This is a common refrain among fathers who have nowhere to go. His ex-wife was a shitty woman who kept their kids away from them and never had a chance to be a father, blah blah blah. The system isn’t perfect, and I’m sure there are good men out there who are fighting really hard to be in their children’s lives, but finding is the keyword. Deadbeats who whine for sympathy are often just trying to assuage their own guilt, and usually cry about their guilt to a new woman they want to make a good impression on.
It gets even worse when those women start perpetuating the same bullshit.
In a recent episode of her podcast, available through her Patreon, former teen mom 2 star Kailyn Lowry has claimed that her new boyfriend (she has an 8-year-old daughter with whom he is reportedly not involved in her life) has been “dethroned as a father.” However, according to social media, he is not the father in any sense beyond biology.
“I think there were times when he could have done more,” Lowry said on the podcast, referring to his partner and daughter’s relationship. “I told him so.”
But, she continued, “He was robbed. I don’t care what she, the camp, says. I know what I saw, what I read, the conversations I heard, and he was robbed. As a father.”
girl.
Why target deadbeats?
Laurie has been a public figure for a long time and I have to say we’ve seen her try to push her children’s biological father out of her life to make room for a new partner. We hear her demonizing women who date ex-lovers and influence their children’s lives. We literally watched her move out of state from her first child’s biological father and then get upset when the father became closer and more involved with his son.
Since the podcast episode aired, Laurie has followed up on her Instagram Story, saying she would apologize to the mother of her partner’s child because she needs to “stay in her lane.”
But that attitude is painfully familiar. Common things about dead fathers and New women rushing into their lives to protect them. And hearing Laurie claim that she knows what’s really going on between her partner and his ex, that he’s being denied the chance to be a father, made me viscerally angry.
I was the mother of a child with an incompetent father.
After I left, my ex-husband, who had never asked to see our young daughter, suddenly asked for visitation. He asked me to express milk for my exclusively breastfed baby and stay the night with him and his new girlfriend.
He ended up being months behind on his child support payments – which I voluntarily reduced to 1/3 of the amount requested in the divorce order – while his girlfriend posted on Facebook about how I was a bad mother because our 2-year-old was still using a sippy cup.
There were months when my daughter cried every time I tried to leave her there. He asked me to pick him up early, only to turn around a few weeks later and accuse him of stealing my time when she had strep and had to go to the doctor (I wanted “proof” for that). Meanwhile, his girlfriend wrote online about how he was a “very good father.”
The truth is: We do not know the full details of other people’s co-parenting relationships. But the truth is, no one will go harder for a helpless father than a new girlfriend. Maybe it’s pride. Perhaps it’s denial or guilt. It doesn’t matter because the result is always the same: rewriting reality to protect adult egos.
Be a girl’s girl. If your new boyfriend has an 8-year-old daughter, he reportedly I’ve never even met you.don’t think that it was his ex who “took” the fatherhood from him.
If he wanted to be a father, he would be a father.
Later in the interview (during which Laurie’s new partner said little and looked like a little boy whose mother was explaining something to the school principal), Laurie went on to say that he could not understand the child’s mother’s position since there was no domestic violence involved, suggesting that there was no reason why he should not participate in his daughter’s upbringing.
Well… maybe he could include himself? He could get a lawyer and take his ex to court. He was able to take responsibility for his mistakes and ask what it would take to have a chance at fatherhood.
But isn’t that difficult?
My own situation turned out exactly as I had always expected. My ex remained uninvolved as a bi-weekly father figure. The only time he asked for more was when his mother or girlfriend was involved.
When my daughter was 6 years old, she refused to go to his house for the first time. And for the first time, he didn’t fight it.
Later she told me the reason. My ex-boyfriend’s girlfriend (now his wife) used to argue with her 6-year-old about why she couldn’t call my husband, who actually raised her, “daddy.” After that, the emotional abuse started happening all at once. When she refused to eat green beans, they locked her in the house alone and made her sleep on the stair landing because they didn’t have enough bedrooms.
This woman was the epitome of an incompetent father’s new girl. Please give her your best, which includes texting me things like “Are you going to cut her hair?” -To prove that I was a bad parent and didn’t give him the chance to be a good father. He’s saying bad things about me to his own daughter. I told anyone who would listen that I was a bad mother.
A year later, that same “damn dad” willingly signed over custody, and my daughter genuine Her father was able to legally adopt her.
I’m sure, like Laurie, my ex-husband’s wife believes I’m responsible. That’s how this story survives. The mother is cast as the villain so that the adult man doesn’t have to acknowledge his choices. It is *impossible* that the men these new girlfriends and wives love actually stepped out on children. There must have been an evil witch involved all along.
And you know, for the safety of the child, I’m going to be the evil witch in the Dead Father story.
