I totally agree with this. My husband and I have 6 kids. While he is an excellent provider, he requires a DETAILED list if left in charge of our children.
1. Take the meal I prepared out of the oven and feed them at 5:00.
2. Clean up the kitchen.
3. Bathe the 3 and 5 year olds. Dress them in the pjs I laid out.
You get the idea.
Without the list, the kids are still up at 10:00pm, dirty, have eaten chips, pickles, cookies- whatever they can find on their own.
There are VERY few times when I leave the 3 and 5 year olds at home. In reality my 12 year old son is more responsible with his sisters than their Dad is.
He is NOT a bad parent, he is an irresponsible parent.
I hear you on this, on the very rare occasions that I've left my 3 kids with Daddy - I come home to the exact same thing. I don't do lists at this point, I just never leave them with him for any longer than a short trip to the grocery store. It would be great if he could be better at being responsible for their needs, but I've learned he is just not capable of that - but he is an excellent provider for our family.
There is a BIG difference between caring for your children and caring about your children. Many people are capable of caring for children, they provide food/shelter, keep them clean, brush their hair and dress them in nice clothes, take them to the Dr. and make sure they attend school. My husband has a glitch in this area I guess, but I pick up the slack and am the sole care giver, however he most definitely cares ABOUT our children 100% as do I.
Sure this precious baby girl had someone to brush her hair and dress her in costumes and take pictures. She may have even had a beautiful home to live in, family members to feed her or take her to Chucky Cheese - That's all fine and dandy, but she also needed someone to CARE ABOUT her enough to check on her welfare and follow up. Sadly there was nobody there to CARE ABOUT her enough to do that, in the absence of that, all the THINGS in the world were really meaningless.
I believe perhaps her daddy cared about her but not for her. And didn't care about her enough to check on her welfare for those few short weeks she was with her biological mother. Obviously, the "Mother" neither cared for her or about her.
With that said, I will not say anything negative about the Dad nor his side of the "Family", He didn't abuse her, sell her, or kill her.