Absentee biological parents...?

[Colitis]

How many have the problem with step-children that the biological parent is never around?

My step-nephew's dad is a real slacker most of the time. Every year or two he turns up for a couple of weekends in a row maybe, sends a card at birthday time if his son is lucky, and might show up at soccer matches once in a while and announce to all present that "that's my son!" when he does something well.

My brother has had far more to do with said nephew's raising than his biological father has. For that matter...so have I.

His own assessment of the situation? "Dad needs to grow up!"

[Lala]

Yes my step sons mother hasnt seen him for two years now and calls when she remembers she has a son.
She has choosen drugs over her children, sadly.
Id love to give her an earful and beat some sense into her, but it wouldnt help any.
We record her conversations with Ethan because she just says stupid things to him, and we need a refrence to go back to when we goto court for full custody and modifing her visitation rights to supervised ONLY.
She even had the balls to TELL us Ethan was going to move back with her, and spend the summer with her, we were like um NO. dont think so. And then told Ethan she said yes but Paula said no, and dad wont speak up about it. Well frankly, BOTH of us said no. But she likes to play victim and oo poor me, Paula doesnt like me.... (which i dont, but i never ever say anything bad about her infront of or around Ethan)
LOL i could go on...

but yes she is not around and it bugs the crap outta me because Ethan deserves better than that.

[Celery]

In and out would be annoying. My daughters biological father and the mother of my step children are totally absent and I wouldn't want it any other way. The people that live and raise the children and are there day in and day out are the parents- I see no reason to have "bio" either involved if they dont want to be. It's much less stressful for everyone when they just stay out of the picture totally.

[Lala]

yea MY son Daniel his sperm donor stays out of the picture all together. works out very well this way. Daniel sometimes has questions, and sometimes is upset about it. But we have made it clear that he is an awesome kid and his *father* is missing out. and i get both mothers day and fathers day presents, lol

[Father Xmas]

This is a very tricky situation, because no matter how bad they are, their natural dad IS their dad.

The more you warn the child away from their dad, the more chance of them getting closer, and falling out with you.

The child will soon realise who has done the most for them, but they need to do this in their own time.

[Ukmomof4]

Bio sees her two weekends per month - big deal or what !

If for some unknown reason I can't make the week then he wont change and only sees her once a month.

He lives 30 mins from us and says 'work comes first'.

[Hobbit]

Wow - so many of the above stories are so sad. :( It must be really hard on the kids to know they take so little priority as far as one of their parents is concerned.

Thanks to those of you who are left trying to patch the gaps for the job you do. I think it's so important that children feel like they have unconditional love from their family.