[Two Pronged] Dead dad?

Rappler’s Life and Style section runs an advice column by couple Jeremy Baer and clinical psychologist Dr Margarita Holmes. Jeremy has a master’s degree in law from Oxford University. A banker of 37 years who worked in 3 continents, he enrolled in, and subsequently gave, workshops in work-life balance and gender sensitivity training. He has been training with Dr Holmes for the last 10 years, as co-lecturer and occasionally as co-therapist, especially with clients whose financial concerns intrude into their daily lives. Dr Holmes needs no further introduction.

Dear Dr Holmes and Jeremy:

I am a unmarried solo parent with a two-year old daughter sired by a married man.  I have been praying how to tell her about her father.  I have decided not to tell her about the whereabouts of her father since he is an irresponsible person. 

But I know that this is not the only thing she would like to ask in the near future. Dra, is it much better if I tell her that her father is dead instead of telling the truth when she starts asking questions?

At the moment, I believe that it would be the best thing to do than hurt her at so young an age. Do you think so, Dr Holmes? What about you, Mr Baer?  –Angela

***

Dear Angela:

I wonder if it is more than a coincidence that we are considering your email on what those who believe in all that mumbo jumbo call Holy Saturday. After all, we are on the one hand discussing telling your daughter that her father is dead a mere day after Christ died and yet on the other hand we could be recommending that you admit he is alive a mere day before Christ arises. Alternatively, perhaps it is simply a coincidence and of no import; sometimes a cigar is after all just a cigar.

I guess it is up to the reader whether to see signs in the first place and if so then to place his or her interpretation on them. The heavy rains experienced during the recent RH Bill debates were supposedly seen by anti-RH advocates as God’s tears of sorrow but by pro-RH advocates as God’s tears of joy, so perhaps all we can learn from signs is that far from changing people’s minds, most of us use them simply to reinforce our existing beliefs.

Your question focuses basically only on you: your past behavior, your pregnancy, your decisions after you gave birth, and your future relationship with your daughter. Thus, it is only natural that you would wish to cast yourself in the best possible light.

Thus, possible solutions are:

Your suggestion: you tell her that her father is dead and when she asks for more details, you make them up.

The advantage of this course of action is that you can come out of it smelling of roses since what you are telling her is all a tissue of lies. Her dead father can be a hero or a villain, handsome or ugly, wise or foolish, Filipino or foreign, rich or poor etc. You, on the other hand, can be the damsel in distress, the heroine who saves him, or is saved, from a fate worse than death, or whatever other role you choose.

What you will actually be telling her of course is not only who provided half of her chromosomes but also a story about your relationship with her father: why you fell for him in the first place, what he was like, why she was conceived, why you didn’t marry him, etc.

There are a few drawbacks to this approach however. The first is a need for consistency. The story has to be the same not only when you tell it but also when anyone else (friends, relatives) tells it.  Does this mean you will deceive them too or merely ask them to play along and deceive your daughter as you plan to?

The second is that corroboration will be a lifetime burden: birth records, school records, his relatives, his friends, newspaper reports and everything else, up to his obituary, the eulogy and the cemetery where he is buried.

The third is that current scientific knowledge already reveals a lot about parentage and it is reasonable to suppose that future advances will reveal more, exposing some of the stories you told her about her father as the total fiction they actually are. For example, the science around DNA may become so highly developed that she will be able to test whether certain of her characteristics are compatible with those of her supposed father. Realizing her mother has not been truthful will almost certainly not endear you to your daughter, especially if honesty and integrity are virtues you have tried to inculcate in her.

The fourth is that she will have a totally false notion about half of her chromosomes. If say the fake father that you invent is a swashbuckling hero and yet she has an innate tendency to be timid and retiring, she will conclude that this comes from your side of the family.  Thus, to the extent that she inherits any of her true father’s apparently considerable faults, he will get off scot free and your family will carry the can, an irony for which they will definitely not thank you.

The fifth is that the medical history you’ve given her fake father will have to be similar to that of her real father.  Some time in the future she will need to know about his health for her own and/or her children’s benefit.  Again, you will be doing your daughter no favours if you withhold the truth.  What you may not know about her real father, she will have the chance to find out on her own if she knows who to ask.

This brings us to your second option: Telling her the truth.  The advantage of this is its simplicity:  No need to fabricate, memorize lies, collude with relatives and friends to lie for you, etc.  Also, you can help to prepare her for what strengths or weaknesses she has inherited from her father.

A (possible) disadvantage is that it will reveal you for the person you were (when you chose to have an affair with an irresponsible married man) and you will have only limited room for improving your image. Of course, I may be reading too much into your statement that the real father is irresponsible but that seems unlikely since you have chosen to reveal only his bad qualities and you already want to replace him with a corpse.

However, although the truth will limit your ability to cast yourself in the best possible light, it will free you to tell her everything about who she is: the product of what was hopefully a happy if brief and ultimately ill-fated relationship between the two people who made her what she is.

Turning to the question of when you should tell her, this clearly seems to you a daunting task at this moment.  In essence, it is a case of girl meets boy and nine months later a daughter was born. But in reality you will be telling her who her parents were then, their history together and who they are now. You will also have to decide what to include and what to exclude, and of course deal with all her questions.

Time is on your side though. What you tell her has to be age appropriate so the story will be revealed slowly over a number of years. This means that you can prepare yourself and plan how best to tell her what she needs and wants to know.

I will leave it to Dr. Holmes to give you some tips on this. Good luck. — Jeremy

***

Dear Angela,

Mr Baer strongly suggested you tell your daughter the truth and I agree with him.  It will be more difficult to do so in the beginning, but the truth is best, especially if you are looking forward to many years of friendship with your daughter.

On the pragmatic level, telling the truth means not having to ask anyone to back up your stories. Imagine how many people you have to make pakiusap to just so they don’t give the truth away to your daughter.

Has a good friend ever asked why you kept silent about her husband’s affair despite all the lunches and dinners you had together?  Has one ever asked why you hated her so much you contributed to her being the last to know, thus becoming an object of pity?

This will be nothing compared to the betrayal your daughter will feel when the truth comes out.

Not only will you rob her of a support system she’s had all her life, you will also make a mockery of the security and joy of having a mother she felt she could always count on.   And being a woman she can count on for the rest of her life—not necessarily financially—is the greatest gift you can give her.   Because the extent trusting you has healed, instead of hurt her will determine her ability to trust others.

Oh, Angela.  I can only imagine how the dilemma of what, where and when to tell your daughter about her father must worry you, but perhaps knowing the following will make it a tad less difficult.

TIP 1:  

You don’t have to tell her everything at once.  In fact, you shouldn’t. This reminds me the story of a first grader who asked her mother what sex was. Eager to be the sort of parent to whom her child could ask anything, the  mother spent five minutes talking about how wonderful a gift sex was and that’s why it should only be done with the right person.   She then beamed at her daughter and asked: “Is there anything else you want to ask me, sweetheart?”

“Yes, Mommy. How can I fit all that in this?” and she shows her mother one of those standard forms where you put either M or F.

“Hinay, hinay lang,” as all we wanna-be Visayans say. All in its time.  You know that, and the thought fills you with trepidation. But that is probably only because you feel you need to provide all the correct answers right away.

And what, after all, is a correct answer?

But before you answer that, remember that there are answers and there are meta answers, and the latter are far more important. Meta answers are usually, but not necessarily, non-verbal answers to the question.  They are messages about the message asked.

Example: To the straightforward, “Where is my Dad, Mom?”

You could give the same answer: :I don’t know, Darling” but saying three different things depending on your tone, facial expression, body language, your past conversations together etc.

One meta answer would be: “I don’t have anything to do with your father anymore.”  Or: “The less you ask about him the better.” 

Or even: “I know you have every right to try and find out, but please, if you love Mommy, don’t ask.”

The third possible meta message is the worst because it puts the burden on her, rather than on where it should be: on you.  By doing this, you have parentified your child. You have thrust her in the position of taking care of your feelings, making her the parent instead of the child to be taken care of.  

Many people who claim to love their children end up parentifying them, so that the boundary between adult and child is broken, making them privy to all sorts of fears and emotions no child need be exposed to.

Examples include giving your child cause to worry about money as much as you do, encouraging her to think of what an irresponsible bastard her father is, making her feel she is much better off not knowing anything about him.

On the other hand, if your tone, body language, eye contact etc  were different, the same literal answer might have an entirely different meta message:  “He and I have lost touch but we can try and find him whenever you want to.” 

Depending on her age, she may lose interest and stop there.  Depending on other things going on in her life, she may decide it’s best to wait till later before she asks for your help in finding him.

TIP 2:

 

 Please remember that just because she doesn’t ask you about things doesn’t mean she’s stopped wondering or isn’t determined to find out the truth.  She may just be responding to your meta message, decide she doesn’t want to upset you, and do things quietly on her own.    

For something as important as knowing, in effect, half of who she is (at least at birth since her experiences also make up for who she is) wouldn’t it be wonderful if you were part of this journey too?   After all, from the very beginning, you were always there for her. 

TIP 3:

Telling her the truth literally means the truth.  You don’t have to burnish his image or ignore his bad points.  But then, you don’t have to go into the gory details either, as in “I thought telling you he was dead was ok since he left me for dead anyway. Imagine, I was bleeding and worried I was going to lose you but he continued partying with his friends!!!” 

TIP 4                                                                                                     

Love is limitless. You do know that, don’t you, Angela?  I so hope I am not coming across as patronizing when I ask you that, but I have come across more than one separated mother who worries that, once her child meets his dad, the child will forget her, or prefer his dad to her.  Not true.  This is not a contest, I promise you.

In the unlikely event that the father of your child truly opens up his heart to her despite his being married, and that, because of this, she loves the idea that he is her father, still you will not be replaced. It may seem that way at first, just like every new toy gets the most attention at the start, but you are not only her security blanket whom she needs to know is there somewhere, even in spirit, but her blanket of consistency and thus of joy and comfort.  You can’t get any of that from a shiny new toy.

And just in case he does stick around and he too becomes a consistent, positive presence in her life, …well, wouldn’t it be great for her?  And for you too, if only because he will share the cost of her upbringing (joke only..…but also true)

TIP 5:

You don’t have to come across as perfect.  In fact, perfect would not even be advisable.   She can always look to our very own “Mama Mary” if she wants perfect.  

You are more like Mary Magdalene and thank God for that.  Perfect is too hard an act to follow, and can result in her keeping her imperfect parts from you, for fear of falling short.

Instead of perfect, she needs someone she can trust through thick and thin.  She needs someone consistent, and the truth beats lies hands down when it comes to consistency.

Finally, what she needs is a live, sentient being whom she feels comfortable confiding in—one who may have made mistakes, but who also has the courage to explore options, question old beliefs, think deeply about and maybe even accept a few new ideas, and finally, to  try and do what she thinks is best for everyone important in her life.  Someone that sounds like the person you have always tried to be, Angela.   And if she is very lucky indeed, someone she might turn out to be very similar to.  Mabuhay ka, Angela.

Best regards. — Margie

– Rappler.com

(Need advice from our Two Pronged duo? Email desk@rappler.com with subject heading TWO PRONGED.)