I am the single mother of an almost 3 year old little girl. There was a paternity issue in the beginning, there were 2 possibilities and now there is only one. Her father was informed in May 2006 and I have offered many times to get a DNA test of our own instead of waiting on the state and to come up with something that will suit both of us. Basically, he could care less that she is even his daughter and has made it clear by his actions, or lack thereof. I am torn between what to do. I want him to be financially responsible for the child he helped to create, but I do not want him to have rights. The reason for this being that he is violent and spiteful and I am deathly afraid he would either hurt my child or try to take her from me. I am willing to for go the child support if it means protecting my daughter from harm. I mean he has refused to even talk to me, and my father did a lot of harm to me psychologically by bouncing in and out of my life and I want to do whatever I can to protect that from happening to her. I guess I am wondering what my options are. He has never seen her, never talked to her, never even expressed an interest in wanting to be in her life. He changed his number after I told him and refuses to talk to me. The only way I know anything about the things he has done to his stepchild and the way he treats his other daughter, is through email and IM with his wife. I would like to be able to collect child support to aid in the financial raising of my daughter without having to subject her to such a man, but I need to know what my options are and how I can make this happen. What are my rights? What are his rights? Please if you can help me it would be greatly appreciated.

First, Support and visitation/custody are not tied together. If you can prove that he represents a danger to the child you can prevent visitation while still getting child support. You need to contact an attorney about filing the correct paperwork.

As far as what your father did to you, I think that has more do with how you were taught to deal with it then what your father did.

Well that is certainly your opinion, but as a psychology major, I know different. But what happened between me and my father is between me and him and you don't know all the facts, so please don't assume to know anything about that. I simply used it as an additional reason as to why I wanted to protect my daughter from the same type of person. Being neglected isn't the child's fault it is the parent and no matter how they deal with it, it still affects them. So in the future please just answer the question at hand and don't assume to analyze a situation you cannot possibly understand. I'm sorry if that sounds mean, but it's a very sore subject and wasn't even the subject of the post.

Of course being neglected isn't the child's fault and that's part of my point. If the child can be convinced that its NOT their fault, that the problem is with the neglectful parent, then the negative effects on the child can be minimized and maybe eliminated. Being a psych major, you should know that!

No, I don't know all the facts, but you apparently don't quite understand how a site like this works either. Whatever you post is what we can (and will) use to answer you. Generally, especially in a situation like this, we try to provide the most insight we can. Anythng you bring up is fair game for us to respond to. Your question was about keeping the father out of your daughter's life. Part of your justification for doing so was your experiences with your own father. That opened the door for me to comment on how the issue of a parent's neglect of a child can be minimized if not eliminated.

You cannot dictate how we answer questions here as long as the answers are resonable and accurate. I'm sorry if I touched a nerve here, but I stand by my answer. Its true I don't know the whole story, but I know enough about such situations to be comfortable with my answer.

As a psych major, I do understand that concept, however, I also know it is not always possible to eliminate the negative feelings. You can't just erase the damage and while my mother was phenominal in helping me deal with it and trying to protect me as much as possible, but when the action is constantly repeated and the law won't prevent it because it wasn't technically considered neglect at the time, the hurt and damage still remains. Regardless I have dealt with my father and although it was an example, it actually isn't my main reason for wanting to keep my child from her father. My reasons for that are he has never seen her, knows very little about her, has made it clear he wants nothing to do with her, so why would I subject her to someone who would just make her feel unwanted? In addition, he supposedly has a file with social services for something dealing with a small female child, according to his wife now, and he has been known to have child porn sights in his computer history. So those would be the reasons I don't want him to have the chance to have any influence on my child's upbringing. However I do want him to have to take care of his responsibility financially. So thank you for your advice and anything else you have to contribute is certainly welcome.

I also agree that trying to minimize or eliminate a child's hurt feeling in a situation like this may not work. But its by no means a given either way.

As I indicated, if the father may pose a danger to the child then you can prevent access without giving up support. However, you need to understand that no matter what you do, you will still have to deal with explaining to your daughter why daddy is not around.

Oh yes I know. I have already been mentally preparing for that situation and she will get age appropriate answers and when she is old enough, if she wants answers from him, I will give her all the information I have and she can contact him herself. My main concern is her well being and that is my job as her mother, to protect her. She will have a father figure in her life at some point. My mom's current husband became that for me, and I'm confident God will bring somebody wonderful in her life when the time is right. Again, thanks for the advice.