Separation: daddy is gone

We know the fusional relationship that unites mother and baby during the first weeks of her life …

A Dad, what’s the point?

The role of the dad: to establish a necessary distance between the mother and her child. It is at the cost of this “separation” that the toddler will be able to build himself as an individual in his own right.

Warning, this does not mean that a single mother with her child will not be able to put this distance in place. The separation will take place naturally after a few months, once the adult has rediscovered his own centers of interest. Especially at the end of maternity leave, when the mother resumes her work, she must then entrust her baby to a third person …

Moms alone, no question of feeling guilty! Of course, you put yourself in your baby’s shoes and think that he is suffering from the absence of his daddy. But don’t worry, the first few months a child needs love and tenderness and you fill it perfectly.

It is important to think a little about yourself because it is already difficult to raise a child, but, in addition, you must manage the vacuum left by the departure of your companion …

Eighteen months, the age of questions …

For an 18 month old child, the norm is the daily universe in which he lives. Hearing his little companions say “daddy”, he will repeat what he hears. With all the more insistence that his mother, upset, will very quickly interpret his “speech” as the manifestation of a lack of the absence of a father.

This is not necessarily a questioning, but rather a pole that he hands you. This is the opportunity to tell him about his dad! He may not understand everything you say to him, but the important thing is that this word “dad” does not become taboo between you. Talking to him about it from an early age is to avoid uneasiness or worry around unanswered questions about his origins.

By doing so you allow him, in the future, to approach the subject without embarrassment. Nothing is more detrimental to him than to act “as if” he doesn’t have a daddy, “as if” he doesn’t need him. Over time, the story you tell him about the couple you formed with his father will give meaning to his birth.

“Of course you have a daddy!”

Assuring him that all children have a father is to make him stronger in the face of his absence. “Of course you have a daddy, like everyone else. Only he doesn’t live with us ”. These few words will allow him to make it exist in his imagination. Especially if you feed her curiosity by giving her details about her father’s personality.

Even if your feelings are tinged with bitterness, try to bring out some positive things. There will come a time when he will wonder about the reasons for his father’s absence. If the departure of his father is around his birth, he will not fail to make the connection.

It is up to you, his mother, to make him understand in simple words that a child is never responsible for the decisions taken by the adults around him. If you don’t tell him, he risks making guilty.

Do you want to talk about it between parents? To give your opinion, to bring your testimony? We meet on https://forum.parents.fr.