Bad Advice Friday: Should I abandon my inconvenient child?

An advice columnist tells a father it's completely fine to abandon his inconvenient child. If the mother had been a better mother, maybe he wouldn't have to. It's all her fault.

Bad Advice Friday is a twist on my usual Feminist Advice Friday. In this semi-regular column, I look at the bad advice other columnists have given. The bad advice is often rooted in patriarchal norms, in the idea that women’s emotions really don’t matter, and in the cultural practice of centering men’s desires at the expense of women’s needs. You can find a complete list of previous bad advice columns here.

The problem

In today’s episode of bad advice, a man has recently learned he is a father. His child is angry at him for skipping out for 18 years, and badly in need of connection with a father. The man asserts that there is “no bond there,” but don’t worry, he still finds time to blame the mother for passing the kid from relative to relative.

He doesn’t know what to do, but it’s pretty clear from the letter that he wants whatever he does to involve little to no effort.

Welp, our advice columnist is here to oblige.

The advice

“You probably wish you had more to offer! But you don’t, and I guess it’s good that you know that. So close the door on this relationship,” the advice columnist tells him.

Why yes, because it’s completely reasonable for the mother to support this kid for eighteen years and be judged for using family members as baby-sitters. But the dad can spend a few seconds struggling to get to know this kid, find it moderately challenging, and it’s totally fine for him to walk away.

Imagine giving this advice to a woman.

Imagine telling a woman, “Oh, well, you’ve tried for a few weeks to make things work with your kid, but it’s somewhat challenging so shut the kid out forever.”

What’s so enraging about this advice is how completely it centers the man’s convenience over literally everything else. The child’s emotional needs and well-being. The stability of the family. Basic human decency. A man is moderately challenged by something! Alert! Alert! It’s an emergency! He must be allowed to back out.

My advice

Here’s what the advice columnist should have said:

Welcome to parenthood. It’s hard. Fortunately, you’ve missed out on all of the hardest parts—the sleepless nights, the financial terror, virtually every major decision, and of course, the terror of risking your life to bring life into the world.

I hear a lot of blame for the child’s mother in your short letter. He was passed off from relative to relative, you say. You never knew she was pregnant, you claim.

Hey. Guess what.

Pregnancy is a potential complication of sex—something every woman has to deal with. And unlike men, women get to face judgment and the threat of death no matter what decision they make. If they have an abortion, they’re wrong and they might be killed in a clinic bombing. If they have the baby, they get to live with the knowledge that murder by male partners is the leading cause of death during pregnancy, and that the United States has the most dangerous maternity care system in the wealthy world. And no matter what they do, it’s wrong.

You’ve contributed nothing for the last 18 years, and you want to sit in judgment of the people who have actually raised this child—all while continuing to contribute nothing.

And why? Because it’s inconvenient? Because you’re mad that you didn’t know? Because you might have to disrupt your life?

If you’re going to sit in judgment of the people who disrupted their lives to raise this child, then you have to be willing to do the same.

Otherwise, can it.

I hope you’ll sit with why it is you think it’s ok for you to escape parenthood. Why do you think you shouldn’t have to try to form a bond? Why do you think the child’s anger and sadness are misplaced? Why are you ok with continuing to foist the labor of parenting onto the very people you judge?

No.

Go back to this child and offer to work with them on building a relationship.

Or shut the hell up, and know that the sole reason you couldn’t make this work is because of your stunning, glaring selfishness.

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