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Old 09-27-2004, 11:58 PM   #28 (permalink)
MSD
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The only way to really know if you screwed up or not is to wait a really long time and see fi your daughter is still resentful or if she turns around and thanks you. Anything else is subjective, so I'll just throw out my opinion and let you decide whether I'm a wise fool or a rambling idiot.

If you want my opinion, pressing charges against the father of the child was the wrong thing to do. From the way your initial post was written, it sounds like you had little contact with your daughter until you heard about the kid. It is said that actions speak louder than words, and what you did came across to your daughter as putting a bullhorn to her ear and screaming "YOU FUCKED UP AND I'LL NEVER LET YOU FORGET IT." You maintain that this guy harmed your child, when she obviously doesn't think so.

On to the next point. People can debate until they're blue in the face about when someone is responsible enough to have sex, but it's really an individual thing that shouldn't be generalized. My feelings on the subject are that sex should be openly discussed and any questions answered from an early age, and that doing so should enable a young adult to understand what is involved and make a decision for himself or herself. Later on in the thread, you used the phrase "What is God's will," which inidcates to me that 1: sexuality probably wasn't an open topic for discussion between you and your daughter, and 2: you probably disagree with what I said anyway.

The last issue I want to address is your repetition of the assertion that he needs to "step up like a man." This suggests a few things. First, you're approaching this from a very traditional standpoint, in which the father should provide for the family and the mother should raise the kids. Second, it indicates a macho attitude was engrained in your mind as a child, and that your father did his best to hammer this mantra into your mind and raise you to be a very traditional person. Through all of this, you are divorced from your wife, she has had custody of your child, and she hasn't raised the child as you would have. You can see from what I said above that I'm assuming you were raised in a traditional family, and assuming this, the fact that your family did not follow that model is emotionally traumatic to you. To combat this and "set things right," you have fully supported your children financially, seen them at every possible time, and tired to be there at every important time in their lives. The problem with this is that you still feel obliged to keep that traditional family structure, and being divorced does not allow you to do that. In order to fulfill your obligation, you are now trying to force your daughter to adopt that structure. This is why you were able to handle the news of the pregnancy, but freaked out and reacted so strongly when they weren't adhereing to your mental blueprint.

The only way to resolve the issue is to compromise. Unfortunately for you, your daughter will not be the one to do it. There are a few ways to look at what is the right thing to do. In this situation, it looks like the motive of your action was good, but the results didn't turn out to be good. If a good motivation doesn't work, the only other thing left to do is to take action motivated solely by the result. Go against the inner voice that tells you that you did the right thing and should stick by it, it's not going to patch up your relationship with your daughter.

Right now, you need to do what will give you the best results. Step up, be a big man, and admit that you might have reacted too strongly. If you do, you'll have the opportunity to see your grandson come running through the door, smiling, and rushing to give you a big hug when they visit you. If not, you'll be lucky if you see them at all.
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