to throw this book away?

[cakedup]

DS is 10. His father has not been in contact at all since DS was 3. Better that way as he is a total idiot.

I'm having a clear out and just came across a huge story book (A4 size, 1000 pages) which his father had inscribed inside: "my dear son, here are some stories for you. Some days they will be read to you. Some days you will read them. Always they will be yours. With all my love, your father."

Which is a bollocks message really considering he has not been a father to him at all. He was a man of many words....but zero action (positive action that is). He has never read DS a story in his fucking life.

I've kept the book til now, despite instinctively feeling I should chuck it. I suppose I felt that it wasn't mine to throw away. DS has never seen it. I thought that perhaps I would keep it and give it to DS when he's older and DS could decide what to do with it. But what would be the point in giving him something that I know was written without any real feeling?

AIBU to chuck the big mother fucking thing away once and for all?

I'd probably chuck it. It will pointless stir up What-If type feelings. More angst than reassurance.

I'd bin it.
I haven't seen my dad since I was 3 years old, and if my mum told me she'd binned a book with an message on it from him, I can hand on heart say I wouldn't give a shit.
Actions speak louder than words!
He'd probably never find out anyway, I think it's our job as parents to protect our kids, if you think it will cause him any kind of upset bin it, and don't ever think about it again.
As you said, you have protected his dad by not telling your son all the details, so why should you not protect him from this?

Last night on thge ITV show long lost family Karina was obviously really upset that her mother had disposed of things her father had sent her, however, he had tried to keep in touch,

I would just put it away until he is an adult

Theroundball - maybe the OPs DS has questions about his dad that he would like answered and this is a way to start speaking about them. OP; is his dad ever spoken about or is the whole topic a no go area? DS understandably got upset when you showed him a picture of him, but that was a few years ago. Now he's older maybe he needs to talk about him.
(I'm coming from the POV of someone whose DP was abandoned by his dad when aged 3 but who has been in his life since he was 18. It's affected him massively and I think the mystery surrounding those early years, (and the excuses his dad still makes!) were damaging too.

Sorry, meant to add, as an adult or teen I wouldn't have cared.
If I was younger it would have opened a whole can of worms.
As I said I haven't seen my dad since I was 3, when I was about 7 he got in touch and asked if he could see us.
My mum said no, and never even told us.
People might say she was wrong for that, but my brother had to go to therapy at 5 years old because of how messed up my Dad made him (he's still affected to this day as a 31 yo man), so in my opinion she did exactly what a mother should do, which is protect her children.

Yes, you're right caked , death is different from abandonment. But, my DM's secretiveness and covetousness on her relationship with my father and her diminishing any links we might have had ourselves was, and still is, a bone of contention between us.

Yes, his Father has been a shit, but he was a shit due to his own lack of responsibility. I understand you are trying to protect your son form any more hurt but to throw something personal away like that changes it from being his Dad's sole fault to something you are the teeniest bit complicit in. Does I make any sense? Perhaps save the book for later, when he is old enough to process things, and you are able to explain?

Irrespective of your decision, you sound like a great Mum who has her son's best interests at heart, so he is a very lucky boy indeed.

Why should OP sit on it and wait until Ds is older? To offer him a token gesture from his absent father? Why should she carry this for that long?

All she has done is raise this child alone so why should she offer this man who has not been a father the opportunity to make good based on a few nice sounding sentences. Did those sentences comfort Ds when he was crying? When he needed a cuddle? When he was acting crazy? When he needed guidance and direction? When he needed support? When he was hungry or when he was sad? No! It didn't. So Ds will not miss this shirker of a man. How nice that he wrote a kind message but when was he ever a father to this little boy? Never.

It is not OPs duty to prepare the ground for any relationship he might have with his father. IMO his father has passed that stage. If he should stroll back into Ds' life then let him do so of his own accord. OP has no business facilitating this. He abandoned his son. He hasn't given a shit for 7-10 years.

Chuck it out cake You have no business facilitating your ex's relationship with ds. If they eventually find each other then fine. But you have too much to worry about without debating over a message written by a man who quite frankly has never been a father to your little boy.

BeenWondering Massively valid points there. My DS's absent dad is very shit, blows hot and cold, of little financial support and has to younger DSs which are more favoured then he and which sometimes upsets him. I see my role in this as not to facilitate and also not to block or obstruct their relationship. Rightly or wrongly, I believe I should stay out of it as much as possible. My son is 10 and is waking up to things, I doubt it will be too long before he says he cba to see his dad. Importantly, the choice is with my son, not me. In this scenario, the son has had no opportunity to have a relationship with his dick of a father. This book is a teeny, tiny token from his Father and it should be the son's choice to reject or keep it, once he's older. This is not about bigging up his dad, building hope, it's about allowing the son to claim the right to deal with this how he wants in a situation where he has had NO say. I understand that maybe the OP didn't get a choice about being a single mum either but that is between her and the ex, and a separate issue.

Throwing out something which does not belong to her and that isn't exactly huge/difficult to keep for him to look at later, seems slightly...off?

All she has done is raise this child alone so why should she offer this man who has not been a father the opportunity to make good based on a few nice sounding sentences.

FWIW, I don't think that keeping it necessarily means telling her son that his dad meant what he wrote - it could be a good lesson for him in how his dad will say the right things but doesn't follow through. If anything, I would want to keep it in case his father does get back in touch to show her son that there is a big difference between saying the things people want to hear, and doing the right thing. As he grows up, there will be less and less need for her to sugar coat things and he might have questions about his father that he wants answered honestly. Being able to show him the book and let him reach his own conclusions about his father's choices over the years might help him to make sense of the situation a bit better.

Thanks for your posts everyone, it's given me a lot to think about.

However BeenWondering's posts are resonating most with me. I would be very surprised if you are not in a similar situation yourself BeenWondering (as in your ds abandoned by their father) as you are so spot on with your points.

Just to give you a bit of background;
XP's contact with DS was very sketchy from the start, would often blow us out or go awol when he had arranged to visit. He had a child about 7 years before DS and a couple of years after DS and he has no contact with those children either. Before he chose to cut contact with us completely, he told me he didn't think it was a good time for him to be a father and that he will see DS when the 'time is right'. He said he would send birthday/xmas presents and pay child maintenance but never did.

DS has asked me about his father over the years and I have tried to give him age appropriate explanations. I've never said a bad word against his dad. The last time we spoke about it, about a year ago, I told him that his dad had other dc he also wasn't in contact with so that ds didn't feel as though it was anything particular about him that made him stay away. It is up to DS to contact his dad when he is older - I must admit I personally would hate for him to do so for several reasons - but out of respect for DS I would keep that to myself.

you need to lie to your son and tell him that his daddy cared about him and loved him 7amWakeUp and WildStyle I'm not too sure about that actually. I don't want to teach DS that that is what love is about, because it isn't. He needs to know that what his father did, i.e. abandon him, is wrong, because I want DS to grow up knowing and wanting to be a good father. I have said something along the lines of "some people find it hard to love others because maybe they weren't loved very much".

It hurts when your child is reminded of his father's feckless behavior theroundball it is absolutely the worst kind of hurt isn't it. It hurt coming across the book today and it hurts writing about it now. This person has rejected and abandoned my beautiful boy. I can't describe how much that hurts.

cakedup Your thread has made me post for the first time...been lurking too long. but your thread really resonated with me.
I have never been in your position but have, and still am, in your sons. Whatever your son reads or hears about his father when he's older he'll always know that you were the one who was there for him - no inscription in a book will ever change that.
However, from my experience I would urge you not to throw it away. I wish I had something that showed me that at one point my father cared about/loved me. For me, it's not about his dad, it's about your boy and no matter how old we get and how much our heads tell us that our fathers were shit, in our hearts we need to know that we, as children, were good enough to be loved. If I had a message now from my father (who I'll never meet) like your son has in that book it wouldn't make me think him a good father, it wouldn't make me like him, it wouldn't stop me thinking my mum (like you) are amazing for all you do on your own, but it would give me some peace and make me feel better. And that's something You can give him, when you think he's ready, with this book. Hope that makes sense.
You sound like a lovely, caring mum and your son will always know this.

No it's not your book. Your son will work out for himself that his father is useless, but before that he will be curious about him and want any information you have good/bad or meaningless. Keep the whole thing, he will decide what to do with it.

YABU if you throw the book away. YANBU to want to.

I am a child of somewhat similar situation to your DS, only I was older when my dad left. Despite the abuse my mother went through at my 'D'F's hands she would never hide any momento he'd left for us. If I was your DS I'd probably look at the book and chuck it away myself. Some bullshit words written a book mean fuck all. The person who was actually there for you and raised you means everything. Actions not words and all that. If you did bin it without my knowledge and I found out or you later told me about it I would be quite offended and upset as it is not yours to throw away. I've always had a massive amount of respect for my mum and the way she handled things.

No, no, no. Your son has been dealt a very crap hand in life with a rotten father. When he is older it may be very important for him to know at some point and in some way his father did love him. Often children can question if a parents lack of effort or contact is their fault. It might in a small way stop that worry. Definitely keep it. I can understand it makes you angry because he broke the promise. But it may be a small comfort to your son.

Don't throw it away. Put it away somewhere and forget about it- but don't throw it away. If you do, what will happen is that your ds will get in contact with his father when he becomes a teenager, his father will mention the book, your ds will ask you about it, and then blame you for keeping it from him. His father will spin lies about you stopping them from seeing each other, and the book will be evidence. Trust me. Something very similar happened in my family and the repercussions were horrible.

I'd keep it, and give it to him when he is mid to late teens to decide what to do with it.
I didn't see my father after I was about 2, when I was a teenager, we discovered a birthday card he had sent to me via my Grandmother - which I had never received. I think I still have it somewhere, it didn't change how I felt/thought about him but it was nice to have (and I know he just wrote it, my Mum had bought it before she left).

Don't throw it away. It's not yours. If you think it will cause upset now, keep it tucked away. DH's father was a pretty crap example of one TBH and he was out of touch with his three kids on and off for years but all three of them wanted to know he loved them. After he died the things he once owned or gave to DH were really important. I personally thought FIL a selfish shit but my opinion wasn't that important really.

Allswellhere thanks for posting. It really made me think. I would absolutely hate for DS to ever feel that he wasn't good enough to be loved, yet thinking about it, that feeling must creep in at times, no matter how loved he is by me and his extended family. I remember one time when he was about 6, and he hadn't mentioned his dad for ages so I didn't think it was on his mind. But a male friend of mine took him out for the day with his ds and my ds called him 'dad' for the entire day. It must affect him more than I can realise, it's part of who he is I guess.

namechangedachangedaname I have obviously touched a nerve which has triggered your aggressive response. Yes, I do know what it's like a bit. I grew up with a loving and devoted father but my mother left home when I was 9 and made very little effort after that. Incidentally she has turned out to be an amazing gp to my ds and we get on ok, although that hurt I felt as a young girl can never be erased. And no, I don't talk down ds' father to him and I definitely would not talk down 'their whole gender' either, that would be ridiculous as DS is obviously male, nor am I sexist. And a fine male he is too! He is like the pied piper when it comes to small children and he is so attentive to our cats (calls himself the their dad) and has often remarked on how he looks forward to being a father one day.

I'm not in favour of chucking the book. Whatever op's view of her ex, this is the child's gift from his now absent parent. It should be kept and perhaps put away until the child is adult and can himself decide what to do with it. Given father is absent now this inscription may have some significance or comfort for the child at some point which cannot be underestimated. Absent parents sometimes return into a child's life at a much later point having reflected/changed/ worked on themselves. Whatever your own views your child is entitled I believe to have some kind of documentation of his life when his absent parent was around. In therapeutic terms it's called life story work. And can often be very important for children in making sense of their life history. Sorry if this sounds like a lecture it's really not meant to be. Just put the book away where it won't be lost but you don't have to look at it if it bothers you?

He sounds lovely. Bought a little tear to my eye he called your friend Dad. How sad his father doesn't realise what a wonderful boy he's missing out on.

The male friend, has he stayed involved? It sounds like he's fond of him and he could be a good role model, I think it's good for kids in situations like this to have people who will show them not all men are feckless wastes of space.

Your ds sounds lovely cake

I can understand the position of keeping the book and giving it to ds when he is an adult as he'd be better prepared to deal with any emotional fallout but giving it to him now or in the coming years I think would cause angst and probably add pressure to what will be a trying few years anyway.

I know the majority response has been to keep the book but I'm still firmly in the bin it camp. It's not as if you've denied his dad access and as you say, you've always tried to give him age appropriate explanations of his fathers absence. In fact, going by your previous posts I'd also tread carefully if his dad wants to stroll back into his life as you can't guarantee that he won't abandon him again and that would really damage ds. But it essentially comes down to his fathers disappearance, he made that choice so I don't see a need to keep up a pretence.

If his father had cared he'd have been around to read those stories to ds. To all intents and purposes he has abandoned his son and I don't see it as cake's role to act as if her ds had a loving father - in truth it's quite the opposite.