I’m looking for some good reading on how to, eventually, best help be a step parent to my partner’s children and NEARLY ALL books are geared toward the woman’s perspective as though men don’t want to be a strong teacher and develop these kids into healthy adults. Ugh!

Thanks for listening to my rant.

  • hamid@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    It is because men aren’t engaged in parenting nearly as much as anecdotes suggest. I used to work at a family court and like 19 out of 20 men never even bothered to appear in their custody cases. When you go on reddit it’s a huge vast sexist conspiracy against men but in real life they fail to do the absolute bare minimum.

    There aren’t any books about it because you are the 1 out of 20 dude and a large percent of that cohort doesn’t buy books.

    • rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      That’s a pretty big bias. Healthy, functioning families rarely need to go to family court.

      • Devi@kbin.social
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        6 months ago

        It’s pretty standard in divorces to agree custody as part of the divorce, most custody cases are just “This is what we’ve decided to do”, “cool, here’s a paper that says that”.

    • BigSadDad@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      “All of these disgusting men use anecdotal evidence to claim they aren’t deadbeat scum. To prove it, here’s my anecdotal evidence!”

      • ExFed@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        If you’ve been alive for more than 30 seconds, it’s not just anecdotal. But to appease the challenge, anyways: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-269.pdf There’s a massive imbalance between custodial fathers and custodial mothers. Even worse is the imbalance in child support negligence.

        Can we please just admit that there are normal biological/social/economic/perceived/identity differences between men and women? That’s not to say all of those differences are good or desirable, or that they are without variation, but can we at least recognize the state of our world without shunning those with different viewpoints?

        • Squizzy@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          These are US based and based on separated parents.

          It is a pretty broad statement to make and then defend with bullshit family court experiences as if that is a fair representation of real life.

          I work at a father son activity centre, you would be shocked at how few women I see spending time with their own children!

          • ExFed@lemm.ee
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            6 months ago

            I work at a father son activity centre…

            That’s great!

            …you would be shocked at how few women I see spending time with their own children!

            I’m not at all shocked. Selfish behavior isn’t exclusive to men. Women are also deeply flawed humans.

            These are US based and based on separated parents.

            I provided non-anecdotal evidence, and you shit on it? What are your priorities?

            Selectively observing statistics doesn’t give a good representation of real life, but shitting on other people for selectively observing statistics doesn’t help, either.

    • Spuddlesv2@lemmy.ca
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      6 months ago

      “Every woman I meet is crazy” says person who works at a women’s mental hospital.

    • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      The other half, is that women are far more likely to buy self improvement books than men.

      Between the two, why would anyone write a book for a demographic that doesn’t care about the topic and rarely buys books?

      Though, I did buy a book on ADHD to prepare for my stepson. So maybe I’m an exception. 🤷🏻‍♂️

    • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      If I could sell a book to 1/20th of the step fathers in the USA I’d be rich.

      Perhaps the situation you described with all the shitty men is making the courts harder for the good men. Those two facts go hand in hand. It’s hard not to develop a bias when seeing consistent patterns, but the courts should do everything they can to overcome that bias no matter how naturally it formed.

      A good man doing things right should not be punished for the behavior of all the bad men. Even if the bias makes sense in terms of how it formed, it’s not only to indulge that bias in courtroom proceedings.

    • Summzashi@lemmy.one
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      6 months ago

      Even if that insane statistic you pulled out of your ass is accurate. You’re still telling millions of hard working dads to get fucked lmao. You are absolutely delusional mate.

    • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
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      6 months ago

      I’m curious to know how many of those men wanted kids?

      We all know that men don’t have a say in whether a pregnancy will continue, so I can see at least one explanation that could easily account for the tension in those families, and the observation you’ve had.

      Also keeping mind that this was in family court, not the average family.

      I know some spectacular fathers who put in way more effort then their wives. Don’t throw all men under a bus.