If your parent wasn't in the picture growing up?

[Unsure181]

So stbxh isn't involved with our child due to safeguarding concerns - never harmful to our child thankfully but unfortunately harmful to other children. I left immediately when I found out. My child was too little to remember my ex when we separated and hasn't seen him in the last year with no effort made by my ex to seek contact (which if I'm honest I'm relieved about and feel is for the best overall even though I know that will probably be difficult for my child in other ways).

I have kept a photo book and a couple of bits for my child incase they are curious when they're older or have questions about him or want to see things related to him but it's not much. I have been going through my phone to try and clear up space from photos and I'm wondering how many photos of their dad do I really need to keep? Obviously I don't like seeing him and I personally hate that no matter how many photos I seem to delete out of certain folders I'm always getting pictures of my ex included in highlights which my phone promotes by itself. So I would love to just delete everything off my phone with him in it, but I am wary incase my child might want them?

So what I'm asking is if you had a parent who wasn't in the picture from very early childhood and who was not a safe person to be around, how much (if any) information/ photos etc did you want of that parent and what advice would you give me about navigating that in the best way to support my child as they grow up?

The most important part for me is that I'm parenting in the best way possible so I can put my own discomfort to one side if its helpful to my child processing all of this further down the line (they're still little) but I'm also wary of presenting a happy family (because we were until we weren't and I had no idea I was living a lie) and making my ex look like he was a good involved dad when actually he was destroying everything for us in the worst way. But then nothing and noone is black and white and I recognise that I might feel very differently about it than dc might and its important to me that I create a dynamic where they feel able to talk to me openly about him and ask whatever questions they might have.

Appreciate any suggestions/ advice x

Go in to Max Spielmann, get every photo of him saved onto a picture disc so DC can have it in the future, then you can erase him from your phone completely. The staff in our local one are generally really helpful if you think it might be a struggle.

Different circumstances (no abuse, just unconventional arrangement between my parents I suppose) - the thing which was tricky for me and my sibling was that my mother didn't give us any narrative to understand or explain to others why we didn't have a dad. If you asked her now, I suspect she'd say we didn't ask, but I think it's a parent's job to be more proactive than that (and actually I also think I did ask, a few times, and got such awkward, unuseable, short, defensive responses that I gave up).

Times have changed though so I imagine you're probably already on top of that.

Re: photos, a PP's practical advice above sounds great. I wondered about picking a couple of core photos for your DC - one (maybe a few) of just their father, a fair likeness, something for them to visualise because otherwise they'll invent their own picture; and one (maybe a few) family photos, which I'd probably wait several years to share. I think DC has the right to see that there was a brief period where family life with their dad seemed happy and normal and full of love, but not while they're still young enough to yearn to have it back. This is just speculation though - I didn't have that bit (parents separated before my birth), so it's not based on my experience.

Thanks for this perspective, it's really interesting that you mention about parents being protective because I'd always planned to answer any questions dc has but you're right in that might not be enough and I don't want them having any awkward scenarios where they're asked questions they can't answer and are only then coming to me. Equally I was worried about putting things on dc they haven't started thinking about yet it's so hard to know what the right balance is.