To be absolutely heartbroken by this comment made by a 5 year old

[dreamer998]

My job involves working with kids. Today, a teary eyed little girl told me this: "I don't see my daddy because mummy said that he doesn't care about me and doesn't want to bother with me"

Why on earth would you tell this to your 5 year old child?! Haven't stopped thinking about it all day. Made me want to cry 😢

Upthread, I said I wasn't sure how I'd have wanted to hear the truth if one of my parents had cut contact after their divorce. Having read Hopping's approach, that's what I would have wanted. It is truthful (not wanting to see your child is "not very good at being a dad") without implying any blame on the child.

''But at the end of the day, this wouldn't be an issue if she had an active and engaged father. A good father that wants to see his child will make sure he does''.
@BadNomad

If I could put this quote in capitals a mile high , I would.

So many dads are absolutely hopeless.

Really good fathers who put their child/ren above a new partner are worth the title of 'Dad'.

treespouse · Today 20:33
This thread is showing there are plenty of parents (mums) who are quite happy to talk to their children like this. Ffs. You're telling on yourselves and it's HORRIBLE. I wonder if it makes them feel better because it certainly doesn't make the 5yr old feel better.

This.

You can tell the truth 'Daddy felt he needed to live somewhere else, and I am sorry that makes you sad but I love you and will always be here for you' without making it about the child - 'he doesnt care about YOU'. FFS people, way to give your child a massive self esteem problem. OP, I am glad you are going to report this, that fuckwit mother needs a reality check. And before you all get on the 'you cant judge others, etc etc' I work with the after effects of this fuckwittery, and it screws people up FOR LIFE. If you are the sort of person who says this kind of shit to your kid, I hope you are proud of yourself.

I replied to you upthread.

I don’t think you understand what ‘the truth hurts’ means.

I am being charitable and giving you the benefit of the doubt, here.

Because I don’t think you genuinely believe ‘the truth hurts’ is an appropriate approach to use with a 5 year old grappling with an absent parent.

I hope you don’t, but I somehow I think you are going to double down and say you do think it is the right approach, which will leave us in no doubt about the quality of your character.

What wrong with talking about reproduction from an early age? Or any issue they may over hear or come in with tampax asking what it’s for.

I didn’t do the whole because I said so. You’re too young or whatever as a way to fob them off. Mine knew from an early age they could talk to me about anything.

Not at all. But as mentioned previously, I don't know the circumstances surrounding her father. I have no idea if he is actually an absent dad or whether he is trying to be involved. All I know is that this mother told her child emotionally damaging information, and yes, I believe that the child was actually told this by mum as there have been issues similar to this previously.

Then you don’t understand the emotional and psychological development of kids or see the damage caused by this sort of thing .

And when they ask why they can’t visit or why he doesn’t visit them ?

Wow there is a lot of assumptions directed towards the mother of the child there!

If the child’s Dad was a good parent he’d be in the child’s life. It is the absence of the father that is making the child upset.

What do you expect the mother to do in those circumstances? Make the father see the child? Make up a story that the father is ‘so busy’ that he couldn’t possibly see the child? Nothing the mother can say is going to make it easier.

And guess what, it’s not the mother’s fault!

I told lies to my dc about their dad not giving a shit.

It was a massive fuck up on my part, I was trying to help them, but they have all told me they would rather have just been told the truth and accepted it when they were young than have me spare their feelings and string it out for years.

It's not always a black and white situation.

Well, I mean, both fathers and mothers could opt out of any duty to protect their children. Is that what you’d prefer?

I’m absolutely certain there are some fathers who’ve had to stand up in the be the adult when a feckless mother has abdicated her duties. Probably nowhere near as many, but still.

Surely it’s preferable that at least one party steps up.

@Climbles To the question: "Why can’t I see daddy this weekend?" you could just reply, "I don't know but I understand it must be really tough/sad for you. Let's do something else instead, what would you like to do?"

If it's because dad is too busy you could say, "Daddy said he has to do something else this weekend and I understand it must be really tough/sad for you not to see him. Let's do something else instead, what would you like to do?"

Empathise with the child on how they are feeling (if they are showing how they are feeling) and then distract them with something else.

You don't have to make excuses or lie. You can put it back on the absent parent.

Well I think a father not giving a crap about a child is very damaging.

Has the OP reported the father for not giving a crap? Or just the mother?

They are five years old, it should not be difficult to tell them something that will not cause lasting damage.

Yes, and my father made no effort to stop my mother taking me out of the country because, I later learned, she threatened to have him killed by the IRA. She actually did the whole "your father doesn't care about you" thing with me too. But he still found a way to keep in touch until I was old enough to make choices. At no point did he just shrug and say "Welp. That's that then." and walk away. Even in your situation, your father could have found a way to keep in touch even if he didn't want to pursue custody. Or contacted you as a teen/adult. No doubt your mother did a bad thing, but I don't think your father comes out of this blameless.

Either way, I don't think our situations are the norm in absent father cases.

I'm pretty sure your young children would not have wanted you to tell them that their dad didn't give a shit about them. It's easy for them to say that now because they are emotionally mature enough to process that information, but I guarantee if you would have said that when they were five it would have been very upsetting for them.

How awful. You can tell a child a certain amount of truth about how their father is unreliable or whatever to protect them from further hurt, but you do not say that.

Some of the replies on here are equally concerning as the comment itself! Good god, the kid is FIVE. Have you any idea how damaging comments like that are to children? How do we feel as adults with rejection? Can u imagine how that feels as a child. My kids dad is an absolute wanker. Never wanted to see her but i will tell her the truth when its age appropriate. Some shitty comments on here.

Wonder if the child has overheard her mum talking on phone to a friend instead maybe. They are like sponges !

I hope you reported the father too for his failure to protect his child.

Of course it is but mother has a choice of protecting her kids or causing more distress.

It's not necessarily true that if a dad was a good dad they would be in their DC's lives. We all know that there can be instances where the break up has been very hostile and mothers stop dads from seeing their child or turn their DC against their dad out of bitterness, as highlighted by a PP

Yes my mother covered up my father’s faults for years. He left and we rarely saw him.

It was very confusing being told that this was somehow ‘OK’ or normal, that it ‘didn’t mean that he didn’t care’.

So I grew up thinking that a father who cared about me was also one who never saw me. And I never felt that I had the right to be upset or angry about him because everyone said it was fine.

I now wish that I had been allowed to see what every other adult could see apart from me. That he couldn’t be bothered.

And now I’m an adult, it’s too late to really tell him how I feel. He thinks because I was ‘fine’ about it for so many years, that his behaviour was fine.

Child safeguarding training will tell you this is emotional abuse so well done for reporting it to the appropriate safeguarding person in your organisation. You just don’t speak to children like this, it’s emotionally damaging, that should be common sense.

Ah so a scum bag father can abandon his child… but the mother gets reported? How about you offer some help to the mum?