WEST LONDON - COV invites you to her house sometime in September or October....

[ComeOVeneer]

The 11th is not happening now. Nanou's do is a seperate thing entirely. However I would still liketo invite you all over to a do at mine. I am proposing a Friday or Sturady in the second part of September or October.

The dates I can do are as follows.....

SEPTEMBER

FRI 14th
SAT 15th

FRI 21st

FRI 28th
SAT 29th

OCTOBER

FRI 5th
SAT 6th

FRI 12th
SAT 13th

FRI 19th
SAT 20th

FRI 26th
SAT 27th

My husband has no idea of the baby's birthday - and she was only born less than 4 months ago.

As for my fther - I'm not even sure if he even knows I've had a baby.

Ooooh are we having a competition on rubbish fathers? I stand a pretty good chance with mine now (thought to be fair he was pretty decent growing up).

My dad is not in the running for the worst dad. He can give me 700 quid any time he likes. In fact, I wish more people would do that.

Cesca/Kew/Ele - so I'm not the only one with a dysfunctional mean pig dog of a father then?

I don't mind that he forgot the day but I do mind that he has now tried to fudge the whole thing, claiming he hadn't forgotten but was planning to get DD a pressie while on hols (he went yesterday). HTF would he know what DD wants as he only sees her about twice a year?

She wants a dolls house and I wanted him to get her some furniture for it as they are tres expensive, but instead he'll get his girlfriend to choose some crap thing DD won't even like

He only lives 10 minutes away and it just makes me cross that he is so mean and selfish he can't even acknowledge his family.

He has all these lovely 2nd cousins from Italy (living in UK now) and he said to me once "I don't want to get too friendly with them, because if I do then I'd have to fork out to buy the Christmas cards each year"!!!

How mean is that?

Kew its my backdated pay which my boss promised to get processed this month. It is needed as it is paying for your Polish chappies work!! work]

Ele I'll have to get lessons from you in how to guilt trip him

When DS2 was born my Mum told him to send us some money to buy something. Instead he bought DS2 - his own grandson - one crappy sleepsuit to mark his entry into the world.

I'm not obsessed with presents its just that he is actually comfortably off and is such an utter scrooge - he's not just mean with money, he's very mean in spirit too, which is far worse. He would only ever visit us if he can tie it in with a visit to Sainsbury's or something and we never get invited there as it would mean him using up 2 teabags and a few drops of juice as he'd have to offer us a drink

my bestest ever crap father story (short of really hideous ones who beat you to a pulp)...

Background

perfectly normal fatehr growing up, very close to him

left my mum after 35 yrs marriage by just not coming home from work one day (left a message for my sister on her answerphone ), wouldn't give us his address and pretty much hasn;t had much to do with us since (10 yrs ago)

Story

I had a cancer scare about 6 months after he left - got a long way down the line and was told that there was a high chance I had cancer of uterus (based on scans) and scheduled for biopsy. My sister decided even if he was a pillock that my Dad should know so rang to tell him I was going into hospital. he never sent me a card or letter, didn;t call and didn;t even call my sister to find out what the results were. She didn;t tell me at the time she was too . Only told me about 2 years ago. Can you imagine you child having a cancer biopsy and not even ringing to find out the result. Guess he figured someone would tell him when the funeral was if it was untreatable

Streeewth - not buy Christmas cards! What are men like!?

Can you just tell him you've bought her something for the dolls house, wrap it for him and give it to him to give her? (And get him to give you the money, natch)

At least you will ensure she gets the right pressie.

My husband has finally admitted that he gets his sister in law to buy my birthday presents. S'ok - she has pretty good taste in jewellery!

Kew that's truly horrible!What a tosser!

My Dad really likes funerals as he gets to see loads of old friends and relatives without having to make any effort and gets free food and drink!

god I think my sister would love her DH to ask me to buy her presents. Hwe once bought her a laminator for Christms (you would have to know her to understand how truly amusing that was) tried subsequently to claim it was a joke

Oh Kewcumber - that's awful.

I haven't seen mine in 20+ years (he knows where I am and everything cos my brother sees a lot of him, tells him what I'm up to etc)

Ironically he is a teacher and apparently v. fatherly to his pupils. Go figure!

My DH was lovely. Bought me a year at Amida for my birthday.

Haven't seen mine in 10yrs - you do get used to it though don't you? It was just such a shock coming form a previously fairly normal father.

he sent me an email after coming home with DS saying how much he wanted to get to know him. Still haven't worked out what to respond. What about his other 5 grandchildren that he has barely seen in 10 yrs? Do I beleive that he wants to build a relationship again? No not really. I think DS is a novelty and he wants to be able to tell people about him but I think one or two meetings will suffice to get the info then I think we won;t see him for dust.

Cynical, moi?

and stop with your bloody Amida name dropping Eleusis, its not big and its not clever.

sorry

no you're not. Thats the second thread you're taunted me with Amida!

oh dear, sorry to hear your bad/sad dad stories..
it must be so hard to understand- especially once you're a parent yourself - how a father can 'opt out' in this way.

particularly hard steppie when he wasn't like this before. As you say, harder to understand when you have children yourself.

QC, do you think your dad had a mid-life crisis? Don't know, just wondering...

wish I lived down there you could whiten me teef for me!

yes I do Sushi - triggered by his dad dying. He sort of became Kevin the teenager and didn't want any family responsibility (despite us all being grown up and left home). It was all very bizarre - he divorced us all not just my mum.

That's really sad, QC. I am sorry. I hope one day he realises what he's done and make peace with everyone, him included.

luckily it was some time ago and life has moved on since then. I have wobbles about it about twice a year but other than that it doesn;t imoinge on me too much (sadly).

On the up-side I do now tell people I am the product of a broken home so they have to make allowances.

Never said this to anyone before but I often feel like shouting at my dad for being a selfish bastard to drink himself to death and not being able to see these gorgeous grandchildren of his. But he was a very caring, loving dad to me and I miss him.