I (20m) grew up with a single mother who adopted me as an elderly woman as a baby. My biological father was never there at all and is recently sober and has cancer, so I call him once in a while. I posted my mother on Father’s Day thanking her for playing both roles. My father got really upset and told me I should post him and I didn’t. He told me that he does love me and he thinks it’s selfish of me to not acknowledge him for Father’s Day publicly. Am I being an asshole by being unsympathetic?
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I (20m) grew up with a single mother who adopted me as an elderly woman as a baby. My biological father was never there at all and is recently sober and has cancer, so I call him once in a while. I posted my mother on Father’s Day thanking her for playing both roles. My father got really upset and told me I should post him and I didn’t. He told me that he does love me and he thinks it’s selfish of me to not acknowledge him for Father’s Day publicly. Am I being an asshole by being unsympathetic?
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> I think that I should be judged whether or not I was being the asshole by being unsympathetic towards my biological father.
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
NTA. Why should your father get credit on Father’s Day when he abandoned you? Keep on acknowledging your Mom for all her love and care.
NTA.
NTA. Father’s Day is day to celebrate dads or individuals who have filled that role. Sperm donors don’t get a day.
NTA, it’s not Sperm Donor’s Day, it’s Father’s Day. If he didn’t do the job, he doesn’t get the credit.
NTA.
Father’s Day is for fathers who were present. They don’t get recognition for doing nothing.
If he supposedly loves you… then why did he never show it by participating in raising you?
NTA. If he wanted to be acknowledged as a great father, he should’ve been one. It’s not your job to pretend that he was because he’s ill.
I’m glad you acknowledged the person who put in the effort, not just donated a bit of DNA.
NTA
I was adopted as an infant. I don’t call my adoptive parents my adoptive parents, they’re just my parents. I don’t post them anywhere on mother’s/Father’s Day because they don’t use social media, but they are the only ones I celebrate on those days. My birth mother mothered 3(?) other children and those will be the people that celebrate her. She was not a mother to me in any way other than blood, and that doesn’t mean much to me personally.
Your birth father’s sobriety and more recent presence in your life is honorable in my opinion. I respect my biological parents for making a choice for me in my best interest. there’s a certain level of presence a biological parent can reach later in life, but it would be very hard for that to reach the level of someone’s true parent(s). What you did for your mother was very kind as she probably worked hard to raise you alone. I think a happy Father’s Day message could be nice to your birth father, but I certainly don’t think you owe him that, a public post, nor are you selfish for not doing so. He made his choice to remove himself from fatherhood, and it’s not up to him if he gets to reclaim that role.
Sorry for rambling, NTA.
YTA if you didn’t want to acknowledge your father you should’ve said nothing, mothers have mothers day and I get wanting to double dip a little because she did everything but that should’ve been between you and her not on social media.
Your father being upset isn’t even a factor, posting about your mom on fathers day is in bad taste.
NTA. He can think what he wants, but fathers are the people who help raise/influence/guide a child, and yours did none of that. He is lucky you agreed to this “bottom of the ninth” contact. You aren’t under any obligation to pretend he was or is a good father, and you sure aren’t under any obligation to do so publicly. How shockingly entitled and totally rude of him.
NTA Father’s Day is for actual fathers not sperm donor who only got in touch because he is dying. BTW what happened to your birth mother?
NTA. You posted the woman who played both roles because your father was a deadbeat who wasn’t there for you. Why should he be honoured for something he never did?
It’s a Hallmark holiday. Not a real thing. I hate it. My dad hated it. What’s the point.
NTA he gets the same amount of acknowledgment as the amount of times he was a present and attentive father in your childhood. That’s the rules. Big ol’ zilch, nada, nothing is on him.
“Sure I can, as soon as you send me a photo of us hanging out together for a father-son bonding when I was a kid. Once I gave that, then I’ll acknowledge you”
NTA. You don’t play the role, you don’t get the props.
NTA at all