Divorce:
“My daughter's father is not spending time with her.”

Hey Terra,

Me and my daughter's father recently separated. It might be temporary it might not only time will tell.

It seemed to me like he wasn't ready to realize he has a family & do what he had to do for us. Our daughter is a year old and he still hasn't gotten a job to help me out. I'm doing everything by myself.

Anyways my problem is, my daughter spends almost all day calling for her dad. He doesn't come to see her. I love him & I love my daughter very much & it kills me for them to be apart & for her to be calling him all day & for him not to be here.

What Should I Do?

Heartache

Dear Heartache,

You need to talk with your daughter's father and tell him that while the two of you might not be together any more, he is still (and will always be) his daughter's dad. She needs him. He needs to take responsibility for his part in her life.

My suggestion is that you call him and tell him how important he is to his daughter's emotional development. (Girls who grow up without the love of a dad often become sexually promiscuous when they become teens. If Daddy isn't around to help them develop self-worth as a young woman, a girl will look to boys to get male approval.)

This isn't about you and your ex. This is about the importance of the relationship between a parent and a child. That's a lifetime commitment.

Hopefully you and your ex will be able to work out a regular visitation schedule. If your daughter is too young to be with him if you're not around, then arrange for him to visit her at your home or for you to bring her to his home and stay during the visit.

Make sure that you don't use these visits to try to get him to come back to you. That's NOT what these visits are about and if you do that, your ex will feel the pressure and stop visiting his daughter. You don't want that. So do whatever you can to make it EASIER for him to visit her.

In friendship,

Annie

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