To not believe no dad is better

I'm giving up. If you had a different opinion and reasons fo rit, fine. But you don't. you just don't seem to understand what the difference is between "it's slightly less harmful if you do one thing vs if you do this other thing. But both are harmful."

I'm confident that in real life your family and friends despair of how you keep letting your ex back in to your children's lives and the harm it's doing.

No one, EVER has said that.

Most people think the harm of an absent father can be somewhat easier to manage and the children will come out at the end a bit better, than when the children have to deal with the inconsistency and constant let down of a shitty, inconsistent dad.

Who says it doesn’t have a negative affect? Surely they’re just saying that it’s the least worst option?

I don't know if my bio dad is alive or dead (given that I'm 60, probably the latter). I barely knew him and I was somewhere between 8-9 years old the last time I saw him. My outcome has been great but would probably not have been if that waste of skin was still in my life.

That’s a really, really low bar. I try to aim for better than ‘well Social Services wouldn’t take my kids into care for it’ when parenting my children, but I guess we’re all different.
Emotional harm can be as damaging as physical harm.

In your opinion

What do you class as doing "nothing wrong"?

I mean, I think there are plenty of people who grow up with a father who isn't involved day to day, but in the context of their lives it's fine. Consistency being more important. The issue is when a dad is around, then disappears. When he can't be reached by phone. When he doesn't respond when the child needs him. And inevitably, when these men DO reappear, thei rbehaiour is equally inconsistent. Happy and fun one day, moody and irritable the next. Lets the child climb on the highest climbing frame at th epark today, tells them they're too small the next. Attempts to make the child feel guilty if they don't behave how they should etc etc etc.

Only you can tell if your child is better off with or without their dad, but I think it's interesting that it appears that in real life people are telling you NOT to let him back in.

My friends now adult children say no dad would have been better.

As young kids their dad would promise them his time and gifts they wanted that didn’t materialise. They were left sad and upset for days when he didn’t turn up to take them swimming, didn’t turn up to spend the weekend with him or when he told them he’d booked a holiday for them but he hadn’t. He also used to promise them toys and consoles for their birthdays and at Xmas, only to let them down.

When they were little, they just cried. As they got older they started to think they had done something wrong to make Dad not turn up and not buy them things he said he would.

I remember one of them saying she must be naughty and bad because dad hadn’t bought her a birthday gift. My friends was th one left feeling guilty despite giving them a great birthday.

As they got into the teen years, they understood it was him that was the problem, but the damage was done. One of the kids became a people pleaser and the other was angry. Both struggled with mum having a life of her own and admitted they were worried she’d forget them and not prioritise them like their dad. They needed so much reassurance, one needed therapy as she said she felt so worthless. When she had friendship issues she said it’s no wonder people didn’t like her as even her own dad didn’t.

Their mum started to not tell them when he was meant to be coming so it would just be a bonus if he did show up, but the kids used to get anxious with no warning of going with him and worried he’d forget them somewhere or leave them somewhere with someone else, like he often did. They couldn’t trust him and didn’t feel safe when he was ‘looking after them’.

As adults, they both struggle to trust men so hold back in relationships. They feel this is due to their relationship with their dad. My friend is such a good mum but she wasn’t able to take away the pain her kids felt and the damage he has done to their self esteem.

My friend could write a book on the damage that having an unreliable and inconsistent father has done. It may not be classed as abuse by some people, but I think it is a type of abuse really.

That’s a very very low bar you have OP. Would you say the same for a person in a romantic relationship? Well as long as he hasn’t done anything criminally chargeable it’s all okay?

what are you talking about? People do say that allowing a man back in after he's repeatedly let his children down, over and over again, is not a good idea. And I stand by that - chlidren start to heal from their father's behaviour and then bam, he's back with wild promises that turn into nothing, poor behaviour and complete cluelessness about what the child needs/wants or who the child is.

But no one thinks dads should just be shut out for no reason. if they are suggesting this, it's because they've already seen the damage his inconsistency has done and, in most cases, the children are now in a better place.

Are you a man who has decided he wants back into his children's lives? Because you are being weirdly obtuse about this.

No offense but your bar seems to be vet low for your childs wellbeing. They also need emotio ally safeguarding! And a man who is inconsistent and unreliable isn't a man you can adequate assess as safe physically for your child either....

It’s not really shutting them out when they’re not interested in seeing the children. Sadly the children will find out the hard way whether he visits or not. I would want to stop him but I wouldn’t stop him for the children, otherwise he’d blame you in the future, they could too.
It’s a shit situation.
In saying that, I don’t think it’s good for a child to have him pop in and out of their life.

I couldn’t disagree with this more.

I don’t know a single woman who would deny a dad the chance to he in his children’s lives if he genuinely wanted to be there. Turning up once every few months for a few hours is not being a dad. It’s frankly a joke. It’s also teaching your kids right from day one to accept being last priority from someone who should love them- I don’t want any children growing up feeling like that because they’re going to either turn into really horrible partners who think love looks like putting someone last, or partners who accept the bare minimum from someone who should love them and stays with a bad partner way too long. Neither is healthy.

Exactly this. What does it teach kids about love, relationships if this is what they are exposed to right from childhood?

But my point is an inconsistent , or unreliable parent is a danger to the child because they scar them emotionally.

How is not seeing their kid doing nothing wrong though? Have you ever considered dropping the kids somewhere for a few weeks/ months and years and not coming back...?

Neglect and emotional abuse are dangerous though. Being absent and unreliable is both of these imo. You sound like one of those mothers who wants to feel they're doing the right thing and doesn't want to feel in the future they denied their child a relationship with their father, however every one of these women I know IRL now regret it and one is even having to seek protection from the courts because this man hit their child (who he's met about 5 times in their life) because surprise surprise...you don't know this man! If he hardly sees the child he's effectively a stranger who is blood related.

Well it would probably have saved a lot of time and arguing if you’d explained that earlier 😁. Your kids, having experienced both scenarios, prefer him being in their life to being absent. So that’s what you can tell people when they tell you it would be better off if he was absent!
That won’t be the same for all kids though. So just because people have a different opinion to you, it doesn’t mean that they’re wrong. Just like it doesn’t mean that you’re wrong to hold your opinion, based on your experiences.