General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Men [View all]H2O Man
(73,537 posts)Some folks -- like the one you responded to -- make assumptions, and come up with "responses" before reading what's in front of them. That prevents them from being able to process the information they are reading.
The closet thing to "blame" that can be found in the OP is how the system worked for far too long. It reflected patriarchal values and gender roles. And I put the responsibility for being a responsible father on men -- most of whom are responsible parents. (There are, of course, irresponsible parents who are male, and others who are female.)
Other folks have brought up family/ domestic violence. There is no family violence that I have ever defended. In fact, for several decades, as a social worker, I specialized in family violence (prevention and treatment). I covered four counties in upstate New York. And the most common form of family violence that is reported, investigated, and confirmed, is that of parent against child. One could speculate that other types happen more frequently, and are under-reported, but that is speculation. Documented cases are parent against child. And the most frequent offenders were not fathers.
In that work, my tasks were found in two primary areas: the first would be documenting reported incidents, and assessing the parents' likelihood of benefiting from counseling; and second, working with parents to learn better skills to eliminate violence.