Anyone never know their Father?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m not talking about a father that was distant, or not always there when you needed him. I’m talking about you never knew him, period. As in you could be walking down the street, trip over him in the gutter, and never know he was your father.

Do you feel like this has affected your life in a negative way? Do you resent your mother for the situation? Most importantly though, how did she handle the topic? Was it taboo to even speak of? Did she bitch about him? Try to defend him? Pretend he was dead?
As you could guess, my three year old asked his first question about his father over the weekend. I’m so worried that if I handle this wrong, I’m going to set him up for a lifetime of resentment or feelings of inadeqacy and abandonment. Probably overreacting, sure, but I still want to do it right.

So if anyone’s been in this situation, or been close to someone who has, I’d really love to hear about it–good or bad.

2

I guess that’s me then.

My father has seen me twice, once when I was born and once at a car boot sale when I was a little baby. The latter time he ran away and hid. So you could say that I have never seen him. I’ve seen pictures of him when my mum and him were dating (they never got married. I am a bastard :smiley: ). Had a kinda James Dean look about him.

Would I recognise him on the street? Supposedly he looks a lot like me but I don’t see it. Probably not.

Has it affected me in any way? Of course it has. That sorta thing is gonna be life changing. But as for saying if it has affected me negatively I don’t know. I’m an alright guy I think, I have friends, I’m pretty smart, I’m friendly and loyal. I never blamed my mother once for my father leaving because she got into an abusive relationship straight after and I didn’t want much of a male role model around after that. She has never stopped me from getting in touch with him (He got himself a new family and emigrated to Canada) but I have often wondered about my half-sister, just because I doubt she even knows I exist. She used to talk about him a lot, all about their good times. But for years she used a different name to how I knew my father. (He used his middle name rather than his first)

What is your situation anyway? I mean my father just up and left without a eyelid batted basically. Was it the same for you?

3

Well, the parting was complicated—I asked him to leave, and apparently he liked the idea because he has completely vanished. I don’t even know what state he’s in, if any.
In a nutshell, he’s a junkie and a thief and I’d rather just tell the boys that he got sick and died (because, in a way, the man I once loved did just that). However, we’re still in contact with his parents and that wouldn’t really work. So, while I admire your mom’s ability to support you contacting your father, I can’t see myself ever being able to do that. I know their father would just blow them off, dissapoint them, confuse them, and possibly hurt them. I don’t WANT them to know him–partly out of spite, but mainly out of protectiveness.
But then that leaves me in the position of being the “bad guy” who’s keeping them from their dad. (Not that we’re even close to that point yet–they’re only 1 and 3–but I can see it looming in the distance.)
What a mess. :frowning:

4

You have got to be honest and supportive of your children’s concern, but more important is their welfare. If you feel it will do more harm than good allowing them to see their father then you must do whatever is in your power to protect them. You say that you still speak to the grandparents on his side. Can you allow them to remain involved whilst keeping Daddy away? The grandparents could offer that extra bit of love and support and provides the children with an insight into their father’s life.

Be honest with your children. They are young now so they won’t understand what these bad things are. And be very careful because of how impressionable children can be. I know it might sound wrong but you should not tell them off the bat what their father is precisely like or what he has done. As their mother they will believe anything you say at that age and when they grow up, especially in their teenage years they will start to understand that your word is not Gospel. If they once believed their father was bad and then begin to question that belief they will start to question your trust. As they become individuals it is all too natural to questions those beliefs they have taken for granted, especially such serious ones at that.

Basically you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. But remember, you children need protecting first and foremost. Let them have some connection to their father, hopefully through the grandparents. And in the end they may ending up confused, they may say they hate you for turning them against their father, they may try to turn everything you have done for them against you. But know this, they are only children who are growing up. No matter what they say, or what they do deep down they love you more than life itself and however long it may take, case adolescence is a looong time, things will turn out OK

5

When my father turned 16, his parents imformed him that they needed to legally adopt him. They explained that the woman he knew as his mother was literally his aunt. His mother had gotten pregnant at 15 and came to live with her sister until the child was born. My father spent the rest of his life feeling like a “throwed away” child and he always craved to know his identity. About a month before his forty-first birthday he took me back to school in Florida, that’s where his family was from. It was just him and me riding down and it was fun. He had told my mother when he left, that he intended to go back to his families home because, “Someone around that town knows who the son of a bitch is!” He never succeded, after he left me at school he started drinking and hit someone head on going south in a north bound lane. That was in January 1982. His actual mother had died of cirrhosis a few years earlier.

A few years ago, a man called me from Florida. He told me that he found out that he had a half-brother and asked my father’s name. Him and his brothers and their wifes came up her to meet me. I an part of their family, they are real good people even if they are Florida-crackers.

Tell your child who he is, don’t leave a void to be filled at random.

6

My experience was being born to an unmarried couple and having no contact with my father growing up. I’ve been told that I’ve seen him a few times, but I have no recollection.

I don’t want to go into everything, but yes, it’s affected me in both bad and good ways, just like all of life’s lessons do. But I’m holding my own in a pretty terrific life.

One thing I would suggest is don’t badmouth him if you can help it, but don’t be cryptic either. You should be open and maybe share some good memories at random (you know, how families share history at random). They will ask questions, as long as you don’t give off a “don’t ask me” vibe. And you should answer them as truthfully as possible without letting your own emotions get in the way. You might be able to share the depth of your pain and other details later, when they are adults.

It’s not necessary to say “this is the way it is, your dad was a bad man, etc., etc.” because that is subjective and you have to let each child make their own interpretation of the situation, knowing just the facts.

I think it’s important to stay in touch with grandparents, because as someone else said, it will help give them a sense of who they are, their history.

If you are open, you are not ashamed, and you shouldn’t be. And I’m sure you don’t want your children to feel that way.

Best of luck!

7

I would like to second everything my lovely sister has said, this in particular. Our mother never ever gave us any explanation why we didn’t have a father around. It was only when we were older, and by older, I mean into our 20s did we get any information. And it was half-assed information at that. I don’t have any resentment toward my mom for it, but I still think you should at least tell your son something about his father.

You might say, “He made some bad choices in his life, and being with him isn’t the best thing for our family.” And then you can get into more details as he gets older.

As far as affecting me in a negative way, <shrug>, who knows? It certainly has helped make me who I am (and my sister too). I think we’re both awesome chicks that he missed out on knowing. His loss. :slight_smile:

8

I’d never met my father until last August. I was 25 at the time. All went okay for a while, then in January blew up. I won’t be talking to or seeing him again.

Do you feel like this has affected your life in a negative way?

Yes, very much so. Everyone needs and deserves a good daddy, and I think not having one can really mess up a girl. However, my life would have been even more negatively affected if my mother had stayed with him and I had grown up in an abusive, alcoholic home.

Do you resent your mother for the situation?

In a way, yes. I’m GLAD she divorced him, of course. But sometimes I get really annoyed that she picked him to begin with. She had the capacity to make a better decision for a mate, but she was too blinded by her desire to have a baby.

But then if she’d done that, I wouldn’t be here, etc etc.

It sometimes messes with me, knowing now for myself what kind of man he is. I have half of his DNA. Does this mean I’m like him?

Most importantly though, how did she handle the topic?

I do have to give her credit for this. She was completely honest with me, as I was able to handle the information. I pretty much knew the whole story by the time I was 14 or so.

She terminated his parental rights, but always told me that any time I wanted to meet him, she’d be supportive of it and see that it happened. I always chose not to until last summer. I’m glad I did it, I guess, because I had some lifelong mysteries solved. On the other hand, I’m still reeling from being rejected (again). Not only have I lost him, I’ve lost my grandparents now, along with an uncle and an aunt I had come to love.

Did she bitch about him?

Eh, sometimes, but not too much. She tried very hard not to poison me against him.

Try to defend him?

No, but she did offer some insight into why she thought he turned out to be such a jerk. He never really had a chance in hell of turning out decent, not with his upbringing. (Not that this excuses him, because a lot of people turned out good that had bad childhoods. I’m just saying that because of his background, it’s not hard to see why turning out the way he did would have been “easier” than rising above it.)

Pretend he was dead?

No, and I think this is a horrible idea. I have a friend who is doing just that: decided she wanted a baby, went out and got knocked up by some guy she barely knew, and now she’s telling the kid that his father is dead. That is gonna blow up in her face when this man knocks on the door when her son is 15 or so.

As your kids are so young, keep the explanation simple as someone mentioned earlier. Tell them the truth in doses, as their maturity increases. You SHOULD keep them away from him right now, until they are old enough to decide for themselves if/when they want to meet him. Do tell them the good things about their father (hopefully there’s at least something positive).

My mother never made any effort to get a male figure in my life; I wonder if that would have made any difference with me. My uncle (who is a good man) was the only guy, but I didn’t see him often and he really never knew what to do with me. If you’ve got a brother that’s up for it, or a close friend/cousin, by all means get those boys around him as much as possible. There are some things boys just can’t learn from Mom.

9

I don’t know what split my Mom and father up, though she’s made mention that he came back from Vietnam different than when he left. It apparently didn’t stop him from running out and starting another family though, as I apparently have a younger half brother and half sister (we’ve never met, though I could should I be so inclined). The last time I saw him I was eight and he died last year. Yes I would have recognized him had I tripped over him on the proverbial strete corner as we looked alike.

I did try and contact him when I started having kids of my own, but it never amounted to more than a letter or three. To his credit, he did seem genuinely guilty, and that’s probably why it never amounted to much. We never got comfortable, and never tried picking up the phone, or trying to meet in person. Do I feel bad about either of us not trying harder now? No not really.

Now for how it has affected me. I’m not sure my childhood would have been any different. My Mom married an abusive acoholic (aslo now dead). I think I used to overcompensate as a father, staying in a bad marriage when it was clearly over for the sake of my boys. But then I might have done that anyway. Mostly I just try to be the best man I can be and the best father I can be to my kids, and hope everything works out for the best.

My advice, keep it simple. Tell him his father needs time to work things out with himself. (of course in a way a three y/o would understand). People get clean, he may try at some point to get back into his life. My ex is a former (maybe) cocaine addict who has been in and out of heavy addiction. I wouldn’t dream of keeping the boys away from her, even though life would be much simpler for me and most likely less hurtful for them if she fell into a bottmless pit. (My boys will never know I feel that way).

10

I forgot the Mom questions. No I never resented her, I knew it was his choice to leave the relationhip, and she never tried to stop him from seeing me. The only time I ever asked/discussed my Father with my Mom; he showed up a week later (mentioned above). He spent about an hour with me and gave me a yo-yo (much cooler than it probably looks in print) and walked back out of my life.

11

My sister was in your situation. She and her husband married when she became pregnant with their first child. When she became pregnant with child #2, he said “get an abortion or I’ll leave.” He left and had no contact with them for about 12 years, and even after that it was very sporadic (no visits, a phone call once a year). Me sister made it a point to never bad-mouth him in front of the kids, but just say that they couldn’t get along. My niece and nephew had my father as a male role-model and that seemed to be enough. I will say that keeping closed mouthed can backfire. What kids aren’t told they’ll fill in with their imagination. At about 7 or 8 my niece told her class that her dad was in prison for robbing a bank.

My niece (the younger child by 16 months) did go through a phase where she was “going to run away and live with my dad!”. The fact that she’d never met him didn’t enter into the equation. Finally her brother said “Shut up about our dad. If he loved us he’d call on the phone and send us Christmas presents and stuff”. It was hard to hear, but he was right.

I hope this helps. Good luck!

StG

12

Well, if she’s anything like me she likely has the same regrets. I didn’t get together with him because I wanted a baby, that’s just how it worked out. But I still feel like kicking myself for not choosing better for them. They’re great kids and they deserve a good dad. But with a different father, they wouldn’t be them so by wishing for a different past, I’d be destroying the present. It’s a complicated emotion, and hard to really describe.

For the most part, really, I don’t even think about it. We’re a family just as we are, and I have plenty of love to give them. My father is a great male influence for them, and the boys are happy and healthy. But when I see a man being tender with his son, I get a twinge. My boys deserve that, and I fucked up and now they won’t ever have it.

But anyway, it’s very reassuring to read from the dopers who’ve lived this and turned out OK. So thanks to all.

Stuffy

That’s it exactly! If he were nonexistent, I could deal with that and move on. But as it is now, I live with the constant, nagging, back-of-the-mind dread that he’s going to show up on my doorstep someday, maybe sober but probably not, trying to get into their life. He doesn’t deserve to be there, and the boys certainly don’t deserve the heartache he’s almost guaranteed to bring should he try.

Thanks for listening all, writing it out helps me sort through these feelings. They’re a bit embarassing, so it’s not exactly something you can chat about with your coworkers over lunch, eh?

13

My dad was a raging alcoholic (among other things), so my mother divorced him when she was pregnant with me. I met him once, at my grandmother’s funeral, when I was ten. I don’t believe we spoke. So, no, I don’t really know my dad.

It doesn’t bother me much. I don’t know how or where I found out (careless relatives talking, maybe a few things that my siblings remembered), but I’ve always known that he was a drunk and abusive and could get violent and was in general not fit to be a father. I didn’t resent my mother because he wasn’t in my life; the possibility that he might come back had me scared silly. In retrospect, she did other things wrong, but I can’t question her getting a divorce. I might wish she’d done it sooner, for my brothers’ sake, but then I wouldn’t exist, so there you go.

For the record, we always stayed in touch with my dad’s side of the family. I got to see my aunts and uncles and cousins, and we spent a lot of time with Grandma before she died. They loved us, even if he didn’t. I think it was really helpful for us to know both sides of the family, and I’m glad you’re still in touch with his parents.

14

I found out that the man I thought was my father wasn’t in December 2002. I finally sat my mother down and got the truth out of her. I wanted to die when she told me who my real father was, and why they’d broken up (he’d been married to someone else). The man I thought was my father – my foster father – had made her promise never to tell me the truth. We never told him, and when he died a few months later, he went to his grave sure I believed him to be my biological father.

I have still never met my biological father.

15

** But when I see a man being tender with his son, I get a twinge. My boys deserve that, and I fucked up and now they won’t ever have it.**

Oh, I dunno. You’re young. I’ve seen lots of women in your position end up with guys who were more than happy to become an InstaDad. It flies in the face of all biology, but I think it’s possible to end up loving someone else’s kids as if they were your own.

Just be careful about the guys you date. Maybe my criminal law classes have made me paranoid but perverts prey on single women to get to the kids.

16

I met my father once, when I was 29 years old. Didn’t really miss him or want to know him as much as I just wanted to see what he looked like. I now know what I’ll most likely look like in 25 years or so.

17

Never met the guy. Never even saw a picture of him until I was about 30. He walked out when I was a baby and never looked back, abandoning his wife and three children in order to chase demon rum and greener pastures. The wife left behind worked two jobs to scrape poverty-level wages, and the daughter raised me in her stead.

The elder son followed his father’s example of drunkeness and irresponsibility until it nearly killed him, saving himself only after three divorces and the alienation of his own children, one of whom is carrying on the proud tradition of dissolute behavior.

The daughter married a drunkard who mentally abused her and their children, who have somehow miraculously survived the ordeal, albeit not without emotional damage.

Despite being too young to remember him, it still bothers me somewhat to not have the connection to that side of the family. My mother had nothing more to do with anyone from that family and remarried.

The bastard died in the 60s of acute alcoholic problems. I shrugged when I heard the news.