I don't know what to call this, but it's a serious topic

Kids are built to survive. Unfortunately, being raised in a single-parent home with limitations on parental time, parental energy, parental patience, and money is often leaves marks/scars on the adult that child becomes.

Every situation is different. I think you're asking the question wrong if you want to generalize responses and then apply the bulk of it to figure answers for a specific child and specific set of parents...

Jmo, fwiw. PP

ahh yes....i remember being raised by my mom...kinda weird nothing bad though i thought a little less of my dad but thats because my mom was always mad at him for no reason at all i pretty much lived my life however i had before...wasn't too troubling for me i didnt loose any respect for my dad...hes gotten a hell of a lot nicer though....i actually lost respect for my mom she got a boyfriend and pretty much left us kids to fend for ourselves

I guess I felt a little because I didn't hate my dad.

my parents separated when i was 4 but stayed on "friendly" terms....i would see my dad every other weekend.

until i was about 16, I hated my dad because he was different than other dads and wierd. I was afraid to go to his house, he didnt have a real place for me to stay, he never had good food. i basically only cared about what he was going to get me for christmass, even though his christmass presents always were cheap and unthoughtful.

i stopped going to visitation when i was about 13...i would see him sometimes, when i felt like it, or when he called and asked if i wanted to visit.

but as i grew up and grew more confident with my own personality, i started to realize that although my dad was different, i was still proud of him. and although he's not the smartest guy sometimes, he does manage to do a lot of amazing things...and i have grown to respect and love him.

People don't hate people, fathers to their children, for no reason at all.

It is true that the burning resentments of one parent for another and then the other one for the other...if you follow me, play out in various extremes at any given time. But people shine things on for a while, sometimes, just to get past it in their own lives.

My own view is that people always affect each other.

This is a tough question since there are so many different situations.
In my sons case, now being 17, he no longer has a desire to have anything to do with his father, but his father put him through an emotional hell his entire life. My ex rarely spent any time with our son after we split when my son was 5 and when my son reached his teens, he no longer considered his father as being a parent. He resented his father for not spending much time with him and over time he got very angry. After we moved to Canada, my sons anger slowly went away, because atleast now his father had an excuse not to spend much time with him. My son also resented my ex for constantly dragging him in the middle of our disputes. My ex put our son through so much needless hurt in spite of me and as my son grew older, he figured out his fathers twisted games for what they were and he chose to cut his father out of his life.
I could write a book about what this man put him through and that to me is very sad.
My son made it through the storm ok as I always made sure he knew that he was #1.

My son says he will spend the rest of his life making sure he is nothing like his father and I'm so very proud of my boy :-D

So, in my case, the father was not a dad. My ex and my son are related by blood, but that's all.

Re: I don't know what to call this, but it's a serious topic


In this situation, trying to buy a childs love will only work for so long. If dad isn't in the picture very much, the child we eventually feel disconnected from him. As the child gets into their teens, they start to see things for what they are. It all depends on the child, but if a parent doesn't parent the child, which includes discipline, the child will eventually lose respect for that parent as they get older. Any kid is going to keep going back for more as long as the gifts are involved, but that doesn't mean they respect them. Now, once the gifts stop, usually the relationship does as well.

I grew up in a single parent home. My father only lived a few hours away, but i rarely saw or spoke to him. When I was very young I came up with this definition which I still believe in today.

Father is someone who created you.
Dad is someone who is there speraticaly.
Daddy is someone who is actively involved.

My father falls in the Dad category. I was lucky enough that my step-father filled in where my father was not able to and hence my step-father is my daddy to this day.

As an adult I have developed a closer relationship with my father, but he will always remain on the Dad level.

I don't know if that makes sense but...it worked for me.
This of course could go for either a father or mother.

A little of column "A" and a little of column.....
I may be too late (I know it's been a while since the last posting) but I can, perhaps, offer some alternate perspective.

Both of my parents have been divorced three times (yes, three... and only one was to each other) my father's second marraige gained him an adoptive son, a natural son, and, well, my father's listed as the parent on the Birth Certificate of the third, but this was before genetic paternity tests...

I was raised with my mother and Dad had visitation rights for me (every weekend/ every other weekend - it varied over the years), meanwhile my brothers were in my Dad's custody and they only saw their mom on X-mas and maybe once each summer.

Now, I will skip eons of history and back-story... As an adult I consider my Dad to be one of my best friends; I call him for advice, we go on vacations together, etc. My mother and I are also close, but I feel more of the typical "loves her mother but doesn't necessarily want her visiting for more than a day or two." However, my brothers ended up finishing High-school (well... some of them finished high school) living with their mom {who is really a horrible person who should never have been allowed near the children she spawned; the 25 year old still lives at home, the middle child was institutionalized for a while because he did so many drugs he literally went crazy, and the youngest fathered his first child at 17 - these were GOOD kids before she sunk her claws into them} and my Dad has only had contact with the middle child for years now.

It depends so much on everyone involved that the only definite I have been able to determine is that divorce effects the children much more than it effects the adults. The worst thing that the parent in custody can do to a child is to trash-talk the absent parent. This is assuming that neither parent is a truly bad person; if the absent parent is a pedophile or mass-murderer the rules obviously change. But, in the typical situation where both parents are just people who can't live with each other anymore... saying negative things at any opportunity just hurts the child - and could very well backlash and cause the negative feelings to be attributed to you.

But, as far as close future relationships go... a lot of people don't really like their parents when they grow up even if their folks stayed together.... once you get to a certain age it's more dependent on basic personality whether two people get along and has almost nothing to do with genetics. Oh, you'll still go visit the fam. at holidays, but how many people rush back to their chosen family (friends, lovers, pets for the love of {insert deity here}) the second opportunity presents itself?

Heck, even I do, and I Like my parents...

This is obviously not really advice - and way way too long... brand new at this; haven't learned to edit myself yet :wink: ... but I guess my point is - be the best parent you can be, and don't worry about your reception in 20 years... and, if you've been the best parent you can be, you won't have to worry