Help Single Parents

[Pfy]

I also disagree with you totally that you have to have your own kids to understand family dynamics.

You are possibly the most opinionated, sanctimoniuos person I have ever 'met', however I agree, you don't have to have children to understand family dynamics but you do however have to have children to understand the range of emotions that they cause you to experience.

I would never leave my kids, nor would I ever purposefully hurt them but after weeks of little sleep and screaming kids at 3am in the morning I can now see why someone might contemplate leaving or shaking their kid or whatever. Especially if the relationship has soured.

Don't get me wrong I don't condone it but having had children and experienced it all does give you more of an insight into it all.

Now this doesn't make your opinions any less valid Scouse but it does make you appear as a bit of a plonker talking about something he doesn't really have personal experience of.

 

[Pfy]

Being a parent is an equal responsibility but unfortuantly it is usually the fathers (not in all cases!) who have to go and earn the income to support the family (even if seperated) so therefore the main child care factor falls with the mother. I for example would do almost anything to spend quality time with my son of 3 years but it's near enough impossible with providing the income.

Single parenting is obviously alot tougher, not speaking from experience but I have friends who are. Time should be equally split and both parents of that child or children should come to an agreement to do what is BEST for the child when it comes to living arrangements/child care and financial support.

I think really that this is the point russel was trying to make. I'm in the lucky position where I can do both and I guess and as russel and you say, that seems to be an exception.

 

[Pfy]

There's a certain amount a person can learn. Without the experience, such 'expertise' will always lack depth and will have gaps.

Oh. Like pretty much every other job/role/subject then.

Scouse read some papers about it though.

Don't ask him which ones though 'cause you should go find them yourself and how's he expected to remember ;P

 

[Scouse]

Firstly, I don't know what I can add to advice to Cal, soz

you do however have to have children to understand the range of emotions that they cause you to experience

Really? I mean frustration, joy, hopelessness, love, anger, all the other emotions that you've been experiencing since you were born? Suddently I can't have experienced these emotions and have a real empathy because I don't have kids?

To be fair, I'm willing to accept that I can't comprehend what it's like to have kids of my own, but I don't accept for one second that I can't make a reasoned comment on the division of labour in a relationship with a child.


However, this seems to have spiralled out of control. I commented, originally, on these statements from Russell:

Motherhood is relentless (its not the same as being the dad....

[and]

the responsibility of being a mum is NO WAY the same as being the Dad, unless he is the sole carer

Which, still, I think is sexist and insulting.

Are there any fathers here that think being a dad isn't "relentless"? Do you manage to care less, or something, or is life just an "easier ride" for you?


Just to be clear, IMHO the responsibilities of the father are in "no way" subordinate to those of the mother.


I hear women talking to each other about how hard their lives are with their children all of the time - and I believe them. I don't often hear the same from men but I'm under no illusions that their responsibilities, whilst the actual actions that they perform may be different, are just as important, just as heart-wrenching, just as intense as their partners are.

Russ:

You clearly have NO IDEA-ask the majority of Dads on here -yes they have added pressure of a different kind, but not the same continual 24/7 toll except in rare circumstances.

I'd counter with saying that you have no idea about what a father goes through then. All the fathers I know have the same 24/7 continual toll. Just because they're a man doesn't mean they feel it any less...

 

[old.Tohtori]

Then again both can stop arguing as parenting, toll, responsibility and all the things you love to disagree on are individual person related and are different in every relationship

 

[Scouse]

I think really that this is the point russel was trying to make. I'm in the lucky position where I can do both and I guess and as russel and you say, that seems to be an exception.

I'd accept that in most cases this could be true. It's not even slightly true in my circle of friends but I'm still willing to accept it.

However, I don't think that diminishes the role of men at all. Going to work all day then coming home and picking up the same duties that the mother may have been performing is no less of a task. It's still a 24/7 responsibility.

Like people have said, men would love to be able to spend more time at home with their kids - but they can't. It's not as if it's the best thing in the world to be away from your family because you have to earn cash, is it?

Then again both can stop arguing as parenting, toll, responsibility and all the things you love to disagree on are individual person related and are different in every relationship

This is true. But Russ was making a generalisation and I was commenting on that...

 

[MrHorus]

It doesn't count for nothing but if you haven't been a parent you aren't really in a position to fully understand the way so much changes once you have the responsibility.

Bollocks.

I don't need to be a politician to have a good idea about how one should or should not run the country, or how one should conduct one's self as an MP.

I don't need to be a soldier and have served with the US Army in Iraq to know that there are certain things that soldiers Just Don't Do and that they have committed war crimes out there.

Likewise, one doesn't need to be a parent to have strong opinions on how to raise children and what the responsabilities of parents need to be. My partner and I don't yet have children and aren't planning on having any for a while yet, but that doesn't mean that we don't already have very strong and valid opinions on how kids should be raised.

 

[Gumbo]

This is turning into one of those forum arguments where each individual sentence is picked apart and examined and commented upon.

It doesn't really serve any purpose.

I would confirm though, as a Father of 2 and a bit years now, that I really don't think that you can know the strength of feelings you will experience until you are a parent. Yes you may know love, the way you love your parents, or love your partner, but the love you feel for your child is so different, and so much stronger. They are a part of you. At least it was in my case.

You might know fear. The most scared I was pre-parenthood was being trapped underneath a boat, under the water, with my trapeze harness caught up. No way of freeing myself, and actually reaching the point where I knew I was about to breathe water and die. That's proper scared I can tell you. But you can times that fear by 100 when you compare it to your child developing such a high temperature that she's fitting, and a doctor telling you that if they can't control it in the next couple of minutes she will die. I'd have got back under that boat in a second and breathed the water without a thought, if it could help my little girl. So the fear that you can experience is so much stronger, at least it was in my case.

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say. I'm really just waiting whilst an engine which overheated on one of my boats cools down, so that I can test it and get back home to have some tea and unwind after a busy and hot day. But the first thing I'll do when I walk in, is creep into my daughter room, and just look at her for a bit, listen to her breathing and have the same silly grin I had on my face the day that she was born, because now, she is all that matters in my life.