There is no law that states a woman must breed.. I am sure there are many things fathers can do to keep a woman in line when she has PND but I suppose they feel unable to take control of the situation when they are told over and over that a man has to just let the woman do whatever and take the shit..

Kinda typical reporting there... The story is alledgedly about post natal depression in men yet the "sad story" is that of a woman....

Modern media at its finest.

TMOTS

Quote from felixblue

There is no law that states a woman must breed..

And there's also no law that says "a father must marry". As a older, "previously married" single parent of two (note unknown current status of "ex") I find "children & parenting" to be infinitely more rewarding so I say *just the opposite* "why risk the kids by getting married, entangled in state civil contracts, at all" ?

Think about it -> how many men here would be enticed at the idea of having a child without the fuss of dealing with "a bio spouse/mother"? My middle-school-daughter's-new-boyfriend's previously divorced father is raising a 1yr old by himself, with help from older son, grandparents, extended family etc (and now My Daughter?), due to *achm* a "post natal depression" ex-girlfriend who just naturally happens to prefer "sex mixed w/drugs and booze"?

Oh Well ! Last time i checked supporting bad habits is still definately cheeper than fighting in biased, lawyer based courts for custody !

The 1yr old happens to be "a boy" . . . Is there anyway to bring back hereditary dynasties, (RE)INSTITUTIONALIZE THIS ? ?

Quote from themanonthestreet

Kinda typical reporting there... The story is alledgedly about post natal depression in men yet the "sad story" is that of a woman....

Modern media at its finest.

TMOTS

lol. I get frustrated with media but that's because they often have an agenda before they interview anyone. Mind you, it's handy too, cause while the journalist is interviewing you, you can ask what they think and then say, "I want to say that", or "I don't want to say that".

If you want to fault my words, call me lazy for this is the sequence I found sites. I like the geeks site and find when searching for info, I come across their site quite a bit and they describe things well, IMO.

Anyways, I will work on not being lazy (bet you didn't expect this)

I left out the link to the site where JIM asks Duane for advice, OOOPS, will fix this. It's an excellent read and gives decent advice on this serious predicament, IMO.

Here is an excellent website for expecting dads, and new dads.

Quote from felixblue

There is no law that states a woman must breed.. I am sure there are many things fathers can do to keep a woman in line when she has PND but I suppose they feel unable to take control of the situation when they are told over and over that a man has to just let the woman do whatever and take the shit..

One of the reasons single parents need their own group IMO, is because they understand that control isn't possible. It's a big fall but it offers a spiritual awareness that's a gift now a days, IMO. It's also a relief, IMO, because controlling is allot of work.

Quote from michael k

...... "previously married" single parent of two ......

Hello Michael.

Think about it -> how many men here would be enticed at the idea of having a child without the fuss of dealing with "a bio spouse/mother"? My middle-school-daughter's-new-boyfriend's previously divorced father is raising a 1yr old by himself, with help from older son, grandparents, extended family etc (and now My Daughter?), due to *achm* a "post natal depression" ex-girlfriend who just naturally happens to prefer "sex mixed w/drugs and booze"?

My heart gets heavy when I come across young ones in this predicament and similar, cause like you, I am aware of the court system and relationship issues with children.

IMO, young ones having unexpected babies need to go through a stage of, "torn between my life and my child's life". Parenting is a huge responsibility that even older men and women find difficult.

We have a 21 year old dad whose taken care of his baby (21 month old) for 4 months on his own and as he needs to apply for full-time care to stop mum from taking baby, he is in the court system. Mum went through a stage of wanting to be a 20 year old and is fighting back for the full time care and to move to her parents far away. Even if she wins, which is unlikely cause he's applied while having the baby and the court cares about 'child interest before parent interest', but if she does, he will slap an order on her preventing her from leaving the city so she can't have family support (he is dad and has a right to be dad), and she will see it as abuse for her autonomy is taken, and all will fall apart leaving a baby stuck in the middle..... and then child services will come take the baby and he (baby) will be given away to a family unable to have children.

But if he wins, mum will fall apart because society deems mothers who lose to be worthless scum (a bad mother and woman) and any possibility for a successful life will be taken over by drugs etc.

He will also go through turmoil if she wins which makes me pleased he lives with HIS mother and has extended family support. Since the family has helped him as a dad, I am hoping they help him through loss if loss if what he gets.

AGAIN, It's a sad predicament.

Oops, sorry Michael. I read your story wrong. I thought your daughter was in a relationship with a single father, not in a relationship with the son of a single father.

I hope all works out for everyone involved. And that YOU are doing well raising your children - it's great to hear positive remarks from dads raising teen girls.

I've never heard male post-natal depression described, but it makes sense. I had a terrible case when my son was born. I've found that people who haven't experienced it can't really relate. It isn't something you can just "snap" out of, or control. It's very scary - you feel like the world is ending, and all you want to do is go back to living, but you can't. It is treatable, but you have to realize you have it, which strange as it sounds, people don't.

I would imagine that it would be harder on a man as it's something most people probably don't know about. I've done a lot of research on depression, and like I said, I'd never seen it before. So if he gets depressed, he has all those same feelings, but he may not wonder if it has anything to do with the new baby. Plus, men tend to want to "fix" problems, they're less likely to ask for help. And this is something that is unbelievably difficult to deal with on your own. I wonder how many times it's led to suicide? Sigh...

Thanks for your comment Kelly. I learned I had post natal depression when I told a professional I had thoughts of harming a baby when I held a baby years back when my children were teens. It scared the hell out of me for I wanted to do bad things to the baby and yet I am known as a good motherly type woman. It turns out that is part of PND. I shared my story on FB and a couple of mums have been putting a baby in my arms when they know I can't say 'No', lol. (at support meetings)
It's doing me good and the feeling and thoughts of harm are leaving me.

My nephew and his missus have just had a baby... She's reported to her doctor that she feels like smothering the baby and now social services are involved.

She has 'had to' move in with her parents which is a 20mile trek and as my nephew doesn't drive, means he has almost no contact with his son due to her problems.

Quote from Marx

My nephew and his missus have just had a baby... She's reported to her doctor that she feels like smothering the baby and now social services are involved.

She has 'had to' move in with her parents which is a 20mile trek and as my nephew doesn't drive, means he has almost no contact with his son due to her problems.

So she has a biological problem over which she has no control, she calls for help and social services makes a decision, and it's somehow her fault your nephew is temporarily separated from his son? It's a sad, sorry, situation, but just...wow. Would it be better if she continued to struggle on her own and killed their child while he was away??

You make it sound like she made up an excuse and kicked him to the curb because she was tired of him. Please tell me you just didn't express yourself very well.

It's unscientific of me perhaps, but I think plenty of men find it terribly depressing when they realize, usually during the course of helping a woman through labor, that from this moment on they are expected by their spouse, her family and society to have no purpose other than to serve what is defined for them as the mother's and children's needs, that their existence and identity as a man has been reduced to this, and that it will never end, regardless of what a man may have had in mind as a model for being the head of a family.

Built into this phenomenon is the notion that pregnancy and childbirth, being painful and risky, are therefore a thing perpetrated on women by men, and that as penance for this grievous violation of woman's perfect comfort a man is now the property of his children's mother and by proxy anyone to whom she should choose to delegate this new power over him.

Until very recent times men had no contact with the event of childbirth, and within my lifetime this has been transformed into a ritual of irrelevant, guilty servitude at the whim of a laboring woman, her family, and a usually female-dominated ob-gyn staff. There is no scientific argument in favor of this role for men in the events surrounding childbirth but it has become one of the great taboos of modern manhood that a father should in any way question or seek to redefine the way he is expected to participate in the childbirth event, and by extension anything having to do with how he is expected in a feminist culture to raise children or run a family. It is at this point that a man's new identity and reduced status are revealed to him, and despite the great joy and pride (and the enormous distraction from his own best interests) surrounding the arrival of new life, yes, it is damn depressing to wake up one fine day and find oneself a slave, to a stranger whom one once loved and believed in who now sees him as a potentially expendable combination of assailant, helpmeet and disruptor of the home.

Families and professionals both associated with childbirth need to be very, very circumspect about their actions and their consequences. It may be second nature by now in this new age (not a flattering term, that) to pamper and spoil women during this time, and treat them as if they were queens of the universe for as long as it takes, but the problem is that too many women simply do not handle this elevated status wisely, and too many grandparents and family members use this event to change their influence with a couple and their children, and more and more the position of empress-of-all-she-surveys is not one a woman is prepared to relinquish later on, and all this begins during a time when a woman's emotions and long-term decision-making (and science does back this) are at their most vulnerable.

Another example of mother/goddess-worship run amok, with no good argument in its favor, sacrosanct and unexamined mythologies as its motives, and children its ultimate victims.

(As an afterthought I want to add for consideration the influence of childbirth practitioners who are also active in the abortion industry, and the potential weight their values carry when that same day they may participate in destroying life and denying fatherhood at the demand of women who make this decision on the basis of the father's personality or the child's gender or for no given reason at all.)

It's unscientific of me perhaps, but I think plenty of men find it terribly depressing when they realize, usually during the course of helping a woman through labor, that from this moment on they are expected by their spouse, her family and society to have no purpose other than to serve what is defined for them as the mother's and children's needs, that their existence and identity as a man has been reduced to this, and that it will never end, regardless of what a man may have had in mind as a model for being the head of a family.
antimisandry.com Post natal depression is being tackled to save marriages

That's wonderful comment.

There's one small error. He's not actually the 'head' of anything. He's zero. Just the guy sitting in the corner, twiddling his thumbs and paying for the circus.