Poll: Do You Let This Guy See His Kid?
January 2, 2010 / 4:51 pm • By Dr. Melissa ClouthierMy friend Karol linked to this New York Times article by Victoria Rosner on Twitter and it got me thinking. Here’s a snippet but I recommend you read the whole thing and then comment back:
A year earlier, Judah’s father had gone to the doctor for what he thought was sciatica but turned out to be cancer that had metastasized to his bones. He was 51 at the time; Judah was 2.
But that’s only part of the story. Until the time of the diagnosis, Judah and his father hadn’t seen much of each other. Sometime between Judah’s conception and delivery, his father decided that he couldn’t be married anymore, not to me, he said, and probably not to anyone.
In Texas, where we were living, it turned out to be illegal to divorce your wife while she was pregnant. So although he filed for divorce during my seventh month, we were still legally married on the day Judah was born, which also happened to be the day before our 10th wedding anniversary.
He was there for the birth and dropped in on us for visits, but a few months later I moved back to New York City, where my family lived. I felt like someone who had survived a tornado: miraculously, I was able to leave the destruction behind me. Judah, knowing nothing of his chaotic origins, was a sweet and placid baby. I loved wheeling him up and down the streets where I’d grown up.
Two years later Judah’s father remained in Texas and I was still in New York. After finding out about the cancer, though, he called me. I hadn’t heard his voice in a while, and it sounded strained. I expressed sympathy about his illness, but that wasn’t what he wanted to talk about.
“I need to ask you something,” he said. “You are totally within your rights to say no, but I hope you’ll at least listen to me. I had always planned to have a relationship with Judah when he was a little older, but now I don’t know if that can happen. I want to start seeing him more, as much as I can, right away. I don’t have money for New York hotels, so I’d like to stay with you or your mother when I’m in town. During chemo I might not be able to travel, but I’d like to talk to Judah on the phone every night. And maybe have you bring him to visit me.”
Victoria asks, “Could I forgive one more time?” Could you? Even if a person could, should they allow the guy to foster a relationship when he’s going to die?
One Response to “Poll: Do You Let This Guy See His Kid?”
January 4 2010 / 9:19 am
Reply
1) You have go assume that this is a matter of God working in mysterious ways. Maybe the guy will go into remission, and actually figure out what’s important to him IS the child he’ll leave behind.
2) If you deny him access to his father, at least as long as he’s not REALLY deathly looking (after which the father should want to avoid him himself) the kid will resent it and/or fail to understand it for the rest of his life.
Trust me, My father left my mother when I was one, divorced when I was three, and was intermittently in my life for various times after that. When I was 12 his liver failed for the last time, and for that last six months he was around A LOT. When it came close enough to the end that he was in the hospital all the time, I was sent to summer camp for a few weeks, so I wouldn’t be around as he wasted away, to remember him like THAT. It was as close as I managed to get to him.
Two is worse, but it’s still much the same. He can, if he dies, give his son a memory of his father. If he does live, then perhaps the reason is to reconciliate him with his son, if not the rest of his family.
I would not suggest SHE trust him all that much, at least not until he’s proven once more that he’s actually serious about staying, but there is a difference between their relationship and his relationship with his son.
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I also point out the inherent sexism in this question. If it were the mother, there wouldn’t BE any question about letting her into the child’s life. She could be a reformed junky prostitute that ran off and left the swaddling infant with the father for 5 years, and she’d probably be successful if she sued for custody…
Why are the Fathers’ rights different?
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Also — judging from the responses, some people need to actually get in touch with God, and stop mouthing platitudes about Him instead of that.
This is EXACTLY the sort of way in which He works to right things.
Again: Her trust of him is one thing. The child’s experience of him is another. The two should not be equated, conflated, or mixed together — one does not require, nor does it need to affect, the other.