![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Dear Prudie: Quitting as a parent
Q. Quitting My Job as a Parent: I found out that my 12-year-old son is not my biological son. His mother and I have been divorced for two years, but I never questioned the paternity even when I caught her cheating on me four years ago. Not even when my mother asked me several times to get a DNA test since my “son” was young because he didn’t resemble me. I’ve been paying child support and seeing him every other weekend so far. Since finding out, my ex has offered to pay me back for most of the child support since our divorce. I won’t be taking further legal action because I just want to move on with my life. I’ve also decided to stop seeing him because I am not his father. I’ve already spent more than a decade parenting (financially and emotionally) a child that isn’t mine, and I don’t want to do it anymore. Most of my family has been critical about my decisions—they insist that I should make my ex suffer more and sue her for all she’s worth, but then they say I should keep being a father figure so an innocent child doesn’t lose his dad. What am I to do?
A: There are both legal and moral issues here. Since you have raised this boy as your son, I’m not so sure a paternity test then absolves you of all responsibility to him. (Readers familiar with family law will illuminate this, I hope.) Both you and your ex need to talk to your lawyers, and I hope the primary concern of both of you is the best interest of the boy, not merely bank accounts. You say you’ve spend more than a decade parenting this boy, and now you’re sick of it. No wonder your family is critical. In every way except DNA you are his father. As I’ve written many times, I think as a society we are way too obsessed with biology—adoptive parents have no less love or emotional connection to their children than biological ones. I don’t know how you can consider just walking away from a boy you have loved and nurtured all his life. Your ex sounds like a piece of work, but together you raised a son. I hope for his sake, and for yours, you continue to tell him you’re his father.
no subject
What I will say is that Prudie is right about the lawyers. Here in IL, at least, if he signed the birth certificate, he's the kid's legal father, and is liable for child support.
no subject
That said, I was interested in your point about the birth certificate. Here in Aus, at least, a person is no longer legally financially responsible for a child if it turns out that they're not in fact a biological parent of the child - unless they've actively chosen to claim the child regardless of biological relationship (i.e. via adoption).
no subject
no subject
I mean, if my kids turned out to magically not be mine (aside from how I would be VERY surprised), you'd still have to pry me off them with a crowbar. Anyone who isn't that way about their children...well.
no subject
no subject
But anyone who can even think that about a kid they've spent more than a decade with...really doesn't deserve to be in that child's life.
no subject
I mean, do not mistake me: there is a whole lot of "what the fuck are you even fucking THINKING" and so on, often with more swear-words. But some people are not very emotionally intelligent, and that combined with a whole lot of cultural influences and a huge amount of emotional hurt about what the ex did and (if you've bought too much into the "biology counts" koolaid) hurt about already "losing" the child because he's not "his" biologically and you get someone full of emotional turmoil being Really, Really Stupid.
Of course, he may also just be a nasty piece of work that the kid is better off without. Just, he may well have also developed a bond and thus be in the middle of a huge amount of hurt and be doing the "just get everything that hurts away from me so it will stop hurting."
In which case doing so would not just hurt the kid, but also the letter writer. People can be very stupid about that kind of thing, when in a lot of pain.
no subject
And I have little doubt that the kid is well aware of it. 12 year olds aren't ignorant.
no subject
My father would have done that in a hot minute if it turned out I wasn't his genetic child. And I would have been vastly better off -- even without his financial contribution.
no subject
While I do think that the kid would have been better off never to have known this shitstain, he doesn't have that option now. For better or worse, this dickhead has been his father for more than a decade; and whether or not he attached to the boy, the boy has attached to him - that's unavoidable.
And I'm not sure whether cutting off the relationship now would be better or worse, now that the best case is completely out of reach. I'm not sure there is an easy answer to that, but I think that the boy might have some ideas, and should be heard.
Maybe he doesn't want anything to do with his father, or maybe he's desperate to keep playing this out until he's done with the relationship himself. No one knows except him.
no subject