Dads

Dads, dads, dads.

Daddy, daddy, daddy.

Papa, baba, tata, abba.

It doesn’t matter what way you say it. Kids seem obsessed.

My son claims he doesn’t have a daddy. Though I tell him he does. But according to him daddies live with their children. I try to explain people he knows where the daddy doesn’t live with them, but I end up describing people who see their kid, so he says – but they live near. Ironically his dad doesn’t even live that far away. But I think the only way he can understand not seeing his dad is believing he lives far away. He doesn’t. He comes from another country and my son is adamant he now lives in that country. As much as I believe he has the right to know the truth and try to set him straight I also feel crap about doing so – maybe I should hide it, maybe that would be less painful.

As I contemplate having another child by donor sperm though it makes me worry. Sometimes I think the story of a donor child is much more simple. The kid wasn’t abandoned. No-one was let down. But at the end of the day does a young child appreciate that, or does a young child just want a daddy because it sounds like fun and – dare I say it – it sounds like the norm? I fear it’s the latter and it scares me that bringing a child into the world knowingly without a father, or second parent, on the scene is unfair.

My son reguaraly tells people he doesn’t have a daddy.

Then he tells me he wants a daddy.

I explain over and over who his daddy is but he just doesn’t get it. I mean, I’m explaining that some guy he hasn’t seen in nearly six months, bar that one time when the police had to get him to leave, is his daddy. I even told him he loves him, he’s just ill. It’s true. He is ill. And he claims to love him and I know he used to, so I guess in his own way he still does. But what good is absent love to a three year old? Perhaps it’s just more confusing to know it exists than to just not hear anything about it. Perhaps he knows the truth but wants to create his own story – one that doesn’t hurt so much. In all honesty I’m sure this is what is happening, after all he’s not daft, he understands what I’m telling him. He just doesn’t like it much.

It’s not just something he tells me either. In his swimming class the other day, this conversation unfolded as my son stood beside the other child staring at me wide eyed, like he expected me to explain the situation to her in a way that made sense to him:

Random kid:”why doesn’t he have a dad?”

Me: “err, he does, he just doesn’t live with us”

Kid: “he said he doesn’t have a daddy”.

Me:

It totally stumped me. How do you even explain to a kid that they have a dad, but he doesn’t come to see him? I’m not even really sure what the reason is myself so how do I explain that in three-year old language? So far I’ve gone for the “daddy is ill so can’t come and see you” approach, but if this is what my son is telling kids he hardly knows at swimming God knows what he actually thinks

That night I tried to talk to him about it but I can’t say it really helped. I wanted to understand how he felt but there was nothing I could do with that. Nothing I could do to change the situation for him.

“How do you feel about your daddy?”
“I am very sad that daddy doesn’t live with me. I want a daddy to live with me”
“How about if daddy just saw you for two hours, how would that be?”
“I want to see daddy for ten hours. I want daddy to never leave”
“Who is your daddy?”
“I don’t know”
“XX is your daddy”
“I don’t want that daddy. I want another daddy to live with me and never leave”

Does he remember him disappearing? Does he know the upset that he’s casused me? Where do these thoughts even come from?

There’s some romanticisation that dads seem to bring even at this young age.

He knows some people just have mummies, some just have daddies, some have two of each. He knows all this. In fact in our circles a mum and a dad living together is the rare exception, not the rule. Apart from when he’s out there in a ‘real’ world all alone. In nursery the vast majority are two parent families. The books they read are predominately two parent families. Yet in our friendships it’s predominately women, women, women. This doesn’t stop him wanting a daddy. He wants a daddy to live with us, despite having no idea what that would really mean.

It breaks my heart apart to hear him talk like this.

Yet my plan to have another with no father anywhere to be seen, what does that mean? Am I just recreating this issue again? Is it not such an issue when there is no abandonment? Then again, how much can my son really understand about whether he’s been abandoned or conceived by a donor at a mere three years old? Does that mean my next child as a donor conceived child will feel just as sad as my son does. And this time it will be ALL MY FAULT.

I thought when I started this process that having a child with a clearer story would make it simpler. I could tell the story and stick to it. With my ex and my son the story changes reguaraly. I can’t keep up. So how can my three year old son. I can’t tell him he will never see his father again because I don’t know if this time next week he will suddenly want to restart access. But this desire for a father in my son runs deep, and it’s hard to know how to navigate it.

This post doesn’t go anywhere. This is where it stops. I have no answers, no solutions, no insights into why this is how children feel, or how to deal with it. I just know that it’s something many single parents experience with their children.

 

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