To not want my dd (6) to know that some dads don't see their children?

[megapixels]

My dd, in Year 2, has got a book of short stories - and one of them is a chapter from Anne Fine's Crummy Mummy and Me. It's the one where the girl goes looking for her biological dad, whom she has never met until then (she is around 9 I think). AIU to skip that story and ask that the teacher not give her books of the sort in future? Dd was distressed enough when she knew that one of her friends has a step mother when her real mother was alive . I did explain to her about seperated families and that step mothers are not like those portrayed in fairy tales. She seems to have forgotten though as she was recently puzzling over "I went to my dad's" that had been written by someone in the class teddybear diary.

At this age I really don't want her to know that some dads (and mums) don't want to see their children. How do you explain that anyway? It would be different if it had to be discussed with her because of a real situation (eg. a friend at school) but is it so wrong that she thinks that all children live with their mums and dads who love them very much? She has time to learn about the realities of the world in her own time through her own experiences without it being forced on her, isn't it? She's only 6, nearing 7. AIBU?

I don't think anyone should be at anyone being annoyed by the original post, it is a very emotive subject. Anyone who has had the father of their child leave for good/die is going to feel very raw about such a thing. The last thing anyone like that would want to feel is that they should be hidden as their life is 'too much' for a 6 year old to deal with.

And my response to that is avbsolutely they can take it in.

It's only a difficult concept if you make it a difficult concept (same as anything else).

The earlier concepts are introduced to children the more that concept is normality and not unsual.

Children are innocent they take things on face value.

Child: "Sarah said she doesn't have a daddy today"
Mum: "Oh did she, well that's right, Sarah only has a mummy"
child: "Why?"
Mum: "I don't know why sweetheart bu some families only have 1 parent in them"
child: "Oh"

GOML and others - I think the point is being missed. The bit that the kids might have difficulty understanding or be unnecessarily upset by is the idiot bastard parent who chose to leave their child, NOT the lovely parent and child who are left behind.

No-one is being negative about the family who are left behind, only about the f8cker who chose to leave them!! It is THAT bit that a 6 yr old might find difficult/upsetting, NOT the parent and child who are left behind!!!!

mascaraohara - your post is the perfect example of explaining the fact that the child has only 1 parent without going into detail that maybe the parent chose to abandon the child. But telling the child WHY the parent left might cause upset that is not needed in the life of a 6 yr old.

E.g. 1: "The child has no dad (or mom), we're not sure why"
"oh, ok"

E.g. 2: "The child's parent doesn't want know her and left her of their own accord"
= potentially one very upset and shaken 6 yr old at the concept that a parent could do that to their own child.

To be perfectly honest I think a child of 6 is perfectly able to deal with the concept of a parent leaving their child, especially as there are plenty of 6 year olds who have to deal with the reality of this having happened to them.

And what 6 year old would be 'shaken' by it? I think most kids would be like the siuation in Mascara's post.

I don't think I am missing the point. The situation as described in the OP is perfectly real and is normal life for a significant number of children. It is a situation that I do not think should be hidden away.

megapixels: I'm just wondering if you've actually bothered to read the book, or even the extract, that you're not allowing your daughter to read. You might discover that it's not as awful as you think (I promise you it's not). In any case, since it is a school reading book, your daughter is probably going to hear about the content in class anyway.

I do think that you managed to come across quite badly in your original post, and I can understand why that upsets and angers all of those whose family situations you want to shelter your daughter from. I don't think you necessarily deserve to be abused, but you should probably be aware that it's a defensive reaction almost identical to your own. A lot of the posters would like to protect their children from the attitude that the reality of their lives is such that your daughter would need to be protected from it. As GetOrfMoiLand points out, there are all manner of reasons why a child might not have contact with one parent (or both). It is quite narrow-minded and unfair to assume that it's simply because the absent parent doesn't love the child.

Incidentally, I was reading an article today at work (I'm an academic) which looked at children's experience of kinship relations in northern England. The paper argues that, contrary to popular opinion, complexity is actually a standard feature of kinship relations even for children who have never experienced parental separation or any 'non-traditional' family set ups. It appears that children are actually very used toand very good atnegotiating and working through all kinds of kinship relations. This would suggest that they're unlikely to be damaged by the knowledge that some families are very different to their own.

For the record (since apparently we need to set out our positionality before our opinions can be taken seriously on this thread), I have a 'blended family' (which is a truly horrible term). I had my son aged 19 and he's never lived with his father, although they are close and adore each other (and there's no animosity between his parents either). DS and I lived with my mother (who is also divorced and was a single parent to me throughout my teenage years) until I finished my undergrad degree. I no longer have any contact with my father (and DS doesn't remember ever meeting him) because he is a difficult and abusive man and I decided that I don't need that in my life any more. I now live with my partner and we're expecting a baby in August. DS (now 9) and DP get on brilliantly. DS has always been perfectly secure in his 'unconventional' family and I, frankly, couldn't give a rats arse what anyone thinks of my family circumstances. If they have a problem with it, it's their problem not mine nor my family's.

GWG you shouldn't be going into that level of detail. not because it's sensitve but because it's none of your business.

That's verging on gossiping.. you don't gossip to your children.

You tell them the facts not hearsay. it's common sense. surely.

what exactly is the point?

The op wanted to know whether she should not read a book about an absent father because she didn't want to introduce the concept of absent fathers to her 6yo. no?

Anyway, I'm off again now and won't be back for a couple of days so feel free to ignore me.

but if the child asks why someone doesn't have a mummy/daddy and you do know, telling them that you don't know is lying to them.

GOML - fair enough, all 6 yr olds are different I suppose and some will find it easy to deal with and others not. A particularly thoughtful or sensitive child might be shaken by the idea of children being abandoned by parent, but - as you say - not by the idea of single-parent families, as that is perfectly normal and probably half their class are in that situation.

Personally, I think that it could wait a year or 2 before the finer points are discussed in full, with the example in mascara's post - where there aren't any details about why the parent left - being sufficient for a 6 yr old, in my opinion.

mascara - it's not gossip if you are talking about a BOOK!! sheeesh.

nappyaddict - apparently if i didn't tell her, i would be lying and if i did, i would be gossiping.

so i guess the moral is: you can't do right for doing wrong.

so i've put in my twopenneth and there i will leave it, cos it's really not worth arguing about. and no, before you all flame, i DON'T mean that single parent families, or children, or 6 yr olds, or MN posters are not worth it, just this discussion

What monkeyfeathers said. She has said what I wanted to do but in a far more articulate way

Mascara - no don't think you're missing the point, if you are I am in the same boat as you (what was the point again? )

NA I would be furious if a class mate said to dd "My mum says you haven't got a dad because "

I would expect a parent to say "Sarah doesn't have a mummy/daddy but I don't really know why. Some parents don't have a mummy or daddy and that's fine"

I categorically know that nobody knows why my dd 'hasn't got a father'. They might think they know (hearsay) but there's a big difference.

My dd knows why she doesn't see her father and that is because he told her she'd never see me again next time she went to visit him. She was 3 years old. Children don't need that level of information.

I'm personalising this to give an example.

One parent families and the concept are normal. Gossiping Elaborating unecessarily and unconstructively is not normal and is not good parenting imvho

So in the book the dd doesn't havve a reltionship with the father because he didn't want to know?

In which case I'm assuming it's tackled sensitively and consructively..? if so what's the issue?

op yabu unless your planning on raising your dc in a desert island! you cant dictate to outside influences, sorry but you cant.

These kinds of books (I have no idea whether this particular one you refer to is age appropriate for your DD) should be encouraged to allow children from all kinds of backgrounds empathise with children of different backgrounds. To understand that there are different kinds of families and that is OK.

Otherwise people like your DD can unknowingly make some child life a misery by treating them as if their situation is upsetting and abnormal by inappropriate questions.

FWIW for younger children the issue of a completely absent birth parent is usually satisfactorily dealt with by saying "some people cannot cope with looking after anyone but themsleves" then focussing on the positive ie who that child does have in their life eg mum, gran, cousins friends etc.

YANBU if you think this particular book is the wrong way to address the matter.

YABU if you think you are doing your DD (or her class mates) any favours by pretending everyone is raised the same way she is.

Connie - "I think children should learn that traditional families are the optimum environment."

You and I fundamentally disagree on this and I'm not going to start that argument again however I really really hope you don't mean that children should be taught that there is some kind of hierarchy in family set -ups and those in more traditional nuclear families are "better" than those who are not. This is exactly the kind of thing that encourages bullying and a sense of false superiority.

Children should be raised to respect other individuals and judge them by their actions and acheivements NOT by the circumstances (completely out of their control) of their family.

Adults may pontificate all they like about what constitutes a good upbringing for a child and some would say that striving to be a good parents behoves us to question this kind of thing. HOwever I would find it very distasteful for anyone to be teaching their children that there are things outside their control that somehow confer favoured status on them. Its a very short drive form there to believing in some kind of master race!

Completely, totally agree with Kewcumber.

I agree with Kewcumber.

'just whether or not the concept of parents chosing to abandon their children is something a 6-yr-old can take and understand without finding it upsetting.'

I think that a 6 yr old can take it in, in quite a matter of fact way-some DCs have to take it in,in practice, so I think the lucky ones can quite easily take it in, in theory.

The book was for homework and so must have been aimed at the age group of the DD-or at least the teacher must have thought so. I would suggest that OP discusses it with the teacher.

My use of the word 'normal' in previous posts is with reference to the OP's family circumstances, but for future reference (for those of you who need it) when a person puts quote marks around a word it generally means that it is context sensitive - at least it does when I do.

You believe that posters are being victimised for having two parent families Dolly? And that's your definition of normal?

Thunderduck Not posters, just the OP. I was using the OP's word in her post just before mine but putting a different spin on it and I did use the phrase 'it's a bit like..'.

And yes, I do think that the OP has been given a hard time - she has had to bear the anger of people who feel 'raw' about some justifiably awful things that have happened to them.

We all want what's best for our children, let's not attack each other over it. It's an AIBU thread, not an am I being bloody pathetic one.

My DS2 has a very complicated family set up.

He is my husband's, sister's, daughter's child.

He cannot live with his b.mum because he almost starved to death when she had care of him.

He has a half sister who lives with b.mum .

I couldnt tell him about half sibling because she arrived just after his adopted sister died. He has LD.

I am really worried how his peers will treat him as he innocently relates this story. He will not expect people to be negative because we have always been open and positive with him.

This posts makes me want to cry (soppy I know but I love him so much). There will be children at his school who have been protected from him upsetting things.

God only knows what the little darlings' reactions will be. I wish I could protect my DS from that

Yet another poor me post with bitchy undertones.