Single Moms...Question About Child Meeting Father

Ivy B.'s answer was perfect. This person should definitely be referred to as his biological father, not his dad. You can explain to him that a dad is someone who raises him. Much better than not letting him know exactly who this person is.( I never think it's a good idea to withhold information) Now he will know who his biological dad is and not have to wonder.

Best of luck with this difficult situation. Kudos for being a single mom- it sounds like you are doing great.

Good luck!

I'm not a single parent but was a social worker. I think your son is young enough that you and his father can set the tone and expectations for the relationship right now. If you prepare him that he only visits with his dad one or two times a year but has a good time when they see one another, it is at least a positive starting point for a closer relationship later. On the other side, preparing your son for a visit that gets cancelled at the last minute sets up your son up for disappointment. Avoid that if at all possible. At 3 telling him about a visit a day or a few days in advance is plenty of notice.

I know you say you are confused but I know from personal experience that confusion goes away when you focus on what is the right thing for your child.

One day all too soon your little boy will be a man and unfortunately as a woman you can't teach him how to be a man. He really needs his father and other male father figures and mentors. As long as his father is a "safe" person to be around, I would try to encourage that relationship.

Dealing with disappointment is something that children need to learn how to handle in many different ways. It comes with life and living but you make certain you are setting an example of consistency and stability.

Children get their identities from both parents whether they are there or not. It really does have an impact. For your own benefit try to focus on the here and now as it relates to his father. By all means talk to him about your concerns regarding your son's mental, physical and emotional development and what happens when children feel they have been abandoned but after that keep things as light and airy as you possibly can.

My son is 16 and his father is in his life now but it hasn't been easy. My son knows which parent he can count on and which one he definitely can and should not count on. My son is making decisions about the kind of man he will be. Time will tell what happens when he gets there but I'm praying my son will take his father's best characteristics with him and leave the worst behind.

Funny thing, time really does fly by. Like you my son's father had nothing to do with him until he was 3 too.

i guess it depends on the type of person the father is. it looks like i am in the minority with this one, but my mom was a single mom and my dad never came around. i only saw him a few times when i very little and he is not a good person. I know that for a fact. I am glad he was never in my life. i am in the boat where you need to talk to your sons father and see what type of a dad he wants to be. he should really either be in your sons life on a regualar basis and be a dad, or not at all. not just when its convenient for him once or twice a year.

I believe a father/dad should be in their child on a consistent basis not when it's convenient for them. When my daughters father disappeared then came back via phone calls when she was 2-3 she was just starting to figure out the phone thing and had a short attention span which offended him. Then he got mad I wouldn't let him come visit and stay in my apartment but wanted him to get a hotel. so he disappeared for a few more years. Then wanted to all of a sudden come visit and give her (7 years at the time!) a cell phone so they could call each other. I went to a behavior therapist to see the best way to go about this visit. Her advice was that "fathers" like this come and visit have a fun weekend then they are back to their normal selves and the child ends up wondering why they weren't good enough for the other parent to stick around/come around. That until he proved it via acknowledging paternity and responsibility (calling when he would say, sending the things he promised to send her - one time it was cookies. she still asked him about it 5 months later and after i had gone out bought cookies and mailed them to him to send her cuz after 2 months i was sick of her checking the mail!)
If it were me I would tell him it needs to be done slowly and consistent phone visits too.

A sometimes relationship is better than no relationship. Keep it casual and don't make a huge deal out of it, but let your son know that his daddy will be visiting him every once in a while and they can have fun when he does come around. One day, it may blossom into something great, or it may not, but give it a chance. Your child will have the ability to reason and choose how far to take it when he is older.

I am probably going to have a lot of people disagree with me on this one but...
I would have him come over and be introduced as 'Bob, friend of Mommy'. If your son is spending a lot of time with other kids and sees their relationship with their dad, he will expect that same relationship with his dad. If this man disappears again, your son will be very hurt. Until you can be sure that this man will become a real part of his son's life I would wait to tell him he is his dad.

You can tell the man that if he comes, it's not as his Father, but as a family friend. He's shown his true colors on not being a present parent or even a once a month visiting parent, so why set your son up for such heartbreak? When you find a real man and get married - he will be the Father to your child.

I heard a statistic the other day that 1 in 4 American kids are raised by a single mom. ReverendRuby said that your son will see all of his friends with their dads and want the same relationship, but the fact is, there are many different kinds of families these days.

My daughter met her biological father when she was about 3, and hasn't seen him since. I prepped her by telling her there were many different kinds of families and family relationships. It helped that we have a diverse set of friends; we are friends with a gay couple raising a couple of boys, and a couple of single moms, and a single mom raising children with a live-in boy-friend. I told my daughter that everyone has a biological father, which isn't always the same thing as a dad. I told her that a "dad" is a person who has a very specific relationship with a child, and that's something that has to be developed over time. Over the years, I told my daughter that I would get married some day to a good man who would be a dad for her, and I told her that her biological father had some personal problems and couldn't visit often or be a dad at that time. I always referred to him as her "biological father" or by his first name. We did run into the problem of my daughter wanting to call a boy-friend of mine "dad", but I made it clear to her that the relationship had to be there first, and the guy in question had to be ready and willing to have that relationship, and I insisted that we had to be married first. (Reminding her that all along I'd told her I would marry the guy who would be her dad.)

I had made it clear to my daughter's biological father before they met that he was not going to be my daughter's "dad" until he developed that relationship. He wasn't thrilled about it, and he would have preferred to introduce himself as dad, but he never tried to develop the relationship. It's true that he had some "personal problems", but that same explanation can be used in a lot of situations; some people are pathologically selfish or immature, and that could realistically be described as a personal problem that doesn't require further explanation.

Tell your ex how you feel, but remember that regardless of how your ex introduces himself, your son will accept YOUR definition of the relationship over some stranger's.

HTH, good luck :)