Mom Agrees To Let Her Son Meet His Biological Father — Only For Him To Dine And Dash When The Check Arrived
"I don’t think I’ll ever give my son's bio dad a chance again."
CasarsaGuru / Getty Images via Canva, AS photo family / Shutterstock One mom posted to the "r/mildlyinfuriating" subreddit to share the upsetting experience that occurred when she allowed her four-year-old son to meet his biological father.
When her child's father reached out, she reluctantly agreed to let them meet.
"I let my four-year-old’s biological dad hang out with him for the first time ever," she wrote in her post.
The mom, her son, her boyfriend, and their five-month-old baby met the bio father at the mall, where they decided to stop at a restaurant for food and drinks.
"We ate and everything was semi okay," she wrote. It wasn't until the check came that things went south.
"We get up to leave [after calling] an Uber and the waiters come running after us screaming," she wrote. "I look back and they’re saying that bio dad didn’t pay his bill. Bio dad hops in the Uber and just leaves."
After the father dined and dashed, the mom was left standing with his unresolved bill, which she offered to pay out of sheer embarrassment. When she informed the father that the restaurant was asking them to pay for his tab, he showed no remorse.
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"All y’all gotta do is get in the car and leave or rat me out," he responded to her message. "They can’t physically hold y’all there." She ended the post noting, "I don’t think I’ll ever give my son's bio dad a chance again."
The biological father — who isn't even on his son's birth certificate, having left the state eight months into the pregnancy — never before played a role in the child's life. "I never put him on child support or asked him for money or anything. I simply moved on with my life," the mother shared. "My son doesn’t even know him."
The impact of an absent father cannot be overstated.
Research has found that children with absent fathers are more likely to have behavioral problems, commit crimes, drink alcohol, abuse drugs, live in poverty, experience homelessness, and struggle with their mental health. They are also more likely to demonstrate poor academic performance. In fact, 70 percent of high school dropouts are fatherless.
That said, this situation is just one example of when a child may be better off fatherless.
“We think it is misguided to see increased paternal involvement as a universally desirable goal," Michael Lamb, a Cambridge psychologist, has said, per the New York Times.
Of course, it's natural for children who grow up without their biological father in their lives to wonder about that missing piece. And it's likely that at some point, they'll start questioning. When that happens, VeryWell Family suggests sticking to the facts while being cognizant of your child's age.
In this case, the birth father showed his true colors in person, and it's better to know now than learn further down the line, when her son may have already built a relationship with him.
"There is an opportunity to see the glass as half full," as one user put it. "You gained priceless information for the cost of a meal."
Father figures don't have to be biological — just intentional.
"Form is not nearly as important as content," author and sociologist Michael Kimmel explained to USA Today, meaning it doesn't so much matter who the father figure is — a stepdad, a grandfather, or two moms — but rather how they show up in the child's life.
Thankfully, the woman's son does have a positive father figure in his life.
"My 4-year-old only knows my boyfriend as his father," the mom wrote. "He calls my boyfriend daddy and my boyfriend has raised him."
Audrey Jaber is a Boston-based writer and Assistant Editor for YourTango.