Claire is worried about a problem that is compounded by each passing year. She became pregnant as a teenager, but soon after her daughter Emma was born, the boyfriend left. When Emma was nearly a year old, Claire met Jim. They have been together for almost 10 years and have had two children together. The problem is that Emma believes Jim is her father. "At the beginning, I didn't think anything of it. Emma was a tiny baby and there was nothing I could tell her that she would understand anyway," says Claire. "Jim is the only father she has known, and he looks on her as his child. "We left things drift - there never seemed to be a good time to tell Emma - and now it's really freaking me out. I don't know what to do. How can I tell her her Dad is not her Dad, and what do I say about her real father, who I haven't seen for 10 years, and I don't even know if he's in the country or not; if he's married, has kids of his own, nothing. It's a real mess, and it's doing my head in."
It's a problem which Cherish, an association of single-parent families, has encountered in a number of guises. Last year, its counselling service was used by a couple to work through an issue similar to Claire and Jim's, and receive help with the fallout which inevitably followed.
Information officer Veronica Black remembers a couple who came in asking briskly how they could re-register their child's birth so that the current partner could be named on the birth certificate as the child's biological father. "They didn't see anything wrong with this and got quite annoyed with my response," says Veronica. "I told them it was illegal and that morally a child has a right to know who his or her real father is. Their attitude was that the natural father was out of the frame, the child had an effective father, so what was the big deal? I tried to explain that the issue was not who was filling the father's role, but a child's right to know who he is."
Today, three in 10 children are born outside marriage. That adds up to many thousands of children who have no legal father. It probably includes families where the male partner is not the father of all the children, unknown to them. It certainly covers many children whose father is not around, is an irregular visitor, or is totally unknown. What, then, should children be told about their fathers, and what support do cohabiting partners and lone parents, typically mothers, need to tell their child the truth?
"In a way it's a problem that's as old as the hills - how many women have married to give their child a name?" asks Cherish project officer Tara Smith, adding that many such children may never have known their true origins. Equally, a married woman who becomes pregnant through an affair has a powerful incentive to pass the child off as her husband's if she wants the marriage to continue. "What is much more widespread now is that there are many women who are living with men who are not the father of their child, who enters the relationship before the child is of an age to know the difference," says administrator Teresa Heaney. "It goes along with a lack of openness of who Daddy is anyway.
What is significant and important is that there are families with siblings by different fathers who are entitled to a relationship with their father and may not be having it." While there is an understanding of how partners can fall into the trap of lying by omission, Cherish is unequivocal about its stance. "A child is entitled to know who his birth parents are, not what might suit the mother at the time," says Heaney. "A secret like this is a disaster waiting to happen and fraught with endless possibilities for problems later on, even down to the necessity for knowing your pertinent medical history. Then there are the emotional consequences. A child may find it hard to forgive you for not telling the truth."
Cherish advises parents to tell children about their fathers as early as possible. "We must look at the rights of the child in this case, not the adult," says Heaney. "You should convey the information in an open and honest way depending on the child's age, needs and abilities." Cherish counsellor Linda Kelly adds that information should be age-appropriate, sticking to simple facts such as: "You have a Daddy but he doesn't live with us" to a young child, saving more complex issues for later.
MORE typical is the problem of what the mother should tell her child about the father he or she has never known, whether or not there is a current partner in the frame. The issue comes up regularly in Cherish parenting courses. The organisation recently published "Moving On" a personal development course for lone parents, which includes a module on how to handle the issue of the absent parent. There are guidelines on building up a picture of Dad by talking about him, his childhood, his family, his talents, looks and qualities which the child may have inherited, showing children old photographs or a birth certificate if the father's name is on it, and remaining in contact with paternal grandparents, if possible.
All this can be difficult if the parents parted on bad terms; if there was violence, abandonment, or rejection. "I occasionally have women coming for counselling who would like to tell their child nothing about his Dad, or even say that he is dead," says Kelly. "I usually try to talk about what is in the child's best interest, and invariably after a number of sessions, she sees it differently."
Many single mothers would wish for a happy, healthy relationship with their child's father, but the reality is usually very different. "It's so much easier when the Dad is not involved; you don't have the hassle," says Pamela, who had no contact with her son's father until Conor was two. "Then he returned to Ireland, and I had to make a conscious decision whether to allow contact or not," she says. "I did it for Conor's sake, because I felt it was his right, because I didn't want him to say in the future that I didn't give him the choice, and because of the negative effect on a friend's child when access was denied." When Conor was three, Pamela met Stephen: "Conor now has a multiplicity of Dads. Stephen is day-to-day Dad, the one he shouts at and refuses to go to bed for. His real father is the one that gives him treats, that he sees every three weeks or so.
"At times I have regretted my decision, the times when Conor's Dad lets him down, doesn't turn up when he says he will. Once he had Conor for an overnight and left him on his own in a fairly hazardous situation. I was in tatters for the following week. In a way I'm trusting my son to someone I don't know." However, while irresponsible and non-supportive fathers still abound, more non-cohabiting fathers are becoming involved in the rearing of their children. This year Cherish holds its first men's workshop on rights and responsibilities. Also, more women are looking for maintenance, prompted in part by "Making Efforts", a scheme by the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs whereby lone parent allowance recipients are encouraged to seek maintenance from the fathers of their children.
"Some women see this negatively: `he's only looking for the contact because he has to pay'," says Heaney. "And the other side of that is, `if he has access, why shouldn't he contribute something?' " adds Smith. But if a woman is found to be cohabiting, she loses her lone parent allowance, a policy which contributes to keeping couples apart, and deprives children of day-to-day contact with their fathers. So in terms of child welfare, government policies are inconsistent.
The authors of Fathers' Involvement with their Non-Marital Children, a 1993 study by the Federation of Services for Unmarried Parents and their Children, suggest that some mothers can use children in a powerplay with their ex-partner in order to punish. "A child may indeed be the only thing of power a woman has," points out Heaney, "but we find woman are owning that, struggling with it and overcoming it for their child's sake. A child should have a relationship with both parents, and we are quite clear on that."