‘My best friend tells her children that their deceased father is on vacation’

Image: Shutterstock

Sometimes you can’t figure it out on your own and you could use some advice. Every Tuesday a reader therefore tells about her dilemma.

Fabiola (35) is a single mother of three daughters (8, 5 and 2).

“My best friend Noush and I have been friends all our lives, we are like sisters to each other. Our mothers also grew up together, and we have been spending a lot of time with each other ever since we were born. The upbringings we received were not that different. I felt at home with her mother, Noush saw my mother as an aunt. Yet our own parenting styles appear to be quite different, since we are both mothers.

Big loss

Noush has two sons, ages four and six, who require a different approach than my three accommodative girls. It’s not between us, each to her own free choice. At least that’s what I thought until four months ago. Because then disaster struck: the father of my friend’s children died.

“My girlfriend didn’t tell her kids he passed away”

He didn’t play a very active part in their lives, but the kids did see him. And now comes the worst, in my eyes: my friend has not told her children that he has passed away. They often don’t see him for a few months, but recently the questions started coming. Where daddy is, and if he forgot them. Noush then said that he is on a long journey and that she does not know when he will return.

I felt my heart shrivel when she told me. Children deserve the truth, especially about their own parents. Now they keep hoping that he will come back, and their mother lied, too, when they discover the truth.

Also read – Mama is gone, daddy stays behind: ‘Damn, I sometimes think, she and I should have done this together’ >

too young

I gently told my girlfriend how I feel about her approach, but she disagrees. They are too young to handle the pain, she says. While the pain of a mother hiding the death of their own father may be even worse, I think. How do I help my friend guide her children in the loss of their father?”

Would you like to read more beautiful and recognizable stories from fellow moms? Subscribe now and receive Kek Mama first on your doorstep every month.