I Don’t Leave My Baby Daughter Alone with Her Father

Reader’s Question

My question relates to leaving my daughter alone with her father. I simply don’t do it. I am a homemaker and have no need to go out by myself. On the rare occasion when I’ve got my hair cut he will accompany me with our daughter and occupy her at the mall. During these times he always seems to take her to the washroom. Even when he only has 10 minutes with her. The other day we had a doctor’s appointment and I left them in the waiting room only to come out ten minutes later to find he had taken her to the washroom. He was quick to explain why he did this without my even asking or showing any hint of irritation. He appears fixated on taking her potty and I’ve seen him and it is at his insistence. Since she is only 2 1/2 years old I don’t feel she could even tell me if she was being abused so my opinion is that she shouldn’t be alone with a man till she is old enough to understand the rights she has to tell someone or say no etc.

This may sound a bit like it is coming from nowhere but my husband has two other daughters from a previous marriage who are now grown. The youngest always did things that I didn’t understand such as try to get her father’s attention by not wearing underwear while laying on the floor watching TV in front of us. One night I recall him attending to her in the bathroom putting petroleum jelly on her bum at her request and she was about 8 years old and could have done so herself. Things like that were confusing to me. Also while she was a teen a few years ago, she changed towards him. She totally rejected him and stopped coming over for visits. When we moved from that house a few years ago I found a letter which was written from the standpoint of a person who was describing feelings of wanting to die etc. from a man getting on top of her and her wishing she was dead etc. It was her handwriting. I confronted her father about the letter and asked him to take the letter to her to find out what happened to her. He gave the letter to her sister and never talked directly to her about it. The detail of the letter makes me believe that there is no way she could have made up the emotions expressed in it. She has to have experienced some violation. The question is who did it? And why won’t she talk about it?

With all the doubt that stuff brought about I would rather be safe than sorry. Besides in the beginning when our daughter was born there were many many stupid things he did that endangered her life. He would leave harmful chemicals laying around within her reach, safety plugs out of their sockets within her reach, choke hazards laying around, picked up our daughter after touching raw chicken and doing a soapless simple rinse of his hand under the sink, give our daughter foods she wasn’t ready for (hard round uncooked carrots while still an infant), allow our daughter to stuff lettuce into her mouth to the point of choking while he holds her paying no attention to what she is doing while an infant, encourages our daughter to go right up to strange dogs and pet them, allowing her to trail after him while she was under 2 years old outside not watching her when he crossed the road (she followed) with his back turned to her so he didn’t know she was in the middle of the road. Lately I’ve found matches in his desk drawer and in spite of mentioning that she can now reach that spot and throwing them out…he replaced them the following week and I found new ones in the same place. He has been spraying some insects with poison spray inside our home and leaving all the dead bugs with the poison on them on the floor so that our baby could crawl over to them and eat them. I didn’t know the mess was there; he did this while I slept, and on and on it goes. In many ways he is like a child himself and not an equal parent.

I’ve never made a big deal of how I feel towards him but he knows I don’t leave her with him and likely won’t do much of it. He actually had a mini tantrum today about me not leaving her alone with him and said “didn’t I trust him?”. I didn’t go into the fact that I am not comfortable leaving her alone with him and each past event was brought to his attention at the time so I haven’t ignored his blunders. I must say that I am shocked that he is really pressing for time alone with her. It is getting noticeably aggressive.

Is the fact that he is now pushing harder for it something to be concerned about? Should I be alarmed at his being upset about this? Why does he feel a need to exclude me or be together as a group and get her alone?

Our Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

There are two levels of concern here. At the very basic level, your husband seems rather “clueless”. He clearly has difficulty understanding simple hazards, standards of childcare, child-safety issues, and how his behavior is being interpreted by those around him. This “clueless” behavior is summarized in your statement that he acts like a child himself. At this very basic level, we have an individual who gives little thought to what follow his actions (leaving dead bugs out) and how his behaviors will be viewed by others as careless, irresponsible, or “clueless”. From a clinical standpoint, I would expect that this is a life-long concern as this type of behavior rarely surfaces suddenly.

The second level of concern is more complex — does he pose a risk for neglect or even sexual abuse for the child? The risk for neglect is probably already been established here. The sexual abuse part may be more difficult to understand. Obviously he has many behaviors that might be interpreted as sexually suspicious. These may be related to sexuality or they may be related to his inability to determine what is appropriate adult behavior with young female children. The behavior of his children is interesting as well. In my clinical experience, fathers who inappropriately relate to their female daughters are viewed as “creepy” and inappropriate as the child matures. Daughters gradually begin to recognize that dad did some things that were inappropriate during their childhood…but they’re not sure what at times. With the behavior related to his daughters, he may have been inappropriate with them in the same way he is clueless about other parenting skills. While it is unclear that his behaviors have been sexually abusive or exploitive, I think you have valid reasons to be protective.

In dealing with this issue, I’d first focus on the difficulty trusting him to exercise good parental judgment as evidenced by his prior behaviors. After a time, you should be able to tell if his behavior toward the child is sexual or just childishly inappropriate. If you talk with the older children, you can confide in them that Dad has problems with parenting and does some weird things at times. They may then volunteer some of their experiences — again giving you an idea about the nature of his behavior. You might also ask him to consider couples counseling on these issues. My sense is that he may not fully realize how seriously his behaviors are viewed by others.