Should men be able to opt out of parenting?
Sometimes being a parent isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I mean, can you believe that us parents voluntarily opt into being woken up numerous times during the night in order to change dirty nappies, feed little mouths and sing and sway for hours on end in the same position staring at the same wall we’ve stared at for the past 12 months.
Yet, according to a survey conducted by The Telegraph, a staggering 70% of people think that dads should have the right to opt out of parenting.
If I’m honest with you, I’m struggling to get my head around this large figure. The story goes that a man meets a woman on a dating website and they have a few dates. This leads to them having sex three times. The woman tells the man that she was using a diaphragm, therefore shirking the male of his responsibility to ‘suit up’.
The woman then goes to visit her family for three weeks, however when she returns she tells the man she’s pregnant and boom he’s involuntarily going to become a dad.
Of course we don’t have all of the facts so we have make a number of assumptions and that could go one of two ways.
The first is that the woman was telling the truth and was wearing a diaphragm, effectively putting herself in the same position as the man in involuntarily becoming a parent.
The second is that she was lying and wasn’t using anything at all because she deliberately wanted to become pregnant.
Either way, who is in the wrong?
Let’s look at the first scenario. If the woman did use a diaphragm then she’s going to be just as shocked and surprised as the man in the situation, but this leads me to the question should the man have taken more responsibility and insisted on wearing a condom?
Regardless of that situation, I still struggle to see why 70% of people think it’s ok, acceptable even, for the man to be able to opt out of being a parent. I mean, clearly the woman didn’t plan for this to happen and seeing as she’s the one who’ll have to carry the baby for nine months, endure her body changing and go through childbirth, she can hardly opt of parenting, can she now?
Ok, I guess she could have an abortion or put the baby up for adoption, but either way she’s the one who’s going to have to live with that decision should the male decide he wants nothing to do with her and the baby.
If we look at scenario number two and go down the route that the woman deliberately lied in order to conceive, does the man in question have the right to ‘opt out’ seeing as he was effectively conned into becoming a dad unwillingly or is it his fault for not wearing a condom?
Understandably I can sympathise with the man as he was tricked and led into a false situation, but at the end of the day that’s his child and therefore still his responsibility. If he was that adamant about not wanting to be a dad, then perhaps he should have worn condom in addition to thinking that the woman was using a diaphragm?
It’s a difficult one, I’ll be honest, but the thought that 70% of people think that men should be able ‘opt out’ of parenting makes me feel uneasy.
What do you think?
2 Comments
Hannah Latoya Bond
August 30, 2016 at 10:53 am
I think both parents should equally be responsible for bringing up the kids. What really annoys me is the inequality there is. If a man walks out he is made to pay child support, but what about single dads out there. Do the women who go off and leave the kids have to pay child support too. x
kerry norris
August 31, 2016 at 6:19 am
Very tricky situation isn't it. You can sympathise with the male but then there's always that risk involved so he has a responsibility x