I am very familiar with your situation. I am an orphan born in Korea to a mother who was 13 and a father who left her before she was - month pregnant who was almost 40. Was in foster care for a couple years then adopted to the states in Chicago and became an on and off runaway at 12/13-17 and finally stayed on the streets until today, I am now 32, have a 2 year old daughter as well as a 9 y.o. Step son who's father left his life when he was a month old and is actually in a rival gang to mine (I have since left that life). So I not only have the perspective of a child with no father but a father who has had his own daughter taken away due to his unhealthy and irresponsible lifestyle as well as seeing another child with no father react to me as his step father...whew it's a lot I kno, but trust me my life has been...vivid to say the least lol. So let me tell you first how I got back the privilege of being a father. I garauntee your x is a young minded, relatively lost individual but unconsciously so, has a good heart at times but not enough to put weigh the negative aspects to his personality. Which means at one time you were highly attracted to that type of man, or should I say young man, and have since grown up. He has a lot of choices to make in his future. One being, sacrificing who is now, to grow into who he could potentially be. Let me tell you your responsibility in that choice...nothing. It's on him as a man to accept responsibility of his own actions. Just like I had to, which only came from a failure of suicide, which helped me realize what I would have done to my daughter and made her grow up similarly to me. I had to go through a lot of shit, pain and suffering to grow but today I am the first thing my daughter sees when she wakes and the last thing she sees when she goes to sleep. We are best friends but I am also her father first and those lines are clearly separate. Me and her mother live together as room mates for financial reasons but have learned to be cool with each other and respect each other as humans and parents to our kids. Again we had to go through SO MUCH SHIT to achieve this but I'd go to hell n back for my shorty and I have. Only thing you can do is be there for your kid, and sometimes that's being there for yourself so you are balanced and stress free enough to be there for anyone else. A stressed parent makes a stressed child because kids usually don't do what you say, they do what you do. So if you bad mouth your baby daddy, they will learn that from you and grow up hating someone they don't really kno, causing resentment, hate and eventually deep seeded hate and pain for themselves. I kno because I used to hate both of my parents, my father especially as he was probably a rapist. As well as many of my foster and street fathers and that hate festered for years until it almost killed me. So please, if your BD is an asshole, they will find out soon enough without you having to remind them. That will be a challenge for them, and not you to face. As parents we want to protect our kids from everything but remember that our personal challenges make us stronger so if those challenges are taken away from us, we will only be that much more helpless later.
My second point is when I first met my step son when he was 4. He use to follow me around asking me if I was his dad, and I would tell him "naw man I'm your homeboy" lol. On Father's Day he would make cards with pics of his mom saying "your my mom and my dad" and all single moms that don't have the father in the picture feel they must toughen up their kid, especially boys, in an overcompensation to the guilt they feel that comes with leaving their biological father. One thing to remember, u are not his father and never will be. To a child you are a mom and while you might play some parts a father "should" a son will just take it as that's what moms do. It won't be until later when we find out it's usually a fathers job to teach us how to do manly things and as young men we will overcompensate due to our inexperience with being a man. This is why a father can not be replaced with a woman. Just like a father cannot replace a mother's presence. My suggestion is you have him around uncles, grandfathers etc as much as possible so he can learn what a man is. I assume your x didn't have his father around?? If not he might just be sheltered, but I would suggest being honest with your child. They will appreciate it later, trust me. I wasn't told about the details of my history until 19, and left that family at 16 and only saw them to re establish a relationship last year at 31. It'll hurt your kid a lil now but trust me, what u think is protection is not and will b much worse later, added to the fact that he won't trust you anymore. So I tell my son exactly this " your father was scared of being a bad father to you so he left cuz he felt bad, he loved you but he also didn't understand love and wasn't strong enough to be there for you. I wasn't strong enough to be there for you or your sister too, so I understand him, the only difference is I started getting stronger because I made a choice to do so cuz I love u guys and I also understand it" he is sad sometimes and has told me that he hates when Father's Day comes but appreciates my honesty with him and I believe dealing with a hard situation avoided a lot of pain I suffered as a kid, teenager, and even un developed adult. I could go on but I'd need to kno more and idk if this is even making sense to you lol but love from Chicago!!