Family Forum / Parenting / Parenting / March 2009

With the increasing demise of the "family" and the growing number of
children who evetually lose contact with the father for whatever
reason, perhaps there is something that can be of help. According to
some statistics that i have read, after the parents have seperated, 60
percent of fathers lose contact with their children after 2 years,
which amounts to hundreds of thousands of children going through life
without knowledge of their father.

I have spoken to many fathers who have lost contact with their
children for all sorts of reasons and they all have their own story or
versions of the event. Many say that they lose contact because at the
onset of their seperation, they were not always in the position to
fight for what they want at the time. This can be because of money to
go to court with the solicitor's bills which they cant afford, they
have nowhere decent to live and they also experience a total lack of
confidence and depression. I find that a lot of men simply give up
going through the courts year after year for these reasons because
they don't get anywhere and want to move on with their lives before it
kills them. Also, the slow and grinding law system can take months to
get going and during this time the Bond between the father and
especially young toddlers is broken. I have a friend who eventually
got contact with his child, who was only a toddler, after nearly a
year apart from him and the father was shocked at how much of a
stranger the child was to him.

Basically, some fathers who have given up with the legal system and
have moved on with their lives, often get to a point (maybe 2 years
later) where they are more in control of their emotions, finance,
accomodation and perhaps have another partner. This can take a long
time with some people but once they feel better about themselves they
then feel more confident in trying to re-astablish contact again. This
is often met with negativity from the mother who thinks that he should
have done it earlier, which is a good argument but perhaps dont
realise that he wasn't capable at that time.

Anyway, the father often loses out again and never has the chance to
explain why he couldn't do what was expected of him at the time of the
breakup. The children then grow up with a resentment towards the
father for not doing enough or that he had run away, which is not
always the case.

I have bought a few website domains called Fathers Reunited which i
was thiking of developing into a website for fathers who have lost
contact with their children and would like to put their own story on.
They could give their own account of why they lost touch and also a
contact for the children,if interested, for them to get in touch
again. The website could include a picture of themselves and message
to their child about how they feel and an ongoing account of their
life which can be updated at any time.

Some children who want to find out about their dad, but cannot talk to
mum about it, could log on to this site and find out a bit about him
before talking to mum and upsetting her.