A teenager has shared her heartache after discovering why her dad doesn't want to spend any time with her. Seeking advice on social media, she explained how her 41-year-old father avoided her throughout her childhood, leaving all the 'parenting duties' to her mum.
She wrote: "Me and my mum, 39, did lots of fun activities together and she always played with me and entertained me resulting in us having a good relationship now years later, but whenever I'd try to get my dad to play with me or watch something with me he'd be uninterested and tell me to go play with my mum.
"This happened practically every day with me wanting to watch him work on his car or ask him to play but he always pushed me off." She thought her dad "just didn't like her" so she stopped asking him to spend time with her because he usually said no.
"He would only do stuff with me on my birthday and holidays though he always made sure I was fed when I was hungry and if I was upset he'd comfort me but other than that he would avoid me," she said. Then one day, while looking for something to eat, she heard her dad talking to a friend in the garden and found out why he kept away, reports the Mirror US.
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Teen 'kept as slave, starved and beaten' sues adoptive parents and authoritiesShe shared: "I could hear what he was talking about from the open kitchen window but I was ignoring it until he said my name in their conversation. I listened in more and heard him telling his friend that he wished he had a son more than a daughter because he never wanted a girl and didn't try to build much of a relationship with me because of it."
"He said he had tried to get my mum to have a second kid to see if he could get a son but my mum didn't want two children at the time so he just ignored me when I was able to walk and talk so he could focus on other things and let my mum raise me." Upset, the girl has asked people online for advice on what to do next - should she talk to her mum or confront her dad?
One person replied: "Talk to your mum about it. If what he said was true I probably wouldn't attempt to have a relationship with him if it were me. What kind of parent decides to reject their child because of their gender? " Another person commented: "He wished this whole time you were a boy. Tell him you wished this whole time he was a real father. I guess you both got disappointed."
A third person advised: "Talk to your mum about what you heard him say but back it up with the years of feeling unloved because he didn't spend any quality time with you. I'm sure your mum must see it on her own which may be why she tried extra hard to spend quality time with you. One day your father will wonder why you have no relationship with him especially if you have children and especially they're boys and you don't bring them around him."