Hi again,

Another question from me (seems to have lotsa questions tdy): When is the right time to explain to your child - Mommy & Daddy is not longer together?

My dd is only 27 months old. She sees her dad every now and then. She runs to him whenever he visits.

she's not good at expressing currently due to obvious reason --> lack of vocabulary..:hehe: But of late, she will say something like "Mommy & daddy..Mommy & daddy?" or "mommy, where's daddy?" repeatedly.

I normally only respond by saying: "Daddy at work and daddy doesn't stay with us"...or sometimes "Only Mommy, no daddy"...I wld tell her daddy will come and visit you later coz he never keeps to his promise and there's been occassions when she will wait at the door for him when i used to say that...

I don't know how to let her know the situation but of course will explain to her when she's older like 4yrs old. Meanwhile, I always always tell her I love her very very much to eliminate any chance of her feeling unloved or unwanted...

Anyone can advise?

~Yazzy~

I was a single mother, but I allowed reasonable access to the father. Sometimes we even went out as a family as I felt it was impt for my kid to feel "wholly".

I didn't initiate the discussion. I thought I could do that when she turned 5 or something. When she was 3, we went to the zoo. On the tram, she asked me, while the father was around,"Why papa doesn't go home with us?" I was a little caught offguard. I merely said,"Oh, he has his own home to go back to." She was probably able to see her cousin's father coming home with her cousin, and thus the question.

I don't really explain or elaborate to her the whole scenario, which I think she wouldn't be able to understand either. I simply state the facts to her, that he doesn't live with us. When she turned 5 and I started to see my then-bf, there was a period when she constantly asked for the father. I told her straight,"He won't live with us. Mummy is not going to live with him." She soon stopped asking for him after that. I tried to keep the emotion elements out to keep things simple, and reduced the times he asked to visit her. I felt that it was becoming unhealthy as she started to see a "father" as "someone who visits on some occasions and buys her gifts". I don't want her to grow up thinking that any man who is capable of doing that can be her children's father.