DD's bio dad contacting her on FB

[whattaday]

Hi. First post, so please be gentle.

My DD is 12. She's had nothing to do with her bio dad her whole life. Don't want to drip feed - I met her bio dad when I was 18. He was older. Was married - didn't tell me this - I found out when his wife phoned me. I ended things immediately, then found out I was pregnant. I did tell him, he told me that he had no intention of being involved, would deny paternity, if I wanted support I could get a DNA test and if I still demanded money, he and his wife would move back to the country they came from to avoid it (they are both from another European country originally), and if I tried to contact him directly again he'd call the police and accuse me of harassment. Basically, he was a total prick.

No contact after that for several years. When DD was tiny, I met my now DH, who was amazing and totally took on 'dad' role. When she was seven, he legally adopted her (again - we tried to make contact with bio dad, no response for ages, what response we did get was aggresive, denied paternity again) and since then there's been no contact. As far as DD is concerned, DH is her dad. She knows she has another bio dad, and I've tried to be honest (within age appropriate boundaries) and has expressed curiosity sometimes, but it's never been a huge thing.

Anyway, DD is on facebook. Very limited profile, I have full access, and screen any friends requests etc. She's almost 13, so I thought it was OK. Last week I was checking it with her when a new friend request came up. Checked it. Recognised it instantly as her bio dad. DD didn't recognise the name and commented that it looked like some old guy. I just deleted the request and blocked him.

I am now second guessing myself and trying to work out what I should have done. Should I have told DD that was her bio dad? Should I contact him and try and find out if he wants contact? Selfishly, I don't want him to have contact with her at all. He was a cheating prick when I knew him, he's shown no interest for twelve years and I don't think he deserves time in DD's life. But I think she does have a right to know about him and maybe has a right to a relationship with her bio dad. Legally, he has no rights as far as I know, since she's been adopted. Checking his FB profile, it looks like he's still married, and has a couple of kids with his DW.

Should I contact him? What if he does want contact?

The FB request is just a symptom of a problem (of him starting to get in touch), so ignoring as Kristinas suggested won't help. There's also nothing to stop him (presumably) setting up another profile to try again.

I agree with AcrossThePond, and you'll definitely need to think about how you share this with your DD in time too.

*support her not support get

Surely your DD is like any child who has been adopted in that the birth parent shouldn't be making any contact other than that set by the court. It doesn't sound as though any contact was ordered at the adoption so he shouldn't be attempting any contact until DD is 18 and then through proper channels.

if your DD sees it and asks tell her it's because she is too young to deal with this and you are taking care of it

i would contact him and ask him wtf he wants but then again i would as my ex's wife contacted my daughter on facebook slagged me off was shocked when she blocked her so she contacted me had a fit at me so i blocked her contacted my friends (can you see where this is going yet?) her bio dad was given her email address to contact her sent a few limp lettuce emails and hasn't bothered since it's her birthday soon it will be interesting to see if he acknowledges that

i should have dumped the cunt when i was pregnant instead of trying to do the right thing having him involved but live and learn

I second the advice to go through his friends list and block any family members on it too. I expect his next step will be to have his wife contact your DD if you don't respond to him.

I would also contact him myself and tell him that any contact needs to go via you and he should not attempt to contact DD directly again - he is a stranger to her and should not be using Facebook to get in touch with her.

I think you'll find that he KNOWS he shouldnt be contacting the OPs daughter . He has been, in the Ops words , a total prick for 13 years . So I don't think that the OP contacting him and telling him to stop it will achieve anything . He's not going to say

" gee, I never thought I was doing anything wrong, thanks for pointing that out, yeah I'll not do it again " .

She would be wasting her breath . As well as setting up a difficult situation for when the child is older, when he tells her DD that HE wanted contact but his evil witch of an ex stopped him. People like this want attention and he'll enjoy getting into an argument with the Op and her husband.

My guess is that he's bored, in between GF/partners , his other kids are grown up and don't need him , he fancies playing Disney dad and getting some sympathy. Or he's felling guilty about being such a shit. Or his mother wants to see her grandchild. Or he has no other kids , realises he's never going to have any more so suddenly wants to play dad.

Whatever. It's all about him and what's going on in his life. It's not about this 12 yo and her needs .

The OP doesn't need to ask him what he wants. There is NO GOOD REASON for someone to do this. Any decent person would go via the OP.

It's shitty but it's not illegal. There's nothing the courts will do, unless it's becomes serious harassment / stalking . It's not an offence to send someone a message.

The courts removed his parental rights ( if he ever had any ) when the child was adopted. They didn't remove his right to use FB.

Taking practical steps to avoid the problem is better than getting into a confrontation with him.

I don't think that the OP contacting him and telling him to stop it will achieve anything

It will achieve something: when the OP's daughter asks her in years to come why she blocked and ignored contact without even asking, she can say she did.

It might also lead to facilitating some form of relationship which would be beneficial for her daughter one day in the future (unlikely but not impossible).

You're almost certainly right that he's probably not a magically wonderful dad now, and he may indeed have some dramatic reason for trying (illness? Divorce as you say?) BUT ignoring it and hoping it goes away isn't a sensible response either, surely. Better to try and reason it out grown-up to grown-up?

Re talking to here about what actually happened, she's coming to an age where she will understand what happened more and more through to shows and friends. I think you can start to be more frank about it but try not to make it sound like you are angry at him even if you are as you don't want her thinking later on that you tainted her view of him if she meets him and he is all charming and wonderful dad. Just state the facts.

I am adopted. yes adopted people do have curiosity about biological parents but 12 is way too young to deal with this in my opinion-unless there has been an open adoption all along.

I agree with others that he was bored, probably searched your name on fb and got her.

I would not ask him what he wanted. What he wants is irrelevant. he has no rights and what he wants should mean less than nothing to the OP. Block him and monitor. If he gets in contact again somehow, contact him yourself and tell him to go away until she is 18 (as another poster advised) and then go through the proper channels.

This isn't a case of a father who absconded and is now hoping to get back in touch. He was never a father. whatever parental rights he had were terminated with his eager consent. your dd is like any other adoptee- she has 2 parents and can search for the bio parents when she reaches the right age. But she should do so knowing what happened. Because a man who rejected his child so categorically isn't going to magically become dad of the year to an adult.

It will achieve something: when the OP's daughter asks her in years to come why she blocked and ignored contact without even asking, she can say she did.

I disagree completely. When her dd asks this question she can answer "because your father was stupid and inadequate enough to reject you completely and absolutely when you were born. He willingly terminated his parental rights when you were adopted by your dad. He was not a nice man and I had good cause to think he was more likely to hurt you than not if he made contact with you age 12. I felt all of this was something you would be far better able to deal with when you were older. And if he was genuinely interested in how you were and forging some sort of relationship with you, I knew he would have contacted me to start the process- not you"

She's absolutely too young to be dealing with this.
However, I would message him to ask why he has tried to contact her. He may be ill, he may need to share medical information. He's been a total and utter waste of space so far and is obviously clueless about what potential impact this would have on a 12 year old but I would have to try to find out what his motivation is.

I thought FB had a setting that uf someone was under 18 that they couldnt be contacted (messaged / friend request) by anyone outside of friends?

But if all under 18s had this setting how do they add their friends? You can only add people but can be contacted but it's the same with your friend?

Not saying it doesn't exist but just don't get how it works

He may be ill, he may need to share medical information.

So he contacts a 12 year old and says "I need to tell you I have MS that is probably genetic. might want to see a doctor. Bye now"

If he has anything important to say he should say it to her mother.

I have done some work with an adoption intermediary service so understand a little about situations like this.

Personally I think you did the right thing by blocking him from her Facebook. For a start if he could find her he could find you and anyone with an ounce of sense in this situation seeking contact of some kind with a child of that age would go through her mother first. The fact he did not do that is appalling and already would make me wary of allowing him contact. Imagine if he sent her a message, that kind of shock could have been quite traumatic for her.

As you already know morally you have a duty to your daughter to give her the chance to know her biological dad but given his behaviour I think within very strict boundaries that you are comfortable with. If I were you I'd add him on Facebook and contact him asking why he's reaching out now, see what his intentions are and take it from there telling him in no uncertain terms that all contact (which would be very limited if any and probably only letters for a long initial period that get sent to you) will be through you.

As you already know morally you have a duty to your daughter to give her the chance to know her biological dad

there is absolutely no moral duty at all on the OP to facilitate a very young girl getting to know a man she knows cruelly and deliberately rejected her both at birth and 5 years ago. None at all. And remember the 12 year old didn't ask to find this man. he made the first inappropriate contact. Why would they draw this man who is a known piece of shit into their lives just because he got bored one day and made a fb request.

of course there is a moral duty on the OP to help her dd find him if she so wishes when she is older. 12 is way too young. I am in contact with my biological family - they made contact when I was an adult and it was complicated enough then for me emotionally (and they were nice, hadn't rejected me ever etc). No way could I have coped properly at 12 - just the age when you are entering teen years, starting secondary school, and have enough on your plate emotionally.

The OP should block, ignore. and monitor carefully. If her daughter wants more information when she is older, then the op will be able to find him. Bet it won't end well though. People do not change to that extent.

I think you need to message him and ask him why he is contacting a child he has not had any relationship with since the day she was born. What an arsehole, he clearly doesn't have a clue how this could impact her.

'He may be ill, he may need to share medical information.

So he contacts a 12 year old and says "I need to tell you I have MS that is probably genetic. might want to see a doctor. Bye now"

If he has anything important to say he should say it to her mother.'

Canyou that was exactly my point

Sorry lemon,I thought you meant it was ok for him to contact the 12 year old.

My point is if he did have any serious medical information he would contact the mother. he wouldn't contact the dd. So the chances of him having anything significant to say that might be of real importance to the dd are miniscule. not enough to respond to him in my opinion.

I wouldn't say this in a normal situation where a father has lost contact after a split but in these circumstances, nothing good can come of reaching out to him - even to ask him why he contacted her. I think it is fairly certain that he contacted her out of selfish bad-minded reasons. This is an adopted child. Just because it is her step-dad who adopted her doesn't change that. If she had been adopted by 2 non family members, no one would even consider for a moment that her bio-father, who rejected his child vehemently and repeatedly, should be entertained for a minute if he found her on fb 12 years later - even to say why are you trying to contact her. there really is no significant difference in this case.

He has no right, moral or legal , to see her or make contact with her . Now or at any age.

If the DD wants some contact when SHE is an adult, then that's up to her. Her parents may choose to be part of that , if she wants them to be. The initiative should be with her.

This attempt at contact is not for the child, it's because it's a good time for him.

TBH I'm suprised that someone who has worked in adoption would believe that parents have a moral duty to give their 12 year old child the chance to know a biological relative with his history . This is completely against what is considered to be best practice, unless it's an open adoption .

Any adoption agency would tell this man that he is NOT to make any contact directly , either with the child or her parents . Once the child is older, they might agree to forward a letter but that is all .

This man is bad news . A man who denied even conceiving her, never met her , never supported her and did not cooperate with social services . A man who said he would sooner emigrate than acknowledge her existence and threatened to call the police on the vulnerable pregnant teenager he seduced .

A prince among men indeed. Any parent would think twice about letting such a man meet their 12 yo, biology or no biology .

Good posts Kr1stina. I agree. It's about him. No need to contact him.

I can tell you from previous experience this sort of thing can cause huge rifts in the future if your DD gets the idea in her head that you're deliberately blocking contact with her bio Dad.

Ask him what he wants and then go from there. Just be firm and clear in your responses that he had no legal rights when it comes to your dd, you will not let him mess your DD about and that everything if anything will be going through you.