I have a feeling that I know the answer that i'm going to get to this question, but have decided to ask it nevertheless.
My son (who is 4) has been asking lots of questions about his biological father. He has a stable, sane father figure in his life and always has. But he understands that this man is not his "father".<p>Recently out of the blue he asked "can I call my father?" I explained that his father lived far away and that I didn't have his phone number. He said "can I write him a letter then?" Thank God the phone rang. My son went to play and forgot all about it (for that day).<p>We have explained that my BF loves him very much. That his bio dad could not take care of him and so it's mommy and bf's job to make sure that he has a great life. My son's just not satisfied.<p>I'm kind of at my wits end. I don't know what else to tell him. He's 4 for God's sake. I can't even imagine the questions i'll get when he's 10.<p>As far as his dad and I here's the short version:
We were introduced by a mutual friend. We had ended things when I discovered that I was pregnant. WE decided to have the baby, then several months later he decided that he didn't want the baby.<p>Apparently (completely unbeknownst to me) he was having a sexual relationship with the friend that introduced us. After we ended things they became a couple and she began to play the role of BS. <p>We simply leave one another alone at this point. I have no desire to be involved with them, and they have not acknowledged this child in any way (other than having the paternity confirmed).<p>So the question:
should I contact him and tell him that his son is asking questions or should I leave it alone?

My heart breaks for the little ones.<p>My opinion is to leave well enough alone. This man obviously doesnt want contact.<p>Your son is fortunate in the fact he has a positve role model. I'd focus and nurture that relationship.<p>At four kids are somewhat easy to appease,but later he's going to want to know the why's. <p>My stepdad raised me, my bio father didnt want a relationship with me till I was in my late thirty's...by then it was too late... I had a dad
As an early teen I learned the truth from my mom about my bio father. Up until that point tho I had fantasized about this great guy who was going to show up and rescue me from my mean horrible parents..pppffttttt<p>I know I didnt help any..I just was touched by your story..

Actually you did help DG. <p>I wish I knew what was going on in his little head. He calls my bf by his first name. But while on vacation at my mom's house I discovered that he was calling him daddy.<p>He's a really bright, curious child. He's blessed to have an amazing father figure (or 2). <p>your story helped me because I wasn't sure if he was up at night wondering about his father. Or if it was just a passing curosity. I knew my dad. I'm not a fan of his, but I know who he is.<p>I probably never would have mentioned his biological father at all except for a friend (who never knew her father) began talking about her experience. Her biological father was NEVER mentioned in the house. It was like the elephant in the middle of the room. I didn't want his father to be the great "unspoken" in the house. BUt now I feel like I just opened a can of worms.

katie scarlet<p>Hi
I am glad your little one has a father figure and if he is going to be in his life full time as a father, I would leave it alone, in time you may need to tell your child more, later when he is older, you wont be able to distract him.<p> When that time comes tell him the truth and let him know you did what you could do and that you and step dad love him with all your heart.
In time he might want to meet this person or maybe not, but since you are not hiding it I would just be honest about things. <p> If you know this man isnt interested i being a father... then you must know for now, your son is better off not having a man such as this in his life. why add pain when it isnt needed.
Just answer his questions on his level and I bet that is all that will be needed.. next week he will want to know something else.. Like why does it rain.
after all he is 4. [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img] <p>My daughters father had said he wanted nothing to do with her before she was born.. so I resigned my self he wouldnt be there, He changed his mind as soon as she was born.. but if he had not, we would have gone on and never insisted he be her father. why do that to the child.
children should have people in their lives who love them and want and desire to be in their life,

Katie Scarlett, perhaps you need to tell your son that the man who helped create you is not necessarily his father-that your boyfriend who is loving him, caring for him, being there for him is the father or father figure. I think your son may understand, even at age 4, that there are all sorts of families in this world, and yours is you and him and boyfriend? I think he could understand that.That God gave him a great mom,you, to love him and care for him, etc. I would focus on that. I don't see it beneficial to tell him he is product of A-if that is true-he will be telling his whole preschool and friends his story,a nd that may ostracize him from other kids or their familes. Just a thought.

Two things:<p>One, why not treat the "Dad" issue much like an adoptive parent might the birthparent(s)?? Adoptive parents often explain that sometimes the biological mom and/or dad cannot care for the child, for LOTS of grown-up reasons that are not the child's fault (usually that is the question behind their questions: what is "wrong" with ME that bio-parent/s didn't keep me? Make clear answer, the reason he wasn't "kept" has nothing to do with the child, just grown-up problems!!!) You might say that often the bio-parent (or whatever term you use) knows that the child is in a safe place and that is enough; that is all they can do right now. The "whys" can come later.<p>Two, please be careful about your child considering a boyfriend a "dad". It breaks my heart to see children get so attached to a single parent's "friend," then the CHILD'S heartbreak when the relationship doesn't last. It is like a series of divorces for the child; it is not stability, and think of what it teaches the child about what "love" means: Love is temporary, conditional, flighty, etc.... not a great lesson for adult relationships. Sometimes this pattern continues for generations.<p>Good luck,
J

Thanks you guys. <p>So far i've explained that mommy and another man made him. But that BF is there as friend (best friend), companion and protector. I explained that marriage between Bf and I was a promise to be his daddy forever. That was last nights conversation.<p>BF is also a single dad and so I think he tends to over identify with the biological father. (ie "if you just gave him a chance i'm SURE he'd love to be a father")<p>For my son, all this has gotten translated as Bf is his "magical daddy." He seems satisfied for now. Thanks a lot for you input.

KS,<p>First off, your son wasn't the product of an A as someone pointed out. The guy was obviously on the fence when you were dating him. Your son was and is a wanted and loved child. Show him and tell him that everyday.<p>I have a good friend who married a woman who had a child with a guy who didn't want anything to do with them. He wasn't married. He was just in my opinion, a loser. My friend adopted the boy and they went on to have a daughter together. Turned out that they divorced because she never had the chance to be "single".. But, my friend says that his 2 kids are the light of his life and he loves them both equally.<p>Is your BF willing to take on this role? If so, why not foster it and encourage your son to call him Daddy? How do they feel about eachother?<p>You can see where I'm heading on this. I think that your son is better off being shielded from a guy who wants nothing to do with him. It will only make him feel rejected from one of 2 people who are soppose to love him more than life itself. There really are all kinds of families and the great ones are those filled with love and kindness.<p>Just wondering how you feel about calling up your ex- and asking him so you know for sure that he has not changed his mind but is afraid to come forward now.. That may be worth exploring as well before you do anything.

I have an old address for my ex and no phone number. Since his family discovered my son's existense there phone numbers and addresses are no longer listed in the phone book. For me that's all the sign I need.<p>My BF and I are working on building a strong relationship, but we're taking it one day at a time. I don't want to force the whole "instant family" thing until we know where we are at. Things are serious between us, but we've still got a lot of growth to do. I suck at relatationships (historically) and he has little history of long term ones.<p>We're taking it easy and seeing where it leads.

I wish you all the best KS. I hope that it works out with your BF. You are wise to proceed with caution so that son does not get attached to a man that may also leave.<p>Keep us posted and let us know how your doing.

I should add that my son is not technically an OC. Both of his parents were single at the time of his concepetion.<p>Thing is though, because his father was involved at the time of his birth. And because his father's GF FREAKED OUT when my son was born, his birth was treated very much like he is an OC. Based on the way things have played out, he might as well be an OC.

Thanks CM

Dear Katie,<p>Mr. Pepper and I adopted a brother and sister. They are now 16 and 13. We adopted the 16 year old when he was 3 years old. We adopted his sister when she was 8 months.<p>Last year I had to tell the entire very unhappy truth to our kids about their birth parents. I cried, but I revealed ... and we survived ... and they are thriving! [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img] <p>Your son will always have a gap in his history that can only be filled by his missing biological father. What this gap means to him, how it may or may not adversly affect him in the future is somewhat in your power to INFLUENCE ... but, not control. <p>My advice, tell the truth to any and all questions as they arise ... use your good sense as to what the appropriate level of detail should be, according to youur childs intelligence, age and maturity.<p>This is the hard part for you to hear, but, it's true ... you cannot protect your son from the hurt of this loss. You wish you could, but you cannot. This pain of the missing parent belongs to your boy, not to you. Your boy will eventually process his pain, assign it some sort of relevence and meaning ... and he will be OK.<p>Trust that your boy will be stronger and grow from his loss ... this pain will not kill him, and, it is possible this pain can be a positive factor in his development. You can raise him to be a strong, self-relient man, and there are lessons to be learned from this (for BOTH of you!).<p>Best of luck and good wishes!<p>Pepper [img]images/icons/cool.gif" border="0[/img]<p>[ June 21, 2002: Message edited by: Pepperband ]</p>

I don't want to offer advice, as I'm not sure myself what the best thing to do in this situation is. But I wanted to offer up my personal experience with something similar.<p>My 17 y/o daughter is the product of my very brief first marriage to a physically abusive man (very loose term). I left him when I was almost 4 mos. pregnant with her, as he wanted me to abort and had resorted to trying to throw me down stairs to accomplish terminating the pregnancy against my wishes. My divorce was final when D was 5 mos. old, and I granted exH supervised visitation if he so desired. During the first year of D's life, he visited approx. 6 times, and then with the exception of one visit, dropped out of her life when I moved out of state (still only 1 hr. from H). When I moved back to hometown 2 years later, D (then 4) began asking to see her "dad" again and I'd drive her out to visit him about one weekend every 3 or 4 months. <p>My D would be really hyped and excited about seeing her father when I dropped her off, but when she'd return home after her visit, she'd be quiet and visibly disappointed. ExH would NEVER call her to speak to her between visits, and the visits were always initiated by her desire for contact -- NEVER his. But despite her apparent dissatisfaction with their relationship, after 3 or 4 mos. would go by, she'd start bugging me again about going to visit him again because she missed him. So I'd call him up and tell him his D missed him and wanted to see him, and I'd have to listen to him complain about how D coming might make him miss out on making money, because he never knew when he might get an offer to do some last-minute work (professionally unemployed, though he referred to it as "self-employed").<p>These sporadic visits initiated by D and clearly and increasingly resented by exH continued on until right before school started for her second grade year, when exH sat D down at his kitchen table and told her to her little face that he didn't want to see her around his house again, and that he no longer wanted anything to do with either her or her mother. Then he grabbed her overnight bag and put her in his truck and brought her back to me a day early. When D walked in the house, she tonelessly told me that her dad wanted to talk to me outside, where he told me what he'd said to this 7 y/o child -- without an ounce of guilt! In horror, I could only ask him why he'd even bothered to let it go on this long if he was so against having contact with her, and he angrily replied that his father and aunts had made him feel guilty about no contact, but he was washing his hands of it once and for all.<p>My D was in denial about the whole thing for about a week, at first saying that her dad had never said that stuff to her, and then defending him to me and my parents by telling us that her dad didn't mean it and he'd be back. After almost a month, the dam broke while she was at school and the school office called me because D was hysterically crying in class for no apparent reason and she couldn't seem to stop. I brought her to a child psychologist, but after much money and time, I was told that D was resistant to therapy. D's entire second grade year was hell for her, as the slightest thing would set her off on a hysterical crying jag but she refused to talk about it.<p>And D refused to accept her father's rejection. About 3 or 4 times a year, she would start bugging me about calling her dad so she could speak to him. I felt very guilty for not protecting her from him before, so I tried to explain to her that although she had done absolutely nothing wrong, her father simply did not want contact with she or I, and I refused to give him another chance to hurt her. But D was a resourceful sort and looked up the number in my address book, and then would sneak phone calls to him once or twice a year. I always knew when she'd done it, because she'd go off the deep end emotionally each time. Before he got caller ID, he'd hang up on her when he realized it was D. After caller ID, he'd never answer the phone though D would leave broken-hearted messages on his answering machine.<p>To this day, she hasn't given up hope. Several months ago, she managed to get him to agree to meet her for lunch and surprisingly, he showed up. She told me she hit him with some blunt plain-speak... that she realized now that he probably was dealing with a lot of guilt issues because he'd never wanted to be a father and had no idea how to act like one even if he'd changed his mind, and that way too much water had passed under the bridge for them to ever have a father/daughter relationship. She told him she only wanted an opportunity to get to know him for her own peace of mind, and would he be willing to treat her like a friend and meet her for conversation over lunch once in a while. He agreed, but I don't know if he's capable. D no longer shares info about her father with me, and she was depressed and upset this past Father's Day, so I'm guessing he rejected her yet again.<p>Sorry this was so long. I just wanted to let you know that it hurts me so very much to see my D's pain, and the pain has been ongoing for such a long time. I don't know if I should have lied to D and told her that her father had moved to Canada or South America or something, and that I didn't have a phone number and that he probably lost ours. But she'd probably have hated me when she was old enough to discover the lie. I don't know what I should have done, but I hate the way she's suffered. My D is not the product of an A, and my exH did not marry me because I was pregnant. We lived together for a year and then were married for almost a year before I got pregnant. I don't know why he's such a brutal, selfish pig.<p>Hugs to you, Katie. I hope all turns out alright. Raising kids has got to be the toughest and least appreciated job on the face of the earth.

Thank you pepper.<p>As i'm not a "secrets" kind of person i've done my best to tell him the age appropriate truth from say one. That's why I told him that BF was not his "daddy."<p>Growing up there were tons of secrets in my family and that made me feel crazy. So i've decided to avoid that at all costs.

Thank you so, so, so much waterrabbit.<p>My therapist suggested that I write him a letter (or call) to advise him that his son wants to speak with him. But tell him that he can only be a part of S's life if he can do so enthusiastically. If not, then NC is fine.<p>I've LOVE to tell him that his father is dead, but I won't lie to him. I used to hope that i'd luck out and he'd get hit by a bus. But that's bad karma, so I let it go.<p>I have made it my busines to NOT hide for the past 4 years. My phone number is listed, and the few letters that I have sent had my return address.<p>I'm moving out of state soon. I think i'm going to let that sleeping dog lie.<p>[ June 21, 2002: Message edited by: Katie Scarlett ]</p>

KS,<p>You have received lots of good advice and I am not going to add to it. However, I have worked around children your son's age and I would just like to point out something.<p>Sometimes, they ask questions that provoke emotions in us because of our own skeletons and guilty consciences. But, they are often looking for a simple answer and they forget one topic and move on to others very soon. Something may have happened with his friends or on tv that made him wonder about his bio-dad. That thought may fly out of his head in a few weeks and he will be on to another topic.<p>Before altering your life drastically by trying to involve his bio-Dad who wants nothing to do with the boy, I would give it a bit of time and see if your son simply tires of the subject and drops it on his own.<p>I would also hate to see a 4-year old exposed to a person who doesn't want to be involved in his life. That would only provoke more and harder questions that would cause your son pain.<p>Good luck. My prayers are with you and your son,
love,
heavenly

Heavenlybody ... your post provoked an interesting memory for me, and, I'd like to share [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img] <p>When my son was about 7, we were riding in the car, just the two of us. He was in his booster seat behind me. Out of the blue son asked, "Mom, what's a dildo?" .... I wish someone had taken a picture of my face reacting! LOL! [img]images/icons/shocked.gif" border="0[/img] <p>This was my response ,"What do YOU think a dildo is?"<p>Son answered, "I think it's a rubber [censored]."<p>Again, my face [img]images/icons/shocked.gif" border="0[/img] .... my calm-voiced response. "Yes, that's what it is alright. But it's not a polite word. Please don't say it anymore."<p>Son says "OK". End of discussion.<p>A few years later, daughter is about 7 years old. She comes up to me in the kitchen and announces, "I KNOW what the *F* word is!"<p>My response, "You do??? WHAT is it?"<p>She proudly says, "Fart!"<p>I tell her, "Yep, that's the *F* word alright." ---> and I'm thinking to myself "whew" [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif" border="0[/img] <p>So .... if your child asks you a question, and you're not exactly sure what their level of understanding is ... ASK them what they think first, before you answer ..... I still do this with my kids before I dive right into an emotionally laden topic. It works for me.<p>When my son asked me what his birth mother was like .... I asked, "What do you think she's like?" .... Son said, "I think she's a crack wh*re and I think she's a worthless piece of sh*t." ....... ouch! [img]images/icons/frown.gif" border="0[/img] ..... That's when I realized, he was ready for the whole story.<p>Pep [img]images/icons/cool.gif" border="0[/img] <p>PS ...moral of the story ----> Katie S .... When your son askes questions about bio-dad ...ASK your kid what he thinks, and gauge your answer from there.<p>[ June 22, 2002: Message edited by: Pepperband ]<p>[ June 22, 2002: Message edited by: Pepperband ]<p>[ June 22, 2002: Message edited by: Pepperband ]</p>

Not to make light of KS's dilemma..<p>Pepper I always enjoy reading your posts..you gave me a much needed chuckle and made me recall some of the questions and comments my girls have made over the years. Kid's do say the darndest things [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img] <p>I also really like your idea of asking what they think in response to their questions...I may just have to try this

THanks Pepper.<p>He's COMPLETELY off the daddy subject. (thank goodness)<p>This weekend he says "Sam's mommy had a baby in her tummy?" I respond "yes". He then asks, "how did it come out?" I said "well what do you mean?" He says "how did it get out of her tummy." So I tell him that it came out her vagina. He thought about that for a minute and said "what do frogs eat?" I say "flies". He tells me "mommy, that's gross!"<p>LOL!<p>It's NOT gross where babies come out, but it IS gross that frogs eat flies!?<p>HE went on to explain that he thought frogs should eat bananas.<p>There is NO QUESTION that kids say the darnest things!