The best way to explain absent father to toddler?

[An00n1]

Ds is coming 3 and his dad hasn't been in his life since he was one and a half because of safeguarding concerns. I have never talked badly to ds about my ex and have been explaining to him that he has a daddy but he lives far away so we don't see him but that he's very loved. I also show him photos of his dad from time to time when he asks to see them because I realised he was getting confused with his family tree and I thought it might help him put a face to it.

We've just been away at the weekend and ds has been asking questions flat out about his dad and its just twigged with me that it's because he knows we had gone on a road trip far away, so he's assumed this must be where his dad lives as to his mind his dad lives far away. So he was then asking to visit which isn't possible (because to my mind its not safe) irregardless of distance.

Can someone please help me find the words for this to help him understand? I'm half tempted to try and explain that his dad is a 'tricky person' but I don't want to be accused of parental alienation should his dad ever go for contact and I'm worried about ds repeating that to other people in nursery/ my in laws. I just don't know how to give him the right context for his age and the situation. I don't want to lie but i also want to do what's best for ds. Does anyone have any advice?

For this age I’d keep it pretty vague and go with the “all families look different” narrative. “Some children have 2 mums, some have 2 dads, just mum/just dad/grand parents” etc

If there’s a question of “but WHY don’t I have my dad?” I’d say something along the lines of “sometimes homes are a lot happier when there’s just one parent and I want us to have a happy home”

I wouldn’t go into any detail at this age as it’ll understandably be quite confusing as you can’t explain the situation fully. Maybe as he got older but not now

remind ds that he’s safe and loved and has a happy home with his mummy, then cross each bridge as it comes. It may be worth noting this to nursery staff too if you haven’t already, just to keep them in the loop if he makes a comment there

Thanks, he's been doing a lot in nursery about family recently which is why I ended up showing him the photos as he was looking at different men in his life and trying to work out if any of them were his daddy and was just so confused with it. I was also very aware that I didn't want him to be faced with questions from others that he has no answer for. We read lots of books with different family make ups represented and I'll point it out to him that there are lots of different types of families etc but he was still confused. Recently he's been saying he misses his daddy which I find difficult as he was too little to remember his daddy when we left but I'm very aware I've still kept in touch with exes extended family and see them regularly so I'm very wary of ds saying something like that to them and it going back to my ex and creating issues. Ex hasn't requested to see him, hasn't contacted me for any updates etc but may get this from his family members, I don't really know.