Update: “Trick Or Treat Mom” Responds
It’s time again for “Dear Wendy Updates,” a feature where people I’ve given advice to in the past let us know whether they followed the advice and how they’re doing now. Today we hear from “Trick Or Treat Mom” whose baby daddy wanted to throw a Halloween party for his 8-year-old daughter on the pregnant LW’s due date. “We have known the due date for over six months! I am offended not because he’s deciding to throw a party so close to my son being born, but because he is refusing to change the date and is taking away from my son’s special day.” Did the LW get her way? Was the Halloween party moved? Update below:
Unfortunately, I ended up being hospitalized on the 15th. Unlike the baby daddy, I worked 60 to 75 hours a week. Baby daddy decided he didn’t need to work. Therefore, it was my total responsibility to provide everything for the baby. I did reduce my hours to 55 a few weeks before my due date. Since I was working so much and lifting semi-heavy things, I tore my sac and I started leaking amniotic fluid. I was hospitalized and forced to go into labor two weeks before my due date. After 36 hours of labor, I had to have a C-section. Baby daddy went on and had his Halloween party for his daughter. My son and I did not attend.
Baby daddy and I are no longer together (nor attempting to get back together). I have chosen to have very little involvement with his family due to his grandfather attempting to hit my then 3-month-old son to make him stop crying. And the rest of the family is siding with the grandfather regarding his tactic. His family has completely demonstrated that my son is of very little importance to them. At first I was a bit offended and hurt since I know the reason why my son means so little is because he is mixed race. My baby daddy’s first kid is 100% white and, therefore, she is the only one who really matters.
I should have seen this coming since his family and friends gave my son nothing before he was born. Oh, and the comments his grandfather would make throughout my pregnancy, shaming me for not having an abortion, were another indication. That’s just a gist of the emotional hell I endured during my pregnancy.
Baby is now 7 months old, and for now I am letting baby daddy watch him while I’m at work. All of my family is either out of state or abroad; therefore, I don’t really have another choice. I’m currently trying to find ways to be a more appealing candidate for the business world. Being a new single mother doesn’t quite scream “hire me as your accountant.”
Thanks again for letting me vent!
Thanks for the update. I’m glad you and your baby are safe and healthy, and I wish you luck in finding a job you are happy with.
***************
If you’re someone I’ve given advice to in the past, I’d love to hear from you, too. Email me at [email protected] with a link to the original post, and let me know whether you followed the advice and how you’re doing now.
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Holy cow did LW ever bury the lead. A party was the least of her problems. I cannot even buy that most of that letter is real it is so ridiculous.
Right. I’m sitting here with my jaw on the floor.
A frickin’ Halloween party was her major concern for the relationship?!?!?
Why is his family (and possibly him) being racists assholes and degrading the LW not the main focus of her letter? Why is getting pregnant by a man who’s willfully unemployed also not a big deal? I don’t even understand.
Cleopatra Jones, he wasn’t unemployed while I was dating him (before the pregnancy.) Honestly, focusing on the Halloween party was just my way of focusing on a small thing while figuring out how to deal emotionally with the bigger stuff. I had never dealt with blatant racism before. It was honestly a first for me and I didn’t want to believe it. I kept on making excuses for them. It was hard to accept that in the 21st century this was occurring.
Wow.
And yet the party was the issue you wrote in for advice about.
Kudos! Beat me to it!! 😉
I can’t handle the term ‘baby daddy’.
The fact LW used the term frequently throughout the letter indicates many things.
Ugh me too. It’s so trashy. Like saying off the bat this person is a sperm donor and nothing more. He was her boyfriend when she wrote that, not a random one night stand.
Please let’s not nitpick at how people choose to utilize language. As a women of color, her use of ‘baby daddy’ has a nuanced meaning. Just because you don’t get it, doesn’t mean she’s wrong for using it!
OH gosh everything is not about race. Calm.
I get the nuanced meaning. Still trashy with negative connotations.
I also wonder if the racism she discussed is valid. She just said they are and didn’t give her gifts. No actual example of this. Maybe they didn’t give her gifts because she was breaking up with him or because he told them negative things. Who knows. I doubt she actually knows if child #1 got gifts. Maybe she didn’t have a baby shower which is when family would give gifts.
To answer your question Taramonster. He was not unemployed at the time. How well do you really know someone after a year when you both have full schedules? All of the horrible things didn’t start happening until after I found out I was pregnant. People sometimes do not show their true colors until they are faced with a serious situation.
I don’t regret my son at all. And as far as I’m concerned his family can go take a hike for all I care. I’m ok with them not being involved.
I don’t want to sound like a raging bitch here, which according to this site I am, whatever, but if you barely know someone after a year then um, no baby???? Just saying…
Ok. I can kind of buy focusing on the one problem that seemed easy to put your finger on…far easier to seek advice about general insensitivity about Halloween than the selfishness, possible racism, and lack of support coming from your BD and his whole family.
You seem like you’re in a tough situation and, unless there’s something keeping you there, maybe consider moving closer to some of your out of state family (assuming you’re not estranged). You and your son need loving support, not your lazy selfish BD and his awful, ugly family. It might be easier to focus on career and goals if you were surrounded by a support network. Hope you can find that one way or another.
Best of luck to you and your son.
AJ
“Being a new single mother doesn’t quite scream “hire me as your accountant.”
They shouldn’t be using your status as a single mother to determine employment.
You people are pretentious assholes. I usually always agree with Wendy’s advice, but on this one like… what? I’d be upset if I were you too, Amber. If this family has the means, even with him being unemployed, to host a Halloween party of all things then they certainly have the means to support you as the mother of their grandchild/great grandchild. Why they wouldn’t make you feel like a priority and simply plan it a different day from the getco just shows their true colors which has nothing to do with race. They all sound like losers, enjoy your life away from all of them with your son ❤️
And by SUPPORT I don’t mean financial, but the fact that this “man” that they raised hasn’t contributed in providing any material items NECESSARY nor does he even seem interested when expecting a newborn but can host a Halloween party, is just pathetic. But his family is even worse. Straight up. And yea a due date is an estimate, but who gives a fuck? Supportive people anticipating the birth of a child/grandchild/great grandchild etc would have not thrown a party on this day. Sorry bout it. They suck and your responses suck.