Well apparently you didn't read my comment as thoroughly because we don't agree, actually.
We don't agree that men and women are not working. The problem is not men or women. The problem is some *PEOPLE* are exploiters who choose to exploit their partners based on gender essentialist bullshit. So we've got one partner who shows up with their whole heart and everything they have and lays it all on the line while the other one is looking to get carried and just uses them. It's emotional fraud, is what it is.
The User obviously doesn't want to pick another User because there is no advantage to beinf equally used. So they do what they have to do to check all the boxes and convince a Partner that they want to partber too until they get scotched into a relationship and can begin their exploitation.
Then, society blames the Partner for not choosing better when really, they were manipulated and maneuvered all along. When that happens over money, we put those scammers in jail. When it's over the heart and the valuable thing is a relationship we shrug and blow that behavior off.
This has always happened. It's always been there. There are just .more people choosing to emotional frauds now or were just starting to talk about it as the bullshit predation that it is.
Secondly, I am one of those single mothers. I've raised my child on my own. Her dad tapped out before she was born and has not been a significant part of her life. She was yrs old, I think, the last time she even saw him.
It's not been devastating for her and I'll tell you why I believe that is. There is no abandonment wound like so many kids have. I didn't cover for him, lie for him, make excuses for him, chase after him, beg him to be a father, or in any way conduct myself in a way that requires her to continually experience rejection from a man who simply didn't want to parent. She was allowed to grieve the loss as soon as she was old enough to understand it and make her own choices about how she wanted to move forward.
She's an adult now and for years if anybody asked she'd shrug and say, "you can't miss what you never had" or "better no dad than a bad dad".
A couple of years ago he reached out and expected....I don't know what. Some sort of entitled instant forgiveness. There was no apology. There was no attempt at amends. There was no recognition that he had behaved harmfully.
There were just demands that she travel across the country on mt money to go see him because he's her father and what he says goes and he's sick.
It's not devastating to kids that they grow up in a fatherleas home.
It's devastating that mothers, due to societal pressure, have mostly made the poor choice of attempting to sustain a father/child relationship that is inherently emotionally abusive. Just so they have a father who doesn't want to be one in the first place.
Because if they did, they'd be doing it. There wouldn't have to be any begging or pleading. There wouldn't have to be any court ordered anything. It wouldn't have to be managed for them in any way. They'd just be doing it.
And in fairness, a lot of men do. They're there. They're not pulling any bullshit. And let's not pretend like we didn't know, as kids, which type of father we had. The resentful, dodging of parental responsibility, marginally tolerates your presence one or the joyous and playful one that teaches you things and actually participates in your life.
