None of this is "fair". It's just how things tend to play out. The person with a conscience cleans up the mess (and that can be a dad in some cases). The US does not have enough childcare supports for young kids. That is part of why these problems become so miserable. |
How old are the hypothetical kids?
Dad likely to pick up series of randos so he has childcare on his weekends and holidays. Poor kids in these situations. |