Dear Sugar,
I am the lucky mama of one darling baby and oh, how I treasure every moment! Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on how you look at it—the baby’s daddy does not follow suit on treasuring every moment.
Baby’s daddy lives in another state. He left while I was still pregnant and did not attend our child’s birth. Though he proclaims via e-mails every six or so weeks to care for his child, he does not pay child support, nor has he seen his baby since mere weeks after birth (our baby is now over one). He has never even called to find out how his child is doing.
My question is this: am I obligated to send pictures and keep him updated about his child since he sends somewhat pitiful e-mails every couple of months about himself? I am heavily leaning towards no updates, but I would gladly take into consideration the opinion of a lovely sweet pea, such as yourself, Sugar.
I want to do what is best for my little bundle, even if what I want to do is kick the baby’s daddy in the groin with steel-toed boots, screaming, “What the HELL is the matter with you, you narcissistic crazy!”
Whew. That felt good to say. Let the healing begin!
Joy & love, dearest Sugar,
Oh Mama
Dear Oh Mama,
Do you own a pair of steel-toed boots? I do. And I’m happy to loan them to you so that you can properly kick the ass of that fool. Your rage is justified. Your angry astonishment over your baby daddy’s failure to be a true father to your beautiful baby makes all the sense in the world.
But you know what? It doesn’t matter one fig.
At least not in the face of what’s at stake for your child if you choose to let your perfectly reasonable fury guide the decisions you make when it comes to the way you conduct yourself on the subject of his or her father. That this man is your child’s father is one of the most essential facts of his or her life. It remains a fact no matter what happens—whether the man with whom you’ve reproduced ever has a relationship with your child or not. One day, years from now, your son or daughter will have to account for his or her father (and for you, as well). There will be a reckoning. There is always a reckoning. For every one of us. Accounting for what happened in our childhoods and why and who our parents are and how they succeeded and failed us is the work we all do when we do the work of becoming whole, grown up people. That reckoning is especially fraught when a parent has failed a child and so I advise you to: a) do everything in your power to thwart a fail between your child and his or her father and b) keep yourself from failing, should the father of your child persist in doing so.
It’s apparent that you’re struggling with the rage and disappointment you rightly feel toward your baby’s daddy. I don’t fault you for this and no one would. But what’s your fault and what isn’t is beside the point. The point—as you state in your letter—is what’s best for your child. You asked if you were obligated to send pictures and updates in response to the intermittent emails the father of your child sends you and my answer is yes. Not because you’re obligated to the man—you owe him nothing—but because you’re obligated to your child. Given the fact that Baby Daddy sounds like only a pathetic fuck (rather than an abusive one), the best thing you can do for your sweet baby is nurture a father/child bond, especially this early in your child’s life.
As you’ve so depressingly detailed, it hasn’t begun well. Baby Daddy has thus far failed on every front. This is not your responsibility, but it is your problem. Your efforts in the direction of inclusion, communication, acceptance and forgiveness could lead to a positive relationship between your child and his or her father that profoundly affects the course of his or her life. Or not. We can’t know yet. But it’s a big enough deal that I strongly encourage you to try.
I don’t say this with a light heart. It would be much more fun to kick this guy with your steel-toed boots. I would be happy to help you do that. I understand how outrageously unjust it is that you should be expected to respond to this “narcissistic crazy” with grace and integrity. But every now and then each of us must do so, honey bun, and this is your time. This is when it counts. Because, of course, you aren’t doing this for you—you’re doing this for your child. I know you know this already. I can tell that you’re a great mom. Your good mom-ness shimmers right through your letter. And now—appallingly!—I implore you to see what you can do to help the man who knocked you up to likewise shimmer.
Our kids deserve that, don’t they? To be loved shimmeringly? Yes, they do. So let’s get to it.
The first thing you I advise you to do is compel Baby Daddy to pay child support. This can be done through peaceful legal negotiation or you can sue his ass. Either way, I encourage you to do it through formal channels, rather than personal agreement, so that you have recourse should Baby Daddy fail to pay. By requiring this man to contribute financially you’re not only protecting your child, but also communicating two important facts: that you expect something from Baby Daddy and that he owes something to his child. If he’s any sort of decent fellow, he’ll hand over the dough without too much protest. If he’s a good guy going through a rough patch, he’ll thank you later. I encourage you to hire an attorney immediately.
The second thing I advise you to do is compose an email addressed to your child’s father that: a) compassionately acknowledges his absence in his child’s life b) asks directly about making arrangements for a visit and c) provides an update on your child’s personality and development. Attach a couple of pictures. Tell a few stories. When I say “compassionately acknowledges,” I mean: does a little dance around the fact that Baby Daddy’s not stepped up as a father so far. I mean: gives him some room to change. I mean: does not imply that you might team up with an advice columnist to kick his teeth out with some very serious steel-toes boots. I mean: be your best, most gigantic self. Which sometimes, for a tiny bit, means faking it. As in: Hello, Baby Daddy! I hope you’re well. Baby is getting so big and more beautiful and amazing every day. Even though our relationship is a thing of the past, it’s important to me that Baby has a relationship with his/her daddy and, based on what you have written to me in your emails, I know it’s important to you too. I want to set a date for a visit.
The third thing I advise you to do is arrange for childcare for a few hours on a regular basis so you can go out with your coolest friends and rage with them about all the hurt and anger and befuddlement you have over the fact that a man you once slept with—the man who is biologically half of your precious child!—is a complete jackass. This may seem extraneous, but it isn’t. It’s a vital piece of the survival puzzle. You must find a place to put your negative feelings about the father of your child. If you don’t, they will rule you. Very likely what has gone down between you and Baby Daddy has only begun. Even if it goes well, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are many times over the coming years that you’d like to throttle him. If you don’t find a place to put those feelings, you may not be able to keep yourself from putting them on your child.
And that’s a terrible place to put them.
A couple of years ago, I read the findings of a study on the effects of divorced and separated parents talking negatively about their exes in the presence of their children. I tried to locate it when I was writing this column so I could cite it properly and quote it directly, but I had no luck. That’s fine because what I remember about the study most vividly is really just one thing: that it’s devastating for a child to hear one parent speak ill of the other. In fact, so much so that the researchers found it was less psychologically damaging if a parent said directly to the child: you are a worthless piece of shit than it was for a parent to say: your mother/father is a worthless piece of shit. I don’t remember if they had any theories about why that was so, but it made sense to me. I think we all have something sturdier inside of us that rears up when we’re being attacked that we simply can’t call upon when someone we love is being attacked, especially if that someone is our parent, half of us—the primal other—and the person doing the attacking is the other half, the other primal other.
I know of which I speak. My own father was a destructive force in my life. If you made a map of my life and traced everything back—all the moves and decisions and transitions and events—my mother mustering the courage to divorce my father when I was six was probably the single best thing that ever happened to me.
My father got my mom pregnant when they were both nineteen. They weren’t very much in love, but abortion was illegal and my mom wasn’t willing to go away to a home for wayward girls and give her baby to someone else, so she married my father in a quickie wedding. He abused her for the next nine years, over the course of which she had three children—my two siblings and me. So many hard things happened. I have so many horrible stories about the years with my dad. But those aren’t the stories you need to hear.
What you need to hear is how much, as a child, I loved him. My father. My dad. My daddy. The love I had for him was tremendous, irrefutable, bigger than my terror and sorrow. I could not keep myself from loving my dad. It was simply there. To not love him had never occurred to me, no matter how ugly it got. I hated what he did to my mom and my siblings and me. I wept and shrieked and hid and got age-inappropriate headaches and peed my bed way beyond the age that’s normal. But he was my father and so when my mom finally left him, I begged her to go back. I mean, I begged her in a way I have never begged anyone for anything in all of my life. I sobbed my six-year-old girl brains out because I knew that if it was really over, if my mother really left my father, I would no longer have a dad.
And you know what? I was right. After my parents divorced, I no longer had a dad.
I’ve seen him three times since then—short, scary visits during which bad and sad and creepy things happened. But mostly there was nothing. No dad. There was only the great fatherless alone for years of my childhood, during which I lived in cheap apartment buildings occupied by other children of single mothers, most of whom also had little to do with their fathers. A couple of times a year an envelope would arrive addressed in my father’s hand to me and my siblings. It would be waiting for us in the mailbox when we returned from school, our mother at work. My brother and sister and I would rip those letters open with a glee so entire that a surge of something runs through my body still, as I type these words.
A letter! From our dad! Aletterfromourdad!Fromourdadfromourdadfromourdad!
But of course we should have known better. We knew better but we couldn’t bear to let ourselves know. The envelope had our names on it, but the letter inside was never for us. It was always something else and always the same thing: a nasty and vulgar diatribe directed at our mom. How she was a whore and welfare mooch. How he should’ve made her get that illegal abortion years ago. How she was a horrible mom. How he would come and get me and my siblings when she least expected it and then she’d be sorry. Then she’d pay. Then she’d never see her children again. How would she like that?
The thought of my father kidnapping me terrified me more than anything. It was with me always, the prospect of being snatched. I readied myself, playing out intricate fantasies about how my siblings and I would escape, how I’d get us all back to our mother at any cost. We’d walk across the country barefoot if we had to. We’d follow rivers and hide in ditches. We’d steal apples from trees and clothes from clotheslines.
But our father never took us. He never had any intention of doing so, I realized one day when I was twenty-seven. He never wanted me! I thought with such clarity and surprise and grief that I instantly broke into sobs.
Will the father of your baby ever father his child, Oh Mama?
We don’t know. That letter hasn’t been ripped open yet. Anything could be inside. People change. People make dreadful mistakes and then repair them. Men who are distant when their children are babies sometimes turn into wonderful dads. Others continue to be only more of the same. Whatever happens, you will do right by your child by keeping whatever you feel about his or her father separate from the choices you make and actions you take in regards to his or her relationship with his or her dad. Your behavior and words will deeply impact your child’s life—both how he or she feels about his or her father and also how he or she feels about him or herself.
My mother never spoke an ill word about my father to my siblings and me. She had every right to hate him, to turn us against him, but she didn’t. It wasn’t that she lied to us about him. We spoke often and honestly about the hard things we’d witnessed and suffered at his hands. But she didn’t demonize him. She cast him as human: complicated, flawed, and capable of redemption. Which means, in spite of everything, she made it possible for me to love my father, this absent man who was half of me. When I was a child and asked her what had made her fall in love with my dad, she thought of things to tell me, even if she couldn’t rightly remember them anymore. When I was a teenager and we argued about her refusal to condemn my father, she told me that she was grateful for him because without him she wouldn’t have had my siblings and me. When I was just barely becoming a woman and my mother knew she was going to die, she stroked my hair and told me it was okay if I wanted to reach out to my father again, that I should always be open to the possibility of forgiveness and reconciliation and change, and that doing so was not a betrayal of her, but rather evidence of the woman she’d raised me to be.
It isn’t fair that she had to be so kind to such an unkind man. I hope she raged about him to her coolest friends. As a single mother—and by that I mean truly a mother alone like you, Oh Mama, one who does not share custody or co-parent—she had to be her best self more often than it’s reasonable for any human to be. And you know what’s so never endingly beautiful to me? She was. She was imperfect. She made mistakes. But she was her best self more often than it’s reasonable for any human to be.
And that is the gift of my life.
Long after she was dead, it was her words and conduct that formed the bridge I teetered across to heal the wounds my father had made. That’s the gift you have to give your child, regardless of how your baby’s father decides to conduct himself, regardless if he ever steps up and becomes the father to your son he should be. It’s what most of us have to give a few times over the course of our lives: to love with a mindfully clear sense of purpose, even when it feels outrageous to do so. Even when you’d rather put on your steel-toed boots and scream.
Give it. You won’t regret it. It will come out in the reckoning.
Yours,
Sugar
38 responses
“And that is the gift of my life.”
And that is the gift that your mother gave to us all – making you into the incredible woman who holds us all captive with your voice.
Wow – so deeply moving. when I was five and my sister was not yet one my father called my mother from out of town to let her know he was not coming back. He left her for another woman, then sued for custody, then left the country and my mom had to put her two babies (then 7 and 2) on airplanes to foreign lands not sure if this was a visit or a kidnap. As I grew older and figured out for myself all that my dad did to her, I was astonished to realize that the only reason I had a relationship with my dad was because my mother nurtured it for years. When I asked her why she said what you did, Sugar. She said that she believed that the only way we could be whole people was to have a relationship with both our mother and our father.
Now that I am a mother myself I think that what she did impacts me more than ever. I married the most amazing man – he is everything that I never got to have in a father to our daughter. That is the gift she gave me, that you can give to your baby to eventually pass on. I don’t know where she found the strength and the courage to do that but I am grateful that she did.
Yes. I would really, really like to read this study.
“That’s fine because what I remember about the study most vividly is really just one thing: that it’s devastating for a child to hear one parent speak ill of the other. In fact, so much so that the researchers found it was less psychologically damaging if a parent said directly to the child: you are a worthless piece of shit than it was for a parent to say: your mother/father is a worthless piece of shit. I don’t remember if they had any theories about why that was so, but it made sense to me.”
Sugar, I wish you’d been an advice columnist when my mother was in the process of leaving my abusive, drug addicted father. I’ve healed, but she’s never given herself the chance, and it kills me to think that she might die with all that sorrow on her heart. Thank you.
Let me also add that as a bystander watching two of my friends go through similar situation, it’s also important to consider just cutting Daddy out altogether.
If you’re not going to get a dime out of him, if he’s a deadbeat fuckup, just leave him OUT. No bullshit juggling visitation, no nothing. Remove the stressor.
Hmmmm. It seems to me that one difference between Sugar’s situation and the situation in the letter is that Baby in the letter has never known or met the father, who has completely disclaimed all responsibility and interest from the get-go. There’s nobody there to love or miss or form an attachment to; there’s simply a void.
Is it in the child’s best interest to try to create a relationship between that child and Nothingness? Certainly, it is in the child’s best interest that the mother speak as kindly and compassionately of the father as possible; that the child not get the idea of Father — arguably half of the self — as a demon.
Is it more hurtful to accept that void, or more hurtful to foster a relationship that may be full of letdowns, disappointments, and neglect? If the father wants a relationship with that child, of course that’s one thing, but if he has to be coaxed and coerced and encouraged and practically forced into it … that’s another.
Slight miswording there — Letter Baby’s daddy is proclaiming a nominal level of interest, but has certainly disclaimed responsibility.
When I went through my divorce, my one rule was that I would never say anything bad about my ex to my daughter, and if my ex said bad things about me to her, I never found out about it. That’s not to say we didn’t have hard feelings toward each other–we did, even though our divorce was more a relief than anything else–but we kept it between us, because our daughter didn’t need to hear that. We were adults, in other words.
I agree with Sugar that the mother here shouldn’t talk bad about baby daddy to the child, especially if he’s not going to be a part of the child’s life. The child is going to likely build the absent father up to be some sort of mythic hero anyway, because that’s what we do to people we don’t know, and dogging the guy will only make the child resent her.
But I don’t know that she needs to go out of her way to keep the guy involved, outside of the issue of child support–that part she definitely needs to make sure is handled, and through the court system. At some point, he’s got to decide if he’s going to be more a part of that child’s life than just a monthly deduction from his paycheck (and make sure the state does that as well). I’d suggest the mother leave the door open, but I don’t see any reason she why she needs to stand in the doorway beckoning him in.
So, on the flip side…my father “encouraged” my relationship with the narcissistic crazy who gave birth to me and my brother and then pranced in and out of our lives promising us ponies and trips to Disneyland and whatever else flitted through her deranged mind. He thought it was important that children know their mother.
She was erratic, unreliable mess. She wasn’t abusive but she was scary in a bi-polar kind of way. And encouraging a relationship with us didn’t do anyone a damn bit of good. The best day of my life came when my father met and married an absolute angel who loved my brother and I like we were her own. The second best day came when I told my mother, “I am done with you. Don’t contact me again – ever.” And I never had to hear another lie or bullshit excuse out of her mouth again…until she showed up uninvited to my wedding and made a scene. Which only proved to me that I had made the right decision.
I love ya Sugar, but I’m sorry…not every parent deserves access to their own children. And not every kid needs any sort of validation from a person who cares more about themselves than their own child. I made the decision to cut my mother out of my life when I was 16 (and reaffirmed that decision at 26). My father could have saved me 10 additional years of exposure to that nutcase if he had pulled the plug when I was 6 and she decided that she needed time to “figure out who she was”. He could have told her she couldn’t see us anymore. She wouldn’t have put up a fight…and that is exactly why she didn’t deserve to see us.
Sometimes encouraging a person to be a parent when that isn’t really what they want to be is not such a great idea. He is this child’s father NOW. This is his chance to be a dad. If he isn’t interested, oh well, Oh Mama…someone else will be. And when you see that person loving your child with no interference from some random hunk of DNA who walked away from his responsibility, you’ll never regret your decision. Trust me.
Thanks for the good words, everyone.
I don’t usually clarify what I’ve written–even in cases when I think my statements have been misrepresented in the comments section–but in this case, I’m going to because this matter is so important. I’m not suggesting Oh Mama spend her life chasing Baby Daddy down in an attempt to make him have a relationship with his child. If, in fact, he doesn’t want anything to do with his child, of course she can only accept that and do her best to help her child deal with his/her anger and grief over such an abandonment.
But that’s not what’s happening here–at least not yet. Baby Daddy is showing interest (in his own weak way) by consistently writing to Oh Mama and at least claiming to care for their baby. Because of that, I believe Oh Mama should do what she can to encourage a bond. She’s the link between the father and the baby right now. I’m suggesting she attempt to turn things in a positive direction, since it’s so very early in the game and a such a turn could have a profoundly positive impact on the child. Of course, it’s ultimately up to the father to be a father.
Thanks for reading my column. Your responses are much appreciated.
Sugar:
You slay me. Keep doing that, please.
Yes, I agree, JustJennifer, that not every parent should have access to his/her child. As I say in my column: “Given the fact that Baby Daddy sounds like only a pathetic fuck (rather than an abusive one), the best thing you can do for your sweet baby is nurture a father/child bond, especially this early in your child’s life.” Of course if Oh Mama had written that her child’s father was abusive, I’d have given different advice. Sorry you had such a hard time with your mother.
Thanks for this. Oh Mama, my son was two before his daddy made the decision to be involved in his life. We went two and a half years without speaking. He barely acknowledged when our son was born and not even an email after that. Then, this past February, he called me. He lives very far away. He asked what I thought was possible in terms of him knowing our son. We have called, Skyped, he visited us, we visited him, he volunteered to pay child support (though I totally agree with the advice to go the official route).
When I was pregnant, I was reading a book by Anne Lamott where the main character was going through a terrible divorce and being consumed by bitterness. She decided she didn’t want to be consumed by bitterness and so, each time she thought of her (narcissistic, sleazy) ex she would pray “Please give him everything he needs to be happy.” I decided to do that for my baby’s daddy and, once he was born, I would say that with him every day. “Please be with AJ’s daddy, wherever he is, keep him safe, and give him everything he needs to be happy.” I never talked badly about his dad in front of him. Every few months, I would email a photo and some details.
This did a couple of things. It let my son put his dad into his mental map of his world. It also kept space in my heart to receive what he had to offer when he finally came around. And come around he did. Whatever else I might think of or feel about him, he is a good daddy. And my little boy is over the moon.
Not all stories end this way and ours is still developing but, whatever else comes, my son will have these good experiences with his daddy. He will know that I did everything I could to give him that. It has really stretched my heart but has been so worth it.
I think you wrote a beautiful answer, and I respect the way you feel, but I SO disagree.
I’m 49 years old. I’ve never known my father. That left a hole in my life, yes, but I am grateful that I had no father rather than a pathetic, useless, lame, narcissistic one. When I was in my 30s, that absent narcissist, the one who’d donated the sperm required to make me, contacted me wanting to get together, I politely declined. I told him I didn’t harbor him any ill will, but I’d gotten along just fine without him my whole life, so why fix what wasn’t broken?
Not everyone feels love for their father. Not everyone needs one. Not everyone even wants one.
PS: I have a beautiful husband and a beautiful son. I had a beautiful grandpa, too. I’ve always been grateful that the men around me have been awesome–and that the not-so-awesome ones have remained far, far away. 😉
I’m siding with Sugar on this. I grew up with a nasty Irish drunk for a father. His tirades make Mel Gibson look like Saint Francis. My mum divorced him when I was five but I still had contact with him until I was 18. At that point, I decided that I had enough and disowned him. It was the best decision I ever made. I made that decision.
One of my sisters married a classic omega male. This guy could never get his act together. He’s not a bad soul, really, just hapless and rather forethought-challenged. The only saving grace that exists for him is that he fathered a lovely child. My sister and he are going through a divorce and she doesn’t say a bad word about him. As ineffectual a spouse as he is, he still loves his child, albeit haphazardly and clumsily. Let his child make her own decision.
Oh, Sugar! Why do we love those fathers? I like to tell myself that I do not love mine, but I know that I do. I can’t help it. I’ve tried not to care for decades now. I’ve also tried to tell myself that he did the best he could and that I do not know what may have happened in his life to make him so intolerably miserable to me. But I remain a lost little girl in search of her daddy’s love. (I am 52.)
Even with the constant emotional and occasional physical abuse, I would rather have had that father than none. My husband’s father left when his mother was pregnant with him (because she was pregnant, in fact). He would have rather have had a bad father than none, as well.
Thank you for sharing your life and your wisdom. Beautiful column.
If anyone can find that study or knows any more details about it, please, please post it here. My Googling turned up zilch.
Badmouthing the ex to the kids is a mistake made by so many otherwise thoughtful and loving parents, my own included. It’s really the only hurtful thing either of them ever did to me. I literally begged each of them to stop, but it went on for years. They’re both very rational people, so I think being able to show them “hard evidence” of the damage that that practice can cause might have made a real difference.
Wow. This goes right to the core. I love this column and the comments, and Sugar, I really respect your discipline/discernment in choosing when to clarify in the comments section. That is also very generous of you.
“I understand how outrageously unjust it is that you should be expected to respond to this “narcissistic crazy†with grace and integrity. But every now and then each of us must do so, honey bun, and this is your time. This is when it counts. Because, of course, you aren’t doing this for you—you’re doing this for your child.”
That’s the part that gets me. I have no ground for opinion on what that looks like for Oh Mama. But I have had to do that thing of acting with grace and integrity because it counts, despite its being absolutely unfair, in the last couple years, and man is it hard. And particular, different in different places, at different times.
My divorced parents don’t speak to each other. They haven’t in ages. But every time I hear a divorced parent badmouthing their ex in front of their kid(s), I cringe. My parents each always told me and my sibling good things about the other one, this person that they didn’t actually want to talk to. As an adult, I’ve realized what a gift that was, how I took it for granted that that was how all divorced parents acted. That loving act has been a cushion, a protection. I was lucky; my dad did want to stay in my life and both my parents, but especially my dad, have been there when the going got tough. I don’t know how I’d feel if there had been fewer good things for each of them to say. But I know it mattered a lot that each of my parents guarded our love for the other parent.
Thank you all for this place, this column and comments.
Incredibly sad and yet magnificently compassionate.
I so appreciate all your comments. I’m touched by those of you who write with intelligence and sensitivity even when you disagree with me or want to offer another perspective.
Nancy, thanks for your sweet words, but I think I should clarify: I don’t love my father anymore. I loved him when I was six, but that love died over the years. I hated him for a long time, but I don’t hate him anymore either. The journey from love to hate to acceptance is another story for another column (or seven).
As for this study I mentioned: in my memory, I read it in the New York Times. I have searched with no luck.
Oh Sugar. Oh Sugar, oh Sugar, oh Sugar.
When I was a child, I must have been about 8 years, I had a fit of missing my father, who was absent, again, due to alcohol or drugs or mental illness or being in treatment or in jail. I walked around the house clutching a photograph of him and crying. My mother, my wonderful, wonderful, wonderful mother, who loved him and left him for my sake when I was still a baby, was so heart-broken by this that she SCREAMED at me, tears running down her face, you want him so much? you want him? fine, I’ll get him for you!” And I will never ever forget how obvious it was that what I had done, allowing myself to cry for my father like that, had hurt her terribly, in a way I could never understand. I never did it again, ever. But she did do everything in her power to get him for me. And she did sue him for failure to pay child support, even though even that didn’t work. And he is still a fuck-up, but he is my father, and we have a relationship, and I love him.
Lovely writing as always, but going to agree to disagree with your advice, Sugar.
Oh Mama needs to move forward and forget this guy ever existed. Ultimately she choose to carry her pregnancy to fruition, so she needs to take care of her child without ever expecting help from the guy that provided the sperm. If the guy truly wanted to be there for her and the child, he would. Since he’s not, move forward.
As someone who’s childfree by choice, I’m clueless as to why someone would have a child with a partner who doesn’t want to be a part of their life? And then you have to BEG or GUILT them to be a part of the child’s life?? Um, no. That’s not the way life works. Or should.
Best of luck to you, Oh Mama.
Kath, I think in this case the father left while she was pregnant, so it wasn’t a matter of choosing to go it alone but rather having it foisted upon her by a partner who wanted to be part of the child’s life until he suddenly got cold feet. Not that mama regrets it, nor should she, but sometimes things happen that can’t be defined by a choice.
It’s the end of an unusually dreary work week, so I’m not feeling clever. But I have to respond to Sugar’s Oh Mama … so true.
My father spiraled into a bleak and needy depression when I was about 14. He took his life when I was 16. I know my mother didn’t want us to feel guilty, like my sisters and I were responsible. But she used this legitimate parenting concern as an opportunity to slam my father. Sharply and without any care that we were half him, that I loved him tremendously. And then silence.
I wound down into a similar depression at a similar age. Needless to say, I didn’t talk to my mother about it. I found a way out–12 steps and Buddhism–because I recognized what was happening and I didn’t want to go down like my dad. Not because of my mother’s support. I don’t ask for that.
Sugar, I love what you said here but I’m troubled by what seems to be the assumption this baby daddy is a jackass without knowing the circumstances leading to this pregnancy. It sounds like Oh Mama is cool and these two were in a somewhat serious relationship that he bailed on mid pregnancy (which puts him squarely in certifiable jakassery), but what if they were just casual lovers? What if there was an intentional birth control failure? What if he asked her not to have this child? We really don’t know.
Accidental pregnancies are a complex web of responsibilities given the number of options we have to end or prevent them. It’s easy to assume this guy is just a loser that took off on his baby and that it sucks Oh Mama has to be her best and deal with his shit. But it could also be much more complicated and there may be some things everyone needs to own up to if this baby is going to have a decent relationship with his father. If this guy left because he felt Oh Mama’s having his baby was a betrayal, then chasing him with court and approaching him as if he’s a guilty man refusing his responsibilities may just feed an anger that is keeping him from being his best and showing up for a child who had nothing to do with the way he was brought into the world.
By leaving and not giving support, ultimately he is a jackass for making his child pay the emotional tab for his parent’s mistakes with his absence. I don’t think the three prescriptions to go to court, send him letters, and get some friends, aren’t the right idea. I just think that there may be an honest reckoning that needs to happen between these two parents beforehand (if that is even possible) so that if this guy is talked back into his child’s life, he isn’t looking at his kid as an extension of some wrong the mother inflicted on him. You don’t want this kid to pay the tab for that, too.
My point is though, we don’t know. There are plenty of jackass father’s in this world (I’ve had two myself), but there are plenty of jackass mothers to go along with them. We often assume right away the mother is the one who has been wronged for an entire library of gender issues, but isn’t it worth it to take an honest look at what really happens in these situations? Maybe if we don’t immediately jump to the assumption an absent father is just some loser who wouldn’t own up to his responsibilities, we’ll get few less shitty baby daddies in the end.
Thank you for this, Sugar. So, so much.
When my parents were splitting up and I was 13, my mother refused to say anything horrible about my father. He had been cheating on her since I was 8, but she never found out until he sprung it on her one evening. Once he was actually out of our house and living in his own apartment, I watched my mother pretend he hadn’t crushed her. But I knew he had. I saw her crumble to the kitchen floor in tears while she chopped onions. I felt her hug me a little longer on Sundays, when my sister and I would go spend our weekly, court-appointed day with him.
I felt so awful for her, and all I wanted was for her to rant to me, to tell me what an asshole he was to her and that she hated him. I wanted to tell her that someone better was out there for her, that she didn’t deserve this. But she absolutely refused to say a bad thing about him, and she asked me to stop whenever I tried. I wanted her to tell me so that I could feel vindicated for all the hate I had for him, for the views about men that he gave me, for all the anxiety I would grow to feel as I dated them, not to mention the fear that the man I married would one day sleep with someone else and then run off to be with her. I didn’t want her to feel so alone, and I didn’t want to either.
Fifteen years later, and she has never made more than a vague aside to the fact that he treated her like shit. Part of me still wants her to, but I understand why she didn’t. She wanted the two of us to have a relationship, even if he didn’t have one with her, no matter how much he hurt her. For the two years I cut him out of my life, she tried to sway me to change my mind. Yes, she said, he’s a dense man who doesn’t realize what he has done to all of us, but he’s your father, and he won’t always be there. I never felt the “but he’s your father” rationale held much weight, but I reconnected with him. For her.
Right now, I accept him for the flawed and feeble man that he is. (He is on his third wife, and what happened to my family was the second time he’d slept with someone and then taken off.) We’re not especially close, but we do have some sort of a connection, although sometimes I suspect that it largely exists for his benefit, that he can feel like he didn’t completely destroy the three of us.
I say all of this because, not to say that I don’t believe you (Scout’s honor), but I’m not sure that my mother saying anything negative about my father would have affected me any worse than his leaving already had. However, I realize my situation is largely different from the letter writer’s. Had I never known him at all, I probably would have wanted to meet him and learn more about who he is.
My guess is that if it was a news source like The New York Times, the author was citing another source. I found these two, which sound like they fit the bill, particularly the first one. The first sentence of the first article listed below reads: “When parents reveal negative information about the other parent or their strained marriage to their children, it can have a deleterious impact on children’s physical and mental health.” (Afifi et al)
Afifi, Tamara D., Walid A. Afifi, and Amanda Coho. 2009. “Adolescents’ Physiological Reactions to Their Parents’ Negative Disclosures About the Other Parent in Divorced and Nondivorced Families.” Journal of Divorce & Remarriage 50, no. 8: 517-540.
Gumina, Joseph M. 2009. “Communication of the Decision to Divorce: A Retrospective Qualitative Study.” Journal of Divorce & Remarriage 50, no. 3: 220-232.
i also find a great deal of wisdom in what you said, Sugar, and want to encourage parents with nonexistent co-parents to avoid saying terrible things about the missing parent. While it’s true that you can’t force someone who doesn’t want to be a parent into becoming one, much less a good one, you are *completely* in control over the story you tell your child about the missing person. My mother said the most terrible, awful, spiteful things about my father, who, granted, completely broke her heart and left her in the most atrocious manner. She needed a friend to talk to, and not a daughter. She basically told me I couldn’t have a relationship with him if I wanted to maintain one with her, and even now that I’m 26 years old and she has been married to someone else for 10 years, she absolutely hates to hear that I occasionally see my father. While i don’t have the same panic that my mom will stop loving me if i see him that I used to have as a kid, there’s always something holding me back from being willing to get to know him now.
You don’t have to like the other parent. You don’t have to tell stories about what a magnificent human being s/he is. But you aren’t doing your kid or yourself any good at all if you spend the rest of your life telling the kid what a horrible, deceitful monster the parent is, and how the kid really shouldn’t want to know him or her. Please.
Another bit of research to pass on:
Hess, R. D. and Camara, K. A. (1979), Post-Divorce Family Relationships as Mediating Factors in the Consequences of Divorce for Children. Journal of Social Issues, 35: 79–96.
The negative effects of divorce were greatly mitigated when positive relationships with both parents were maintained. The child’s relationship with the non-custodial parent (father) was as important as the continuing relationship with the mother.
First, I want to tell you how much I love your column and the candidness and empathy with which you respond to your readers.
This column spoke to my heart. I am in my 60’s and this topic took me back to some troubled days in my life. I divorced when my child was an infant. My husband has continued to be the narcissistic adolescent that he was then. He, I think, believes that he “won” in life – no one made him do anything he didn’t want to.
And, he missed it all.
I followed your philosophy in raising my daughter. To tell a child the faults of their parent has to be detrimental. That is their heritage and they can’t help but feel that it reflects on them. As if they don’t already have enough self-esteem issues growing up! When she struggled with his behavior I said that he made bad choices – and he definitely did. Only my daughter could say if I handled it in the best way for her. That was certainly my intent.
I wish Oh Mama all the best. Each situation will require new evaluation and creative resolutions. Raising a child is a most amazing adventure. It sounds like she will do great.
I
Once again, Sugar, you have touched me deeply and caused me to look at the world a little differently.
More on Parental Alienation Syndrome or PAS: http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?ID=9418
My daughter’s dad was a one-night stand so I had very low expectations of him and, luckily for me, no resentment at first. Unfortunately, I’d chosen my shag rather badly. In addition to not fulfilling his obligations (child support, birthday phone call or card), every couple of years he’d call our daughter, tell her how much he loved her and promise that a present was in the post. It never was. It was hard to help her through that.
All through her childhood she’d imagine that there’d been some misunderstanding and he’d turn out to be a wonderful human being. She craved that contact.
She’s adult now. She met up with him this year and she recently called me to tell me what an arsehole he is. I listened and agreed. Now she understands why he remained a one-night-stand. She’s got a good relationship with her half-siblings and bonds with them about their shared crap dad experiences.
She’s a beautiful, intellegent and well-balanced girl. No thanks to him.
Keep a pic of the bloke, keep as much info about him and his family as you can because your kid will probably want to know. Help your kid to make contact when she or he wants to. Try to have some kind of at least civil relationship with his extended family (you’ll often need it for medical records too). Send them a yearly Xmas card with a pic of their grandaughter/cousin/niece/half-sister. Facilitate visits to paternal grandparents if they seem reasonable.
Good luck!
I don’t know how old you are, Sugar. I am 36 and I begged my mom to leave my father when I was 6, 7, 8, and so forth. I didn’t even know anyone who was divorced. I just knew life could not be much worse without him. He died when I was 33. On my birthday no less. They were still together. I still hate her for never leaving.
“…she had to be her best self more often than it’s reasonable for any human to be. And you know what’s so never endingly beautiful to me? She was. She was imperfect. She made mistakes. But she was her best self more often than it’s reasonable for any human to be.”
And with that, you finally made me cry.
I am baby gramma of a beautiful, sweet baby girl. She is not quite 9 months old. My son is the baby daddy. I am not sure what the real and true story is with Oh Mama, but I’m sure there is another side to it. I have the other side of an “oh mama” story: My son is largely absent from his daughter’s life. He doesn’t want to be. He tries to see her but the only way is to go the baby mama’s house, where she lives with her dad and baby girl. Her dad yells at my son that he is a ‘fu**in A**hole’ and sets time limits for him to “get the hell out”. The baby mama wants baby daddy there for herself (I believe) more than for her daughter, although she announces all the time on facebook that its all about baby girl. It isn’t. Baby mama lost her mom to a drug overdose when she was 13. She has abandonment issues all over the place and when baby daddy left her, she went on a subtle yet effective campaign to wreck any other relationships he had whether with family or friends. She has “friended” all baby daddy’s friends on FB and sabotaged a perfectly good living situation for baby daddy by becoming his roommate’s ‘bestie’ so she would tell her everything about baby daddy (roommate was not a romantic interest for baby daddy!). I could tell you story after story of the elaborate manipulations of baby mama, who announces to the world that ALL of baby daddy’s family is mean and don’t love or want to be with our newest and very special little family member. We all cry because it has become such a heartache to think that a part of us has become a pawn in her sick game. Right now I have full confidence that baby girl is loved well taken care of. But when she gets old enough to understand things, she will hear from her mama that she was abandoned by her father. This is not only devastating for all of us and baby daddy, but it will be even more devastating for baby girl.I had to let go of any contact with baby mama because it was ruining my relationship with my own son (baby daddy). I was seemingly complicating things by trying to stay in touch with baby girl. I saw that I was being used for information, and baby mama was jealous of the mother son relationship and did everything to pull it apart. I understand that the loss of her mother at 13 is so profoundly sad and has caused so much anxiety and devastation to baby mama, but it needs to stop before it hurts baby girl. I loved what you said Sugar about how one parent should not say horrible things about the other parent, and that it is confusing and heartbreaking for the child to think that her daddy doesn’t love and want her in his life. Our family is baby girl’s other half! This baby’s daddy DOES love and want her. I probably shouldn’t even be writing this as I feel that somehow she will find out and I will be on the receiving end of some holy hell. I love my little grand daughter. There is no reason we can’t all at least try to get along with each other, if only for the sake of baby girl. She is worth it. Thank you for allowing me to talk. But I don’t know if there is any advice that can help.
One Sad BabyGramma
I am a single mother of the most darling little boy. When I was only 8 weeks pregnant his father blew up at the OBGYN ( who called the police on him)abandoned me and my son. He made excuses not to see me through my pregnancy yet claimed to love me. He was not there for my emergency c-section and has not made any efforts to be there for me and my son who is now 14 months old.
His father has not been able to keep a job because he is verbally abusive to anyone. He is also an alcoholic. He was recently evicted and would like to live off of disability. Despite all of his abuse towards me and the whole family and abandonment of our innocent son I still am heart broken and in-love with this selfcentered fool.
He has told me that my son is fine having my father be the male role model in my sons life and that he can go have beautiful babies another time. This is a hard pill to swallow and I’m not sure how I will get past this pain.
At this point my son is too young to know any better and can not see how broken his mother is. He is a happy child that didn’t deserve to be abandoned by a parent.
I want desperately for my son to have a loving relationship with his father. I have wanted us to be a family, but unfortunately I am the only willing party.
– heart broken
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