BY LUCY CAULKETT
Fathers and mothers who ignore their first biological children just because they are in a new relationship are selfish and irresponsible.
Such acts are foolish and stupid, no matter how much the new relationship seems or is better than the old relationship. Only if the child from the original relationship has been so unduly disrespectful, can the parent have a bit of an excuse for cutting them off. In a scenario like this, the parent will effectively be disowning the child and a parent needs a damn good reason to justify disowning their flesh and blood.
Many times, the new partner of a man prefers he turns his back on the children from his original relationship, and many men actually fall for it. Sometimes it is because the fathers in the new relationship are under pressure from the new woman to draw a line over the past relationship and keep it in the past. This is easier said than done because it never stays in the past for as long as the kid knows who his dad and mum are.
Other times the man wants to keep his former lover and everything to do with her behind him, but this can be very damaging for the children. Children who feel rejected by their natural parents often seek for acceptance elsewhere, generally making more mistakes than the absence of the psychological issue would naturally permit. This topic came up last week when a girl I know told me the story of how her father who has left her mother, and has very limited contact with her because she has started a new relationship.
The children from the old relationship in these types of circumstances don’t seem to count anymore, and there is generally the concern that maintaining a relationship with them might rock the boat of the new love relationship. This is true in some cases, but unfair to the children affected by these selfish considerations. It must be difficult to move from one relationship where children are involved to another where another set of children are created. Cutting off the original children does not get rid of them because they are still there, even if they are ignored. It just makes the parent who has cut them off appear very selfish and open to potential long term regret in the future for reasons that might not be apparent in the mean time. The child would always make reference to their dad if they know who he is, and the reference made will most probably be in negative terms where the father has acted so irresponsibly as to ignore his biological duties. The child father relationship in many of these cases is almost be as good as dead, though in reality the father will always be the subject of fierce and fair criticism by his children and most people who know the true story.
A useful question is whether a father who has children for his first woman should have children for another woman in the event of a split up with the original woman. The most obvious answer is that this is a matter between the new couples, but whether it is proper to create a situation in which an innocent child is deprived of adequate love and attention from their parent because of a broken relationship should be a matter of both moral principle and circumstantial facts. In an ideal world, a parent should have one set of children from one partner to avoid the complications, animosity and jealousy that could attend a situation where there are kids from two different relationships.
It must be incredibly painful to have your natural father show a lot more affection to his child from another woman, whilst leaving you in the cold. Unfortunately, failed relationships open doors to new relationships in which one partner may be so in love or infatuated with them that they do anything to please their partner. The inclusion of having kids in this example is a given, though not all parents that have kids intentionally had their kids. However, this doesn’t ease the pain or potential consequences of any such mistake if there are abandoned kids from another relationship begging for love and attention. Lovers in new relationships often prioritize the interest of their own relationship over the old relationship, and often bundle the kids with the experience in one. The children suffer most in this, and it can sometimes lead to rivalry between the two children of the adult.
Complaining to The eye of media.com, the girl who raised this topic with us stated : my dad doesn’t buy me any presents, he says he puts a lot into the children he has with her”. ”I don’t understand how he can do that”, she questions. He spends all his money on the woman in his new relationship and their kids, leaving us totally in abandoned.
I do. For one it costs money to look after children, whatever the age, with the costs increasing as the child gets older. Whatever he costs, this is the responsibility of the one responsible for bringing him into this world. However, this again is easier than done in some cases, but doing the right thing should not always depend on inconvenience or discomfort that may result from it. It should be done because it is right, and also for the sake of the child who did no ask to be born.
