Jane's Posts

Sep 05 1998 12:00 am

[father with 10 yr old son asking to meet the mother he hasn't seen since he was 1]

Every child has a curiosity about the absent parent. If you prevent your son from meeting his Mother, he will surely resent you. I did not pursue my Daughter's Father for the first 7 years of her life. I thought we were better off without him especially since he never tried to contact us or help us. Then My Father died. I began to see things a little differently. I realized that when it came to my Daughter's Father, he was exactly that...her Father. For all the bitterness and resentment I may have felt for him, my Daughter had to have her own relationship with her Dad. If your Son's Mother chooses not to meet with or foster a relationship with him, then he will know that you tried and he will know where he stands with her. Good luck. It's not easy.

I agree. My daughter is about your son's age. He is telling you that he is ready for this. His courage amazes me. In a way, he is facing the ultimate rejection and his greatest fear. His friends' mothers love them enough to live with them, love them, and do a million things for them. Your son sees you doing these things, but he also sees that his mother is not. He wants to know why.

No matter how happy, healthy, and secure your child is, there is always that niggling doubt. Why doesn't his mother love him like the other kids' mothers do? Is it because he is not good enough to love? Is it because she is crazy or evil? If his mother is crazy or evil, doesn't that mean he is too?

I have this theory about kids and their parents. When they are babies and toddlers, kids see their parents as giants, gods. They cannot believe that they will ever be as big, powerful, and intelligent as their parents. Getting to be as great as their parents is their only goal. As kids grow up, they continue to see their parents as the ultimate limit of what they can be and accomplish. If either parent is diminished in the child's eyes, it lessens his own potential, what he believes he can be and strives for. Of course, then they hit their teens, and all hell breaks loose.

My advice is to support your son in his search for his mother's love. Put ALL your personal resentment toward the ex out of your mind. Forget child support. Forget her abandonment. Prepare yourself for the possibility that he will deeply love the woman who left you holding the bag, changing the diapers, rushing to the emergency room, doing the homework, etc., for 10 f***ing years without a dime of support or a god-damned phone call. Then go further: encourage him to accept and love her as she is.

Don't let it bother you if he goes through a period of blaming you for the estrangement. He may need to do this to accept her abandonment. What your son wants to find is a wonderful mother who always adored him, but was kept away by circumstances beyond her control. You are an obvious choice for the obstruction. Don't worry. Your relationship can take it. He knows in his heart who has been there. The more willing you are to share him now, the less he will believe that you were responsible for their decade apart. Besides, I am sure that in retrospect you see things that you would do differently now than you did 10 years ago. Didn't you ever wonder if maybe you should have sent her pictures, encouraged him to call?

Of course, if mom is a real piece of work, you will have to help him with that too. If she refuses to see him, tell him that for some reason she can't bring herself to deal with this yet. Explain that she may not feel strong enough, that seeing him might be more painful than she can handle. Maybe she feels too guilty or too resentful. Suggest explanations that do not diminish your ex or your son. I don't think you can leave him hanging with just an "I don't know," though. Do the stuff you do when he asks why his best friend Johnny went to Alex's house to play without asking him.

Well, that's my take on it. Good luck with your brave little boy.

jane