ABSTRACT
As a 22-year-old medical student, David suddenly found that his girlfriend was pregnant and wanted to keep the baby. She was three years his senior and already in a steady job, while he was accruing debts as his studies continued. He moved in with her and tried to keep his studies going while caring for her and the home, and then also the baby. He could not combine all these tasks successfully, particularly because his partner needed to go back to work in order for the family to maintain an income and pay their bills. David decided to suspend his studies for a year or so, and then his partner became pregnant for the second time. David now found himself caring for two young children. He loved the boys and even enjoyed the daily routine, but he missed the intellectual stimulation of his training and found caregiving to be very socially isolating. He invited mothers and their toddlers who attended the same activities as his children to coffee, but they seldom came and never invited him back. He gradually sank into a depression that led to the breakdown of his relationship, and then his partner asked him to leave the house. Because the children were born before 2005 (when fathers in the UK assumed automatic responsibility when their names were on the birth certificate), he found that he had no legal redress and was not even allowed to see the children whom he had cared for with great diligence.
