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I AM A father who stayed at home to raise his children. Am I a rare species of man? Yes, because not many men are allowed by society to do this type of thing. But I think it is happening more and more and men just get on with it and don’t want any praise or acknowledgement.
To make a long story short I have three beautiful teenage children. I went through a long stressful time in the Family Law Courts trying in vain to get custody of them against all the odds. The facts are that only 1% of fathers who apply for custody get it and many don’t even bother to try because they know the outcome. You could say that I am 1 in a 100 who got custody after going through all the rigours which a mother would never be put through. To make matters worse, my three beautiful children were taken into care by order of the courts before I could apply to have them.
I can see the benefits
I had a very good public service job which I retired from early in order to be a full-time stay at home Dad. I was lucky that I had the option of retiring early but it was well worth it. I now see the benefits of one parent staying at home and not handing the children over to strangers to rear which, in most cases, is because both parents are out at work –sometimes through necessity and sometimes in order to have a better lifestyle.
Children up to the age of 18 years need parental care 24/7. The traditional method in Ireland over the years has been the mother and hence the father was seen as the provider. If the mother was in full-time employment she got maternity leave for a given period and when that ran out in the majority of cases she quit work altogether in order to be there for the children. Nowadays this has a devastating effect when it comes to separation and divorce.
A lack of male influence
As it turns out, a short time after I got custody of the children their mother sadly passed away and I was left alone to bring up the three children. I think it is fair to say that men are deemed by society not capable of this task and that is why mothers have all the say when it comes to rearing children.
The two most important influences on children lives in my opinion are the home situation and initial education; I would say at present mothers account for 95% of rearing the children in the home. National schools in Ireland are 95% female and this has a big influence on children lives in the future. If children are sick for any extended period then everyday carers at a hospital, especially the Children’s Hospital in Ireland, are 95% female.
Being ‘the only male’
While being a stay-at-home dad is rewarding and very satisfying I find it intimidating at times to be the only male figure on a school board of management or on the school parents association or waiting in the hospital for an appointment for one of my children. Very few fathers put themselves forward for these tasks and maybe it should be encouraged in the same way women are encouraged to go forward for election to councils and the Dail. In all of these situations there needs to be a proper balance and equality based on gender and, of course, ability to do the job.
It is perceived by many that men are good at some things and women are good at others. Maybe that’s why men feel themselves they are better at other things and they leave motherhood to mothers. Fatherhood is big for me and I like to think that I am doing a good job.
The author of this piece is anonymous to protect the identities of his children.
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It’s apalling that the courts assume the mother is more fit to raise children than the father. It is a gross assumption and nothing short of discrimination.
Absolutely agree…It took me 7years of my daughters life to get custody of her, despite the mother gone off and had no input in her upbringing from virtually day 1 we left hospital. ..Social workers the mess up not the Judges, they go on the Section 20 S/W report…In our case totally incompetent system. I had to go private with Psychologist etc before the truth was revealed in court and I got custody best €10 000 plus I ever spent. 7years of being forced to pay child support to a women drinking the money away and collecting child benefits for a child she wasn’t taking care of. ..weekly threats that i’ll never see my daughter again unless i paid her fines for disorderly public conduct….blady disgrace. But thank God today I’m part of that 1% that got custody
Agreed. Whatever happened to the best interests of the children? There’s plenty of cases where this would be better served by having the kids live with dad rather than mum – lazy assumptions about women being better caregivers don’t do anyone any favours.
I can’t fathom the fact that the mother may not be alive or present and the father has to fight to get custody! Baffling
Well done for persevering.
He got custody shortly before his wife passed away.
Sorry Mike, talking in general terms, not this specific case
We don’t really know the specifics in this case Ailbhe, as the article is quite vague.
Again I was talking generally, not about this specific case….
I was made redundant in January of last year and took over the role of looking after our one year old boy. Got to say it has not always been easy but it the greatest job I’ve ever had. I would recommend any father who is in the position to stay at home to give it a go. You might just find you have a hidden talent for parenting
WTF?
A grown adult wasting their talent staying at home to look after one little kid?
Wouldn’t your time be better spent out earning/progressing in the world?
Both my parents kept down jobs/businesses and looked after 4 of us?
Judging by your post, it mightn’t have been worth the effort
My parents looked after a grandparent aswell with no soft carers allowance.
I suppose today though
Cormac’s “heroic feat” is probably regarded as historic bravery, these days when feckless “parents” dump their offspring on their grandparents.
Good for your parents but that life doesn’t suit everyone. No one is expendable in the workplace, there is always someone who can do your job as well as, or better, than you but no one wil be able to parent a child as well as their mum or dad.
Well said Andrew, he seems to have a chip on both shoulders
chip? more like a sack of potatos
If there was no jobs there for them then they created their own jobs.
I picked up that craft from them, and I will pass that craft on to my own kids.
They are good parents.
And they didn’t have to stay at home and fuss to prove that.
The country is full of unmarried mothers “staying at home” raising the spoilt, disrespectful, cheeky drug dealers, criminals and deadbeats of the future, on taxpayers money.
It does’t seem to be a very effective method.
BORING
Surprised your not attacked by Seagulls considering the amount of chips you seem to have on your shoulders. What a colossal bore you must be.
@GATHERINGYOURMONEY14 The “spoilt, disrespectful” one here is you.
What a great role-model. Our society needs more people like you sir!
What?
Society needs more well paid public service employees who can retire young on big pensions?
If that was in his terms and conditions of employment fair play to him(where ever he was worked)
Maybe he had his own job/business and elected himself president
No, Dads who are willing to fight the sexist, ignorant system and look after their kids. Who cares what their job was?!
GATHERINGYOURMONEY14 obviously cares. But doesn’t care enough to get his facts right and develop a coherent argument around them
Yee know feck all about this guy or his circumstances to be drawn to such definitive conclusions about him.
Yee must be very gullible.
Fantastic story, your a credit to yourself, your children and your late wife, but you haven’t really told us much of what you experienced whilst fighting for custody of your children
Yeah
As usual a pretty vague account of events.
No timeline?
When did he get custody of the kids?
Last week?
When they were infants?
When they were due to graduate in their late teens?
When he was 60?
When he was 40 and got a soft state pension???
Why did he loose them in the first place?
Why did the mother loose them?
Why don’y you gather a few students around you and organise a seminar on the issue? You seem to have a great ability to brainstorm. They might be able to help you out on the next stage. Which would involve ridding yourself of prejudice and replacing it with reasonable argument
“Me kids who I decided to bring into this world were taken away from me”
“I got them back”
“I got a lump of money in an extortionate state pension”
“Ohh, I’m sorry I almost forgot to say”
“I’m a man”
“A mighty man at that”
“I deserve a medal”
“Give me some compliments”
How’s that for an article for ya Andy?
Steven Hillert posted a vg comment earlier was it about you?
Gatheting, all you seem to be doing is looking for a fight. You post confrontationally to get a rise. How very sad, such a tough guy from behind your little keyboard. Just move on, you’re not worth our energy.
Vast majority of Dad’s are wonderful but they never get a look in in the courts! There are loads of deadbeat shits out there too!
We live in a country that doesn’t give a dam about the father in a childs life, if were lucky we get 3 days leave ( at the discretion of your employer) . Why can’t the maternity leave be changed to parental leave to be shared if the parents choose ? I choose to spend the first 6 weeks off work with my wife and daughter when she was born , all without pay. If we lived in some of the more civilised nordic countries perhaps I could have availed of paternity leave of absence but not in Ireland with our anti family legislation.
Great point – I reckon both parents should get a period of leave around the birth – those first few weeks are (from what I have heard) extremely difficult and having both parents there to work together until things settle down somewhat just makes more sense. It also allows for crucial bonding and is generally just a bit more fair..
Here’s hoping – the sooner some equality surrounding parental rights can be achieved the better.
I’ve been saying that for ages. It would benefit the mother as much as the father. Taking care of a new born is exhausting and more so if you had complications or a c section.
Fathers have no rights here. I feel lucky to see my son and that’s no right.
Did I understand that correctly? The mother died so the state decided that it would be better able to look after the child than the father?
Is this normal?
The sooner the insane decisions of family courts are allowed to be reported the better.
His wife died a short time after he got custody, the fight for custody must have been the years preceeding her death.
Society dictates that women are good and men are bad.
Spot on
The ould
“Men have a penis, they can’t be trusted”
attitude.
Mind you, there are plenty of dxxkheads around that tend to prove the point
Children up to 18 need 24/7 care? I think that might be a bit over the top for an 18 year old?
Your still classed as a minor until you turn 18
Yeah of course, but most 18 year olds don’t need to be supervised every minute of their lives.
Roisin, alot of them need parenting well beyond their 18th
Yeah, I still rely on my parents for some things, but I haven’t needed supervision since I was much younger than 18.
Well Roisin
According to the author, it seems that children up to 18 yrs of age do in fact need 24/7 parental care
but only if you can retire young on a big fat pension courtesy of the state,
A state that ironically doesn’t seem to think that children up to 18 yrs need 24/7 parental care.
Interesting???
Your dogged interest in his employment history is borderline obsessive maybe he joined the army at a young age and had his time served, having teenage children at say 40 ish would allow him early early retirement on a FULL pension with time fully served, mystery solved
No. Only to you.
It’s a vague one sided article/story.
Is critical analysis not permitted?
If he was the father wouldn’t he automatically be the guardian? Is it the case that he wasn’t married to the mother? Can’t understand how he had to fight in the courts for this
No if the father is unmarried they have no rights at all.
through the courts he can claim guardianship which basically gives a say in which school the child attends and what religion they use but not much else. There should be an access agreement in place at this stage too.
Custody is the main one.
No automatic right to guardianship for unmarried fathers.. There was a new ‘bill’ meant to be implemented to provide some security for unmarried fathers but haven’t heard a bit about it for a while
Is this the bill Aoife? It only going to make the father be named on the berth cert. This is for the childs sake and wont really help fighting fathers.
Such an amazing man..
Sadly not all me are like you.
Nor all women/mothers like him either!!…Well done and sorry to read your children lost their mum in the middle of all the stressful tribulations.
That comment would appear to reflect the attitude of the Family Law Courts… While factually correct, it diminishes the majority of men who are good fathers… like the author.
Prolonging stereotypes isn’t really a good idea, is it?
Egg on your face again Elaine. Don’t you ever learn.
Elaine, the majority of fathers are wonderful loving parents with only their children’s interests at heart, obviously there’s plenty of dead beat gits out there too, but there’s also a lot of women who use their kids as a bargaining tool.
Most of us are, elaine. Just because you only meet pr*cks, doesn’t mean we all are
Elaine, are you and Bobby a double act by any chance?
Less of the insults Brian :)
StAy at home parenting is way better than some bullshit job
Thierry- that ‘bullsh#t’ job you speak of puts food on the table, a roof over their heads and sends kids to college.
Make your own job if you are not happy with the ones being offered to you.
What do you work at? How do you know so much about everything?
I have my own business.
What do you do?
Anonymous to protect the identities of his children? Are they victims of crime? Are they themselves criminals? What is this about? Myself and my sibling were raised by a widower who had to work to support us, there was no secret about it.
Where is the women & mens council of Ireland on this issue? All fathers should have equal rights to their children. Shocking the family courts still reflect the churches ethos on rearing children, a petition should be started as every women I know fully supports men having equal rights to their children and maternity leave.
Hi Sheik – it’s against the law for the media to identify any child who has been involved in the family court system. Obviously if the author was identified then his children could be too, so that’s the reason he’s writing anonymously here.
I think most of the younger generation would much rather joint custody. It’s incredibly stressful being a single parent with only access given to the other parent every other weekend or a weekday inbetween . There are some parents who are very happy only seeing their kids every other weekend though so I suppose that suits too. Sharing out the care and pressures is the way to go where possible. I see this working with even very young kids .
A lot of very emotional softie emasculated dead beat “dads” out there these days.
God help our future generations.
Especially if any of them have to be in a family environment with you.
There has been several studies into kids not being able to see there father. The study found out that between the age of 11 and 16 when the child really starts to understand that they were poisoned against there father that the same child turns against the mother. The child finds out that the father is not a monster or all the things the vile mother said he was. The child at this point turns completely against the mother the study found out that 79per cent turns on the mother I rest my case
Absolutely. The best thing you can do in that circumstance is say as little as possible and resist the urge to try the same tactic. Children aren’t stupid and can make up their own minds. The tactic always backfires on the one who uses it.
Sounds like you are doing a great job. A real shame it took action in the courts to give you that opportunity. All the best for the future.
My neighbor is a single dad of two young children and is doing a good job.
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