The Golden Child

Here's the question of the day and it's a bit of a stinker! What do you do when your ex is showing a preference for one of your two children so clearly that the child he shows the preference for has noticed and is feeling bad for her sister??

Basically Katherine, my eldest, noticed some time ago that she appeared to be her Dad's favourite. We talked about it, she won't talk to him about anything personal, and at her own instigation she tried to step back a bit when he visited and force him to interact more with Rebecca. He just ended up watching TV!

Last night, he gave Rebecca £10 as a treat and a reward for getting her Headteachers Award. Then he turned round and still gave Katherine £10 because I'd said she had been better behaved. This came two weeks after he gave Katherine £20 to get her nails done and Rebecca had got nothing!! I have tried speaking to him and saying that it's not fair to give Katherine money and nothing to Rebecca but his reply was Rebecca can have some more when she's older and goes out with friends. He doesn't realise she's seven now and likes to have a little bit of money.

The end result of this was that Katherine felt so guilty that she is giving her £10 to Rebecca and she asked me last night if I thought she was the golden child as far as Dad is concerned and hadn't he wanted Rebecca. She knows he left when Rebecca was only three months old. How do you answer that?? I tried to be fairly truthful and said that Dad maybe had a stronger bond with her as he'd lived with her until she was six. He actually had little interaction with Rebecca until she was nearly two (his choice!)

It's so sad though as I think Rebecca would have been a Daddy's girl if things had been different. She came home from his house at the weekend telling me little stories that Daddy did this with me and Daddy said that. But when I checked with Katherine, she said this was all made up. I really could shake the man at times. I tried to talk to him about her dyslexia again and he asked me again was there definitely no cure for this!

All I can do is continue to support and nurture both girls to the best of my abilities and try and fill the gap that Daddy should be filling. The positive thing is that I am incredibly close to both and we have an amazing bond.

Sorry if this is a bit depressing today but sometimes you just need to rant. I'll try and be more upbeat next time.

Bye for now

love Riki xxx