Deadbeat Dads Are Not "Robbed" Of Fatherhood If They Never Try

It’s a common trope among the deadbeat dads of the world: Their ex-wife’s a bitch, she keeps their kids away from them, they never got a chance to be a dad, blah blah blah. The system isn’t perfect, and I’m sure there are some good dudes out there genuinely fighting to be in their kids’ lives — but fighting is the key word. In many cases, the deadbeats whining for sympathy are just trying to ease their own guilt, usually crying about it to a new woman they want to impress.

It gets worse when those women start perpetuating the same bullsh*t.

In a recent episode of a podcast available through her Patreon, former Teen Mom 2 star Kailyn Lowry claimed that her new boyfriend — who has an 8-year-old daughter whose life he is reportedly not involved in — was “robbed of fatherhood.” According to social media, though, he is not a dad in any meaningful sense beyond biology.

“I do think there are periods where he could’ve done more,” Lowry says on the podcast, referencing her partner’s relationship with his daughter. “I’ve said that to him.”

But then she continues: “He was robbed. I don’t care what she — what her camp — has to say. I know what I saw, I know what I read, I know what conversations I’ve listened to, and he was robbed. As a father.”

Girl.

Why are we going to bat for deadbeats?

It has to be said that Lowry has been a public figure for a long time, and we’ve seen her try to push her children’s biological fathers out of their lives to make room for new partners. We’ve heard her villainize women who date her exes and play a role in her children’s lives. We’ve literally watched her move states away from her first child’s biological father, and then become upset when that dad moved to be closer and more involved with their son.

Since the podcast episode aired, Lowry has followed up via Instagram story, saying she plans to apologize to the mother of her partner’s child because she needs to “stay in her lane.”

But that attitude is painfully familiar. It’s common among deadbeat dads and the new women in their lives who rush to defend them. And hearing Lowry insist she knows what’s really going on between her partner and his ex — that she knows he’s being denied a chance at fatherhood — makes me viscerally angry.

I’ve been the mother of a child with a deadbeat dad.

I’ve listened to my ex, who never once asked to see his infant daughter after I left, suddenly demand visitation. He wanted me to pump for our exclusively breastfed baby so she could stay overnight with him... and his new girlfriend.

He would be months behind on child support — child support I voluntarily reduced to a third of what our divorce orders required — while his girlfriend posted on Facebook about how I was a bad mom because my 2-year-old still used a sippy cup.

There were months when my daughter screamed every time I tried to leave her with him. He’d ask me to come pick her up early, only to turn around weeks later and accuse me of stealing his time when she had strep and had to go to the doctor (for which he wanted “proof”). His girlfriend, meanwhile, would write online about what a “damn good dad” he was.

Here’s the truth: We don’t know the full details of anyone else’s co-parenting relationship. But, truly, nobody goes harder for a deadbeat dad than his new girlfriend. Maybe it’s pride. Maybe it’s denial or guilt. It doesn’t matter because the result is always the same: rewriting reality to protect a grown man’s ego.

Be a girl’s girl. If your new boyfriend has an 8-year-old daughter he’s reportedly never even met, please don’t assume it’s his ex who “robbed” him of fatherhood.

If he wanted to be a dad, he’d be a dad.

Later in the interview (during which Lowry’s new partner says next to nothing and looks like a little boy whose mom is explaining something to the principal), Lowry goes on to say she can’t understand the child’s mother’s position because there was no domestic abuse involved — implying there’s no reason he shouldn’t be included in raising her daughter.

You know... maybe he could include himself? He could lawyer up and take his ex to court. He could take accountability for his mistakes and ask what it would take to earn the chance to be a father.

But that would be too much work, wouldn’t it?

My own situation turned out exactly how I always knew it would. My ex remained a disengaged, every-other-weekend dad. The only time he pushed for more was when his mother or his girlfriend got involved.

When my daughter was 6, she refused to go to his house for the first time. And for the first time ever, he didn’t fight it.

Later, she told me why. My ex’s girlfriend (now his wife) would argue with my 6-year-old over why she couldn’t call my husband, the man who actually raised her, “Daddy.” It then came out, in spurts, the emotional abuse: locking her alone in the house if she refused to eat green beans, or having her sleep on a stair landing because there weren’t enough bedrooms.

This woman was the epitome of a deadbeat dad’s new girl. Trying her hardest — including texting me things like, “Are you planning on ever cutting her hair?” — to prove that I was the bad parent and that I never gave him a chance to be a good dad. Talking sh*t on me to my own daughter. Telling anyone who would listen that I was a bad mom.

A year later, that same “damn good dad” willingly signed over his parental rights so that my daughter’s real father could legally adopt her.

I’m sure, like Lowry, my ex-husband’s wife believes I’m to blame. That’s how these narratives survive. Mothers are cast as villains so that grown men don’t have to own up to their choices. It *can’t* be that the men these new girlfriends and wives love actually stepped out on their kids; it has to be that there was an evil witch involved the whole time.

And you know what, for my child’s safety, I’m willing to be the evil witch in a deadbeat dad story.