Any divorced Waldorf parents here?

[TheSlingMama]

Long story short, I'm in the middle of divorcing my DD's bio-father.  He ignored her for the first 16 months and is now trying to swoop in and be super dad.  SO has been with us since I was 9 weeks pregnant and for all intents and purposes, is DD's father.  Are there any other divorced Waldorf parents here?  We're just starting out but I forsee this may be an issue as she gets older with bio dad.

[Attached Mama]

In the middle of a divorce now.....

Is he trying to get custody? Depending upon what state, the fact that he has been out of her life for so long should set precedent and he won't have any custody rights.

I'm not clear on if you are asking regarding custody, visitation, or even if he should be in her life at all. So I'll answer the best I can with my thoughts on those topics and just throw away whatever doesn't apply. I don't want to assume anything....

Unless he is somehow going to be harmful to her, it may be a good thing for her to know and have her biological father in her life as well as your SO who is a father to her and has obviously been far more involved and responsible. Worst case scenario, if her father breaks her heart, she has a good role model and father to help her up.

Does her biological father have a history of trying to change and then reverting to irresponsible behaviour? Is he going to leave her with a broken heart? Or is he sincerely growing up and realizing he wants to be a part of his daughter's life? Is there a way you can gently test the waters? Perhaps explain to him that you think it would be healthy for dd if he were an active, healthy part of her life, but given that he has not been involved for x amount of time, you want to take things slowly and make sure he is really committed so dd won't be hurt. Then set up some supervised, public area (park or whatever) visitations so she can get to know him in a "safe" environment. Then go from there.

It can be so hard sometimes to lay aside our own hurts and look from our child's longterm perspective. As you know, just b/c someone is not a good husband does not preclude them from being a good father. I think most kids are much happier in the long term growing up with their bio father involved than thinking they were abandoned or having the father tell the child that the mother fought for limited visitations. Of course, there are some people who are so unhealthy and toxic to EVERYONE in their environmnet that this does not hold true.

Hopefully that gives you some ideas.... Again, I'm not sure exactly what your question was....

As for me, my dd is 5 and has breakfast most every AM with her father. We've chosen to live very close by to facilitate this. She also spends a full day with him every week. We also work together flexibly with him taking her for more time when he has day's off or switching his day off (retail work) depending upon my school schedule. While it's difficult sometimes to work out a flexible agreement, this makes the most sense to us since it is most like what dd was used to - having both parents involved in her life on a daily basis with one parent stepping in when the other is bz. I have sole physical custody and we have joint legal.

Re Waldorf philosophy, dd is exposed to a limited amount of television and commercialism at her father's that she'd miss out on with me alone. Her father is good about keeping it very limited and I'm ok with a bit of it b/c I don't want her growing up unaware of culture like I personally did. I want her most comfortable with a natural/Waldorfy lifestyle, but still comfortable and knowleadgeable with culture at large.