View Single Post
Old 03-24-2005, 10:02 AM   #101 (permalink)
liquidlight
AHH! Custom Title!!
 
liquidlight's Avatar
 
Location: The twisted warpings of my brain.
You pose an excellent dilema. . .and being a parent, a teenage father, and a convicted felon (burglary, a little different but still a crime) I can tell you that it's an incredibly conflicting situation.

I agree with you that the father needs to step up and take care of your daughter and the child, but I feel that charging the boy may have prevented a lot of what you're aiming for. From your original posting it sounds like the sexual encounters were consenting, please correct me if I'm wrong. Your enforcement of his violation means two things, first he is now a convicted felon. . . and I can't BEGIN to tell you how complicated that makes getting even a minimum wage paying job, much less something professional that could allow you to support a family. Second, not only is he a felon, if your states laws are anything like mine he now counts as a sex offender, which carries it's own set of complications and stigmas. That being said, and mind you I'm attempting to remain objective about the boy, but he doesn't sound very promising, I feel that you're right that he should take resposibility for this child and be supporting both the baby and the mother. Another caviot, giving that support and not being able to see the results of all his hard work is a little callous, I can understand your concern about them being together, but can you see why he might not be so inspired to succeed and care for the two of them when he doesn't get the reminders of why he's trying so hard?

I'm also divorced and have the same "softie" problem with my ex-wife, discipline with my children is a constant struggle, but in my personal life I do my best to make that struggle with their mother and how lax she is in enforcing the rules, rather than making the children suffer for her shortcomings. Luckily my children are still young enough (5 and 4) that I've been able to this point to create the distinction that I'm not their mother and that they will not behave in certain ways around me.

I guess what it really comes down to is I agree with your concern for your daughter, but I disagree with the current status of the situation and how you're addressing it, it just seems like you're digging yourself a deeper hole. Have you tried getting your daughter to neutral ground and attempting a compromise with her that you can both work from? I would hope that the final goal for all of you would be that she and the baby are taken care of and provided for, but you've only got 6 more months until she is legally an adult and can remove you from the decision making process entirely, after that any input you would have sounds like it's going to be ignored by her because of how hurt she is, regardless of how good it might be.
liquidlight is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360