If you grew up without a father BUT still had a relationship with your paternal grandparents, can I ask you some questions?

[Julingo]

How did it work? Did you ever discuss your father with them/they with you?

DDs 'father' has no contact with her by his own choice. He did have contact for a number of years but then gradually dropped off the scene and has now moved away. I have no idea where he is. Pays maintenance but thats all the contact I have with him.

DD still has a very good relationship with his parents, they take her out for days out, she stays over at weekends, they come to her school plays, buy her school photos etc. However she is still really young (4), and I don't know how it will work when she is older.

She had to make a family tree for school the other day. "People who are important to me". It was one of those template ones with a space for mummy and daddy and then their parents etc. I was filling it out with her and she didn't want to put daddy in the father box, her choice, but when I put her grandparents above his space she was genuinely amazed that nanny and grandad were her dads parents. I had naively presumed she knew that already. I don't see my parents so she has no direct experience of grandparents being her parents parents.

How do you deal with this as they get older?

What's to deal with? There's the family tree, there are the grandparents (both sets). That's the way it is. Are there no aunts and uncles to slog in too?

Slot

Whats to deal with...well when she is older what happens when daddy comes to visit his parents that weekend, does DD just not go? Do they talk to DD about him? Would that be better for her or not?

The family tree was a side story not the whole point

I sort of have two experiences of this.

My paternal Grandparents took my older siblings and I when I was 7 after the extent of the abuse and violence in our home came out. I didn't see him again apart from several incidents when he turned up drunk or high and was arrested. My grandparents were honest with me "You can't see Dad because he did some bad things". They didn't bring him up, but always answered questions when I had them.

My DD's father left when they were 6 months old. He has seen them sporadically since - usually he manages a stint of a year or so whenever he gets a new girlfriend and wants to play the doting father. When they were 4 they hadn't seen him or his family for a year and his Mum wrote me a letter and hand delivered it. In it she said she was ashamed of her son and that she missed her two granddaughters terribly. Since then she and their grandad have built a wonderful relationship with the girls - they stay with them, go on holiday, they come to sports days etc. Like my GP's they always answered any questions honestly when the girls asked, but didn't bring him up without their prompting.

It sounds like your DD's grandparents are like my DD's grandparents and will make the relationship work despite their son's disinterest.

I knew who my dad was but he never bothered his hoop, unless it was a show.. he couldn’t remember my age for example (bought me a child’s toy/dvd for my 16th.. when I was 17)

I went to his parents/siblings homes every weekend for sleepovers and to see them. But it was never a secret or a shock that they were his family. DM obviously never seen the point in hiding it, they split when i was almost 2 so obviously I hadn’t a clue he was by the time I was at school.

Also don’t be too surprised by her being surprised - children are often surprised by adults relationship to each other.

My 9yo was absolutely gobsmacked when he was 6 the day he realised that DH and BIL (who both call PIL Mum and Dad!) were brothers.