Do expectant fathers need support too?

Absolutely. In addition to the support you mentioned, they also need accurate legal advice. They have the right to keep their child if the first Mom does not want to. Too many times, fathers find out AFTER the child has been selfishly (and illegally) surrendered to adoption. What if a father tried to do that? Could you even imagine the outrage if a first father tried to give a child away to adoption without the first Mother's knowledge? Double standard, indeed.

Probably the glaring answer here would be....How many expectant fathers (in crisis/unplanned pregnancy of his GF/considering adoption) needing support with their impending fatherhood, are asking questions here on YA Adoption?? The amount of expectant fathers (in crisis) posting on YA Adoption, is minisicule, if you want to use YA as a random sample. One can only offer support, if one shows an interest in support and/or asks for it or is identified.

Absolutely, expectant fathers should be involved with the impending birth of their progeny, but sadly, much like yesterday...many expectant fathers still run for the hills when they are told they are about to become a father. Not too mention the *birthmothers* who callously decide not to tell the father that they are indeed pregnant and carrying his child, when any type of abuse is not even in the equation/absent. Also most of your adoption agencies would like the *birthfathers* to completely disappear, as they are seen as a 'fly in the ointment', thus not offering any "emotional" support to the expectant father, other than the "support" that their child will be better off with stranger people. And the "double standard" is that the mother is always way more responsible for "getting herself pregnant", to seek whatever support she can get on her own (whether that be emotional or financial), thru public assistance or the courts, whether yesterday or today.

And not all pregnant women can work the entire time of their pregnancy..depends on what type of job they have and also due to any medical pregnancy crisises that can many times occur. Pregnant women not only have need of emotional & financial support during their pregnancies, but physical as well....the physical part being an area of pregnancy that a man will never be able to experience. Pregnancy is not an *equal opportunity* condition, wherein the man can have all the same problems with a pregnancy as a woman...pregnancy is not a *Unisex* endeavor...never was, never will be.

Men as a whole need to be made very aware that every act of sexual intercourse can result in procreation and they need to step up to the plate as much as any pregnant woman/mother needs to do as well. These are lessons that need to be taught to our male children from a very early age...and not just when a 'crisis pregnancy' unfolds. Bottom-line..yes Family Preservation needs to involve the fathers as well as the mothers, on all levels...so long as you can still locate *daddy*, or identify him.

I think a lot of the issues regarding men not receiving support for pending father-hood and women being made to take more responsibility by society for child-rearing/contraception/etc are linked. From childhood there is a role segregation. Girls play mom. Boys play soldier. Men are held to the provider role - in the media the ideal dad is the good provider who dispenses advice at opportune times. Boys are supposed to seek sex and be afraid of commitment and babies. Men are expected to pay the cash and let the mother's make the choices (just look at how acceptable people seem to find it to lie on the birth certificate about the father's id). They are treated like sperm donors whose worth is measured in how on time they provide for their families. Is this fair? No. I would love to see more support groups for expectant fathers. Free parenting classes offered for young men. It might cause more of a turn around then people think, if men were taught that it was manly to be involved with their children, and if they were offered the promise of a deep lasting bond with their children instead of just a monthly bill and whatever access the mother wants to give. I know a lot of people don't think its so unfair, but I would like to see a father try saying that since the mother had sex with some other guy she couldn't see her child anymore. It wouldn't fly, but women do it to men all the time. If men were expected to take an actual role in their childrens life, and they were raised to expect it, then I think more men would take more of an interest in contraception, and in their babies. Yes, a woman needs a different kind of support, but its not fair to just write off the man in the situation because he isn't going through the physical changes. Its still going to change his life forever. I think giving men more resources and emotional support in addition to changing the conditioning we do in this society would see a huge change in the baby drama dynamic for the better for everyone.

I am going to an swer this intentionally without reading any of the answers already posted.

Yes, men who are about to be fathers certainly deserve to have support, from their families, from their spouse or significant other or from society as a whole. Unfortunately, with the goal being to get the baby to market in the most expeditious manner possible, the father's rights are often ignored or circumvented. If the industry doesn't flinch at eploiting a pregnant woman, why woudl their scruples resist overlooking the rights of the father?

However, there are VERY few fathers who are stepping up or making a stink about their rights being dismissed. Most often they are just glad to be off the hook for paying child support or they are not caught paying for someone elses child.

"We talk a lot about how expectant mothers in crisis need support... and her partner always seems to be assumed to be part of HER potential support system, rather than someone who also might need support. But why is that?"

Norms of society.

Women/girls are held more responsible for the pregnancy/parenting then men.

I think guys should be getting support from their family if they are trying to be responsible and raise their child. Telling a girl to place her child up for Adoption isn't being responsible for the child.

Its escaping reality.

Women (often labeled tramps when the pregnancy is unplanned) are often accused of coercing the guys sperm out of him (trapping him). The guys are (labeled) victims even when it comes to providing child support payments to the Ho's & B*tches.

Some parents are stuck with the 50's mentality that the girls pregnancy is not their sons responsibility because "she" shouldn't have been having sex until marriage or at least 21.

Edit: - "just that what you're suggesting still seems to hold them MORE responsible than women. (A mother is offered support just for being a mother; a father has to prove something.)"

Not More responsible but responsible (in and of itself).

That means from day 1 just like it is for a pregnant girl. She doesn't have the option to wait to get a job & save up....neither should he. I don't think that too much for a girl/woman to ask for.

"It seems like in most talk of family preservation, if a father walks away, he's considered a deadbeat, but if a mother walks away, it's assumed that lack of support meant she didn't have the opportunity to parent her child. Why the double standard?"

Very few women "walk away" from their children.

Can you really say the same about men.

Who are the one's struggling emotionally and financially and are filing for welfare for their kids because the spouse has abandoned the family?

There is no double standard.

I love your question!!

Family preservation should not be just about the mother -child relationship but the entire family -- mother, father, siblings, and even extended family.

I do believe that if more expectant fathers were given support (especially emotional), they could and would take on the responsibility of parenting. To often I see on this site telling expectant mothers to sue the father for child support to help them, instead of assuming he is a deadbeat why not ask the question, what if he just needs the same support encouraging him to parent? To me that is a huge double standard.

Yes

Exactly! and i hate how women say men are mean or @ssholes or whatever im not 1 but i knows some guys that are.. half the guys arent even like that..

So anyways lol yes it is good to have support for the mother and the father..

Both parents should support

Both people should have support.