What They Don't Tell You About Co Parenting
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
196.98285
Summary
In this episode, we speak to the founder of Equal Start, a group dedicated to fighting for equal rights for single fathers in the UK. We discuss the issues faced by single fathers across the UK, the importance of fathers in society and the challenges single fathers face.
Transcript
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run a an organization right would that be correct i would say i'm more of an activist
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you're more of an activist i'm i'm trying to create one at the moment called equal start
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okay can you tell us a little bit more about that when it comes to fathers
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well with me i've been campaigning since 2013 before i had trouble with my oldest son
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obviously to get equal rights for fathers in terms of parental alienation as you know we
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suffered disproportionately from it and i just want to make a difference in actually getting out
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there and spreading awareness showing that we have you know the right to parent as just as much as
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mothers so what about that stat about 200 um children per day being removed by the family
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court system is that like a is that something you come across really no not really i've never really
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seen that myself i've more seen 400 000 single fathers raising their children that's what i like
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to focus on right it's just that created war gathered by nutmeg an organization that shows
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you the positives of fatherhood in the uk but obviously something like that will be shocking
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to me 200 a day that's outlandish when you said that um you were having trouble with your like
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with your do you say your son my eldest son what do you mean well i don't see him much at the moment
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we're estranged and a lot of the bedrock behind that is because of the typical problems that you
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see in the uk in family breakdown typical problems you're gonna have to elaborate on that one
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well my first son mother when we got together um it was a casual thing um before we slept together
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i said look what is your goals and priorities in life and she was at university at the time
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so was i but she would have two children i didn't have any so i said look um you're one of four
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mistresses so are you gonna put up with it or i'm telling you from now i'll tell you my vices and my
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virtues so she said that's fine you're being straightforward with me six weeks later she told
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me she's pregnant and said you sure is it mine that can't be right i said we're gonna have to look
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into this so throughout the pregnancy there was a lot of back and forth and i was you know in two
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months said you know whether i should say getting abortion or will i look like a monster so i was
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torn he was traumatized me to be fair and i had a dream once that um my son being in the womb
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i woke up and said oh please don't kill me daddy so i said you know what don't have it i went and it
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was a firstborn son so i was pleased so i said yeah have you have the child um came along now 18 months
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felt like 18 years back and forth you know family corruption i didn't like the way she interacted with
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her siblings and her parents i didn't like the way she handed her first two children she introduced
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them to me to me far too soon the way i saw it and from then was that loggerheads and it never got
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any better it just got worse and worse to like to terminate the relationship but then if you're like
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if she's introduced like just if she's introducing to her children too soon
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why did you kind of no by that time i was um i was pretty promiscuous that time okay it's one of
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those things lack of discipline and bad choices and because i thought i told her my stance is i don't
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want any children so i'll get married she probably thought here comes muggins i'm gonna get him yeah
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so you think so you think you got played yeah yeah i think so i would say so you've got two
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children already at the time she wasn't even 24 yeah and i was not even 25 so i said why would you
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want to have you've got two children already with different men why would you want to and we're at
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university i'm lived in shared housing you still live at home with your mother why would you want
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me to um be the third one so are you trying to be eureka johnson if you no one doesn't know that
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pun she's a swedish former host they used to be on gladiators she's got four children four different
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men so obviously i was mocking her like that but at the end of the day she we we tried he didn't make
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it much but let's see i had to get rid of it do you think that's common where women try to get
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pregnant by a guy that doesn't want to wife them well i haven't got no stats around it but in my sphere
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like just from anecdotal evidence nothing yeah what do you guys think i think that's true i think so
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i definitely have heard stories from guys who say that the woman has tried to trap them um so i do
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think it's pretty common it's very common do women admit to trapping guys never i've never heard a
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woman admit to trapping a guy maybe not to a guy maybe to their friends yeah yeah because my gut just
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tells me as a girl like we have so many forms of contraception so if you really don't want to get
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pregnant by a guy like you'll make you'll make damn sure that you do not get pregnant by the wrong guy
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i agree but then again like if it happens by accident like say a girl's on a pill and she ends
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up getting pregnant and she's against abortion then you know that could happen but i don't think it's
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very common yeah it seems like it's more like the exception rather than the rule
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to the co-parents here though how is co-parenting is it an easy process or a hard process
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oh um i would say it starts off as a hard process and you do have to sometimes you're back and forth
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back and forth and then you finally get to that to that point might be taking months years um to get to
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that point of just understanding and realizing what the main you know issue is and what the
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responsibility is and what you need to do um speaking personally i think with my situation um
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i was with my son's dad for six years and it didn't work out you know and um and obviously because i've
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ended the relationship he wasn't very happy and he still was trying but then because i didn't want to
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he didn't want to take because we weren't together he didn't want to do his part of being of being a
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dad so when it's like that it's definitely challenging and um yeah you just have to kind of
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stick at it you give them the the the conditions of look this is how it's going to be are you able
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to do that if not i'm going to continue doing what i'm doing until you realize the situation so i do agree
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that some people have a nice flow process of it but some people they it depends on how that
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relationship was and how you broke how you broken up and and if you know you can be civilized about
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it when you say you gave him like this is what's going to go on yeah um as a father myself yeah and
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i don't know if the fathers can testify to it a lot of the time women create hoops for fathers to jump
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through and if those fathers do not jump through those hoops the way the woman wants the father to
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jump through them then they make it difficult for the father to see the child yes some people do
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but for myself because it was i was like look sort yourself out get yourself your place you got the
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time i'm not going to rush you so get yourself a job sort yourself out and you know um and yeah when
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you can find a proper place to stay and you can have him then you you're welcome to i wasn't very
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pushy i wasn't asking for money i was just getting on with it because at the end of the day i had
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that's how it is i think it depends on your circumstances and what you're and what yeah
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and who who broke up with who as well can i ask you something i mean so you said you broke up with
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him yeah yeah how long after the kid was born did you break up with him um i'll say about about five
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five years yeah five years after so when when what was a marriage like ever yeah i was i was engaged
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and everything um and then i got and then i fell pregnant so i was engaged and then i got pregnant
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two months after and did you consult any of your like male like family as to if you should
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go in that direction you know what um not really i think how how it was was um yeah it wasn't something
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to discuss with the family i wasn't really you know i'm not really close in that sense
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you say that but that's well in hindsight now you could be what why you should have went to the
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family if you get what i mean the reasons why we broke up was just our own relationship he was also
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he was a good dad not we broke up you broke up with him yes yes because there was you know layers
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things that were going on i'm not gonna you was willing to sacrifice your child growing up in a
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relationship with two parents as to pose your happiness not really because um due to personal
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reasons i've had to that was a decision i had to make and i do feel like um he's been his his how he
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was as a dad was not questionable i knew he was good with his son and everything but it was an ongoing
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situation that had to had to be best for the home as well i had to look at every angle you can't just
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be like you know stay in a situation that may not be healthy for for for the child you see now we're
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getting you know i mean you've got to be you're talking about like um assault what do you mean
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like domestic abuse oh no no i'm not talking about domestic abuse but i'm just saying that um when you
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both are not on the same page and it's not working in the household you do have to make a decision do you
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know what i mean i think it's interesting that like we say we speak on the show all the time about um
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the divorce rates and breakup rates in the uk is 64 percent of relationships marriages specifically
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women are the ones to initiate the breakup in america it's as high as 80 percent 90 percent if
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you're college 90 if you're college educated yeah so if women are the ones breaking off these
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relationships um and then making it hard for the father it's a double-edged sword do you know i mean
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like so fathers are being broken up with and also they are now being um told that they can't see their
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children the way they want to see their children well i think in the in the u.s um women win custody
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cases it's either 70 or 80 percent of the time and it's kind of like why is that it's because women
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normally kick the man out the house if if you okay if we establish a routine of me having the kid
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before i leave the house then you can't have full custody of the kid so what typically men make the
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mistake and do is they leave the house with the woman and the kid and then now you're responsible
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for um paying for the child right and then she can go to court and say that he wasn't involved even if
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she was keeping him away from the kid and um the other thing that i learned the other day in the u.s
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at least um you're entitled to 25 for one kid of a man's income and that's after um that's like
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leftover income so it's not even taxed so a lot of guys get into really bad financial situations
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because they make a certain amount of money and she gets 25 even 50 if it's more than one kid of
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his income say he loses the job he still has to pay and it could be months before he gets it changed
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now he's thousands of dollars in debt and on top of that if she's withholding the kid then she he
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had to pay thousands of dollars in court to go see his kid so a lot of times breaking up the family
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leaves a lot of men in like financial ruins i know and depressed suicidal go ahead yeah sorry i know
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there was someone on the show before and i know i interviewed him myself for for on my channel and
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he had spent upwards of 25k just trying to see his child in the family court system because he was
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dealing with a mother who um you know was trying to alienate him from his child and i think a lot of
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the time when it comes to fathers and mothers one thing that's not spoken about the deadbeat dad
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narrative is spoken about a lot we've heard it for like decades but what we don't hear about is like
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deadbeat mothers mothers that are alienating their children from their actual fathers do you know i mean
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and i think i think that needs to be spoken about a lot because i think when it comes to when it comes to
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mothers like i said with jumping through the hoops if you don't do what they say
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then you're a deadbeat dad and they'll go around spreading around around the whole town to your
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family friends that you're a deadbeat dad why but just because you didn't want to jump through the hoops
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that she said but that's okay like so there's okay
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you see some women like they would say that about any of their baby father if they're not with them
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typically if they say it's their friends or whatever but if you are like you like the guy
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and you had the baby without him even wanting the baby
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so now we're talking about fathers that want to be in the life
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we're not even the kids is not even here yet i did not want to have a kid with you
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and you had the kid anyway and now i'm forced to look after the kid and you don't understand as a
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woman how it feels because you've had the kid inside of your belly for so long so you're so
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attached you don't understand like why doesn't he why doesn't he like doesn't he love the kid it's
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like men carry so much visceral from women that actually like trapped them and it might not
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necessarily that i don't like necessarily want to see the kid but every time i see your face
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it reminds me of what you did do you get what i'm trying to say and it's like the kid is more of a
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like um like the kid ends up getting hurt but it's more of a extra as opposed to the relationship so
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that's why when i said to her like did you leave the relationship it's like why would you have a kid
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with me if you're going to leave me bro but people don't intend people don't plan those kind of
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things i know situations happen why have the kid then you know and why don't we get married you know
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even if you get married things do happen yeah but if you get married then it's like you're not making
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a kid out of wedlock so if i'm if i go if you got a ring on you and i've got a ring on me you have
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more responsibility as a woman to be more to take on crap or jimmy because what you got to understand
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yeah is that sometimes when men say stuff like that they're saying well yeah you can't you can't
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just get up and go because you're married yeah but it shouldn't be used as that we shouldn't be
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looking at that angle we shouldn't be using it for that do you see what i mean you chose the man
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so yeah and obviously again so it's not like you in jail you you chose the man and we're still entitled
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to to if things are not working entitled to leave the situation i think the question is at what point
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is your happiness more important than the kids yeah because when you you raise a kid in a single
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parent home you're putting your kid at every statistical disadvantage of course but then and
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so i'm not i'm not saying women should be able to take anything but i think it begs the question and
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