Man Has The Audacity To Ask For Help After Abandoning A Kid For 15 Years, Gets A Reality Check

While we all have parents in a purely biological sense, but, unfortunately, some people can’t face the responsibility of raising a child and just run away. However, as it turns out, it can be pretty useful to actually have adult relatives around to help you in your old age, which is when folks like this come crawling back.

A netizen asked the internet for advice when their absent father showed up 15 years later, needing help. We reached out to the person who made the post via private message and will update the article when they get back to us.

While technically moms can be deadbeats as well, at least after the child is born, the truth is that the vast majority of absentee parents are fathers. Importantly, a deadbeat doesn’t just mean they are “gone,” it also means they are not supporting the parent who actually raises the child. In this story, the mom was the custodial parent.

Technically, the custodial parent does have legal grounds to make demands for child support. That being said, not all single moms have the resources or energy to try and make this happen, so dads like this often just get away with it. Or so they think. As this story succinctly demonstrates, children aren’t just a responsibility or burden, but possibly a form of social support. If you earn it.

As it turns out, aging can be pretty lonely and difficult if you have no one to help you. One can imagine a man like this has few friends if barely cares about his own children. So now he is terminally ill and alone and, surprise surprise, has no one to help. Again, he only even thought about "reconnecting" when he needed it, not earlier.

Many of the readers did their best to drive this point home, this man abandoned these children and is now, at best, trying to guilt trip them into helping him. He wasn’t around, he doesn’t get to make rules or demands. A more cynical person would have blocked him immediately, the fact that his netizen even has to ask is a testament to their character.

This is not to say that it’s as easy as just “blocking” someone whose absence has been felt your whole life. This isn’t just some grade school friend who ghosted you, being raised by a single parent is something that affects one’s life for a long time. This is perhaps why the netizen shared that they are still interested in speaking to him for some form of closure.

Actually getting closure is important and it’s also important to maintain this framing. They are doing it for themselves, not out of some misguided duty. Importantly, the mom is also still in the picture and does not seem to care either. That should be a pretty good sign, if the woman who actually raised you doesn’t want anything to do with this deadbeat, neither should you.