Oh, they're out there. My own father walked out the door telling me he would be back to pick up my brother and sister and I for the weekend. The next time I saw him was over 2 years later when I accidentally ran into him on the street. He lived about 15-20 minutes from us (but I was 9 and 5 miles was farther than I was allowed to bike).
When he died last month, he'd had no contact with any of his children for almost 25 years. He paid not a dime of child support to either ex from the time I was 18 (age of majority was 21 then) and his other children were still 12, 10 and 6.
(And though my mother has her faults, she largely refrained from speaking ill of my father and always insisted we obey the court's custody arrangements in later years when Dad's second wife finally started visitations. I have wonderful aunts, uncles and grandparents, so I'm not crying a river here. I'm just saying some people have very little interest in seeing their children. Frankly, and though she never abandoned us, my mother is happier with her nose in a book than spending time with her kids and grandkids.)
