I don’t think that’s the question. The question is how to deal with the father wanting to be somewhat involved with one son and not at all involved with the other. That’s a much, much more difficult problem to grapple with. Writing him of entirely would be simple. But do you deny one son contact in order to protect the other one from constant explicit personalized rejection? I mean, the choices are between telling son A “Your daddy loved you but I didn’t think it’d be fair to your brother to let him come around” or telling son B “Your daddy just doesn’t like YOU. He wants to be a father, loves your brother, but there’s something in you that makes you inherently unlovable”.
I think for now the only solution is to hope he comes around when the paternity is proven. It sounds like he is in deep denial at the moment.
Considering that the root of the problem is his refusal to have anything to do with the baby, that rationale or attitude is what needs to be unraveled if you have any hope of him interacting with the child.
On the face of it it seems utterly irrational. What is the genesis of this attitude? What has he expressed as the reason he does not want to interact with the baby?
I’m assuming he’s not so stupid to think that your daughter can’t force acknowledgement of paternity and his responsibility as father, so what is the issue?
Also, what’s up with your daughter in this scenario? Just saying she’s a “dill”/idiot doesn’t get to the root of this. Assuming she’s really not truly retarded why does she go back to a man who refuses to provide adequate financial or familial support. Have unprotected sex again, and carry the baby to term again. It does some seem on some level she has a goal or objective in doing this. Have you asked her what her thinking was in doing this?
Is the problem that he thinks (however irrationally) that your daughter is entrapping him somehow?
He probably acted like that with the first baby too, did he? Kid will grow up a bit and he’ll probably take him on to a similar extent as the first one.
Why are you focusing on the deadbeat father and not your daughter? The way I see it, there are two ways to approach the problem:
Change the father of the child. Not going to happen.
Change your expectations of the father of the child.
Right now, the baby has no opinion about his biological father. Over the next few years, everything he knows about the situtation will come from the family that’s raising him. Sure, when he’s five or seven his brother or some other kid will bring it back to him, but between now and then you can build a very strong person who knows but doesn’t care.
Once the courts rule the guy is the father, his attitude may change and this may all be moot.
Now, how about some counselling for your daughter? Having one child can be the result of a lapse in judgement, but two over the course of several years is a bigger problem. What’s to stop this from happening again three years down the road?
This is not going to be an issue to the children for two or three years, is it? Your daughter can just say Baby 2 is too young, if Child 1 asks. If the Sperm Donor’s interest in the Child 1 was lackluster to begin with, maybe his interest will fade away completely before the kids notice the difference.
I do think it is critical that your daughter develop a strong community of friends and extended family for both children, though, so the Sperm Donor’s absence will be less obvious.
kambuckta are you prepared for the test coming back and showing that he isn’t the father?
With no knowledge of the situation I would say that it’s about 1/3rd chance that he isn’t. Of course you have much more knowledge of the situation than me - then again, the majority if not all of your knowledge is coming from one “side”.
Were I you, paternity test would be top of the list. Yeah, he looks like baby daddy, and you’re sure, but that’s not enough, and shouldn’t be enough for any court of law.
Secondly I’d be worried about baby number 3 if I was you. Now!
Prove his paternity first, and see where things lie, if he maintains his current stance, cut off all contact to child 1.
He’s the sexiest man she can get. Financial and familial support (the concerns of the bygone age of Western style benevolent patriarchy) don’t really figure into it.
To those assuming DNA testing will fix the problem, it may not. As I understand it, he can’t be compelled to take a DNA test. If he refuses, the court will probably decide he’s the father and order his name to go on the birth certificate, and he’ll be on the hook for support. Then he can happily continue in his denial and throw in a little bitterness about being “screwed over” by the courts for good measure.
Hopefully he’s playing along. Hopefully he’ll get the test done. Hopefully it will change his attitude. Hopefully kam’s daughter will win the lottery and move to sunny Fiji. It’s just not worth getting too hung up on the possible outcomes of a DNA test.
Kam’s daughter needs to work out what she’s going to do about the situation because she can’t change him and she can’t change the way he acts around the kids. Either try to remove his access to the older child or get professional psychological advice on how to explain the situation to the kids as they get older.
I remember reading about a case in the past where a man under the impression he was the father of one of his kids, infact wasn’t.
Once he found out through DNA testing he filed for divorce, the court ruled because he lived under the impression for so long thinking that kid was his that it shouldn’t change anything, and was legally obligated to raise some other man’s kid.
Not sure about AU but in the US CS is a state issue. The state does not give a rats ass about lack of biological paternity. Their job is to secure a funding stream for the child. If you get scammed by the mother there are no takebacks.
Regarding the first point ; you and your daughter might be sure he’s the father, but how could he? Are you certain that he doesn’t have doubts?
Regarding the second point : if the real reason he refuses to aknowledge junior is that he doesn’t want to be hit for child support, once the DNA test and courts will force him to support him anyway, isn’t it possible that he will aknowledge the second child at this point, since he won’t have anything to lose anymore by doing so? (though frankly, it’s not like I feel that a father whose interest in you depends on whether it will cost him money or not is worth having)
This situation sucks big time. That’s all I can say, sorry to not be able to give any valuable advice.
(If I can allow myself some self-pity and a personal rant : as a childless 47 yo who wish he had kids, I feel an urge to strangle those lucky enough to have one who proceed to ignore him)
I doubt that would be legally an option, assuming Australia doesn’t have extremely peculiar laws. The mother can’t just decide to cut contact between a father and his children.
I wouldn’t know about Australia in particular, but that’s a quite common principle. Once you’ve begun to act as a father, you can’t just throw away the kid upon discovering he isn’t yours (well, I guess that emotionally you can, but legally you generally can’t).
By the way, I’ve known a guy in this situation. Except that he didn’t have a problem with raising his second “daughter”. He had a problem with the mother, though. He knew the real father too. And at the time, his main issue was how to disclose to daughter number 2 (she was about 11-12) that he wasn’t really her father and that the grandparents’ friend who happened to look a lot like her was.
I’m sorry, I don’t see the relevance? Kam’s daughter’s sometimes guy friend has been disputing paternity from day one, apparently. The courts will offer them a chance to prove paternity once and for all via DNA testing. His participation in DNA testing is voluntary, but if he chooses not to participate the courts will take that into account when making their ruling. If he’s acting in good faith, presumably he’ll want this sorted out and will undergo the test. If he genuinely believes he’s not the father he has nothing to lose financially - the vindicated party gets the testing fee refunded to them, he won’t go on the birth certificate and he won’t have to pay child support. If he refuses, it’s hard not to draw the conclusion that he’s just an enormous douche.
My daughter’s bio father insisted on DNA testing, despite admitting to his mother that he believed he was the father. I think he was clutching at straws, hoping to be miraculously let off the hook. For me, it was understandable but still distressing. I didn’t expect him to take my word for it - we weren’t in that kind of relationship and he didn’t know for certain that I was truthful when I said there hadn’t been anyone else. The source of my distress was that she is his clone; if he’d just looked at her he’d have known with absolute certainty that she was his daughter. I get the same vibe from Kam: The feeling that paternity is obvious to anyone with eyes and frustration and distress that he can’t or won’t see it.
It’s also pretty douchey to come into this, the grandmother’s thread asking for support and advice, and insist she give the deadbeat the benefit of the doubt in case her daughter is just a lying slut. If kam says she knows who the father is based on her daughter’s word and physical resemblance, why on Earth should we doubt that? If this thread was in another forum I’d have more to say.
That was a poignant comment to read. In the US I know there are some mentoring groups where kids who don’t have a father can get matched up with an adult who wants to be a good influence. Do you have anything like that where you live? Surely there are kids out there who could benefit from an adult who cares.
I defer to Princhester, if he’s around.