Should I tell midwife that my father is a pedophile TW

[Lifeisanillusion]

Hello,
A couple of years ago I found out that my dad was looking at sexual images of children on the internet. I was living at home at the time and he has always been abusive so I reported him to the police and moved out, the police said they would look into it but nothing happened.

My sister has recently told me that my mum has caught my dad looking out of the window at the neighbors children and sexually pleasing himself. I have reported the incident to crimestoppers. My mum still lives at home but my mum suffers from severe agoraphobia and is scared to leave on her own.

I have recently found out that I am pregnant so I am now terrified after finding out this information. I have my first midwife appointment tomorrow and I am not sure whether to tell them what's been going on? Would social services end up being involved? I do not have contact with my dad.

Thank you

What are you on about? This is real life, not a law court.

Absolutely! Paedophilia is so abhorrent, we need to call it what it is. History has shown us that keeping quiet or ‘dumming’ it down allows abusers to continue abusing children.

Through messaging and phone calls

They never even checked his hard drive?

That's weird. You can report again of course

Yes, so would I. You've done your bit by reporting him already, telling your midwife wouldn't achieve anything at all.

If you need to offload to somebody, find a counsellor, they are completely confidential and may well help you, but not a midwife.

I am concerned about your mother being trapped at home with him. Maybe social services could get involved with that.

However right now you need to concentrate on you and your baby. Congratulations!

Ring social services and raise it as a safeguarding issue. Tell them what has happened in the past and what your mum has said and that she is agorophobic.

They should deal with this.

okay but you never see her

Personally, I would not tell the midwife, unless directly asked about it, I wouldn’t lie, but I wouldn’t volunteer the information. The reason is that I did volunteer some other similar information when I was pregnant, thinking I was doing the right thing, the midwife made notes which were incorrect, which then followed me around for the rest of my pregnancy and onwards. once it was written down, it was very hard to change it and I was viewed through a completely unfair distorted lens. speaking to the police is being upfront about it. Not having contact and putting this in your will is safeguarding your child. If there is a record of you having been through trauma this can also come back to bite you on the arse and get used against you later in life, for example, if you find yourself arguing about contact in family court if you happen to break up with your partner and it gets aggy. I don’t think the midwife needs to know, it’s just not relevant as you are doing everything right, and you are not being secretive, I don’t see how it falls under her remit to know about it.

He sounds really dangerous, make as much noise about it as you can with people who are actually able to do something. By all means contact front door for families and tell them what you have seen as well. It’s just not part of your medical care right now in my opinion, it’s a legal matter.

I'm so sorry for you having to deal with this at what is already in ''normal' circumstances an emotional time. I have absolutely no experience or expertise and defer entirely to anyone who knows about eg social services more than me.

However what I would say is - I really hope you are able to get some support to deal with the emotions and feelings that pregnancy and parenthood will no doubt bring for you. Again, others will be more expert but is there perhaps a charity/ organisation for survivors of abuse who could offer counselling or similar? I have no idea how you feel right now but I imagine this is goign to bring up a lot of trauma for you that perhaps you could do with some help processing.

All the very best - and I'm sure you will be a brilliant mum.

And they’ll deal with this by being on the back of the OP to check she isn’t seeing her father with her child etc….

It’s the OP that will bear the brunt of it. Not the father ending up in Court and then prison. Such a small % of them do.

That has not been my experience, but of course they will want to protect her child too - that's not unreasonable but she has mad eit pretty clear there will be no contact.

@Lifeisanillusion im afraid I’m another who will say dont say anything to the MW.

It wont change anything about your dad.
It might well be that SS won’t do anything anyway once you’ve told them you dont see your father. At worst, it will open all sorts of check on you and your family ‘just in case’. What isn’t going to happen is for SS to contact the police and for them to start a new investigation.

I would have to, its not just about her and her child, its about other kids too. I couldn't live with myself if a child got hurt and I hadn't spoken up. Even if they don't listen, speak up, you don't want that on your conscious,

So sorry you suffered too. Traumatising, isn't it?

If you and therefore your baby have no contact with him I'd not even mention it.

I wouldn't say anything either. They made me feel so small when I'd taken my DD to A+E at 6 months old with a bump to the head. I get they have to follow visits up but she was a patronising bitch, and when the same thing happened to my DS at the same age I didn't take him to get checked out because I was scared of this person ringing me again and making me feel like shit again. I can't imagine having call after call and visit after visit from them to potentially feel like that all the time.

Yep. After that I didn't dare share anything I had gone through with medical professionals again

Once your baby is born you may find that combination of hormones and a new perspective of being a mother could cause you to experience the effects of your own trauma in a new way...
You may need care and support for this.

I would tell your midwife in a
'my father was abusive and knowing he is a paedophile and being no contact could give me some particular challenges (emotional or practical) as I start my life as a mother - what support might be available if I need it'
kind of way

Just have no contact with him ... you will be bringing yourself under the Scrutiny of social services,plus your dad has not be charged so will they believe you? or think you just being malicious ...

I did OP. It came up in the standard questions so it was choice between lying and disclosing so disclosed. They asked a few basic safeguarding questions and then advised me to have no further contact (I already wasn’t) and that anyone who was still in contact in with him shouldn’t be left unsupervised with my child (which I hadn’t thought of).

No social services intervention, not even a call from the social worker. They’ve got better things to do than chase parents who are already aware of issues and actively protecting their children from them.

I think it depends what you want to achieve.

I would advise speaking up because it gets the officials on side straight from the outset in terms of honesty and backing you up in terms of tough decisions.

I don't think you should allow your mum to babysit at her house where he lives, but you should be aware that speaking up and then continuing to go to their house after baby is born would likely be considered a significant safeguarding risk. Forever.

I think that is the right course of action for your child's sake, and that you should speak up so you can straight up just tell your mum that you can't go to her house with baby due to the risk to your child by him, as well as the risk of social services involvement. But I'm aware that you'll probably be nuking your relationship with your mum.

Sadly, OP, having babies means putting them first, even when it means taking action that will divide families and sever contact with people you love like your mum because she is failing to make the right choices.

A paedophile is defined as someone with a sexual interest in children, not someone who has been convicted for having a sexual interest in children. Anyone looking at sexual images of children and masturbating while looking at children is clearly a paedophile, and deserves to be called one.

DO NOT do this fgs.

So 'in your experience' what WILL they do if not focus all their attention on mum's responsibilities?