LETTER: No security for Nineties fathers

Sir: Why bother to be a father? Your report "Floundering fathers" (20 April) barely touched the real, but unspoken truth.

Like many men I could probably live with the relatively superficial problems noted in the article: fathers being negatively represented in the media; the overdemands of the Nineties workplace: the heightened expectations of post-feminist mothers.

Your article alluded to high divorce rates and noted the working mother's complaint that, "all I'm looking for is a 50/50 split of the responsibility", without exploring the incompatibility of the two. The courts are predisposed in favour of the mother's custody. So can someone tell me why a man should invest a joint 50 per cent commitment? Simply put, it's a gullible investment. Even in the job-insecure Nineties, a man's career offers more security than his position as a father.

G M Jones

London E19