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Your co-worker's child may have died and he doesn't feel that this is somethingthat he wants to talk about with an acquaintance. Many people have very personal reasons for not divulging personal information. I would leave it alone.
One of our friends had a child that died in a car accident. The Mom said that she really hated that everyone who she met would ask how many kids she had. She didn't want to say "three but one died" and "two" wasn't really correct.
Probably there is a reason why he lies, if he is lying.
A childhood friend who went from Catholic, and reasonably low-maintenance, to fundamentalist, and high-maintenance. When he was working the fundie church singles groups in a particular metro area, he would either hold, or participate in, Bible study meetings as if he was a never-married single. The reality is that he had a failed marriage during his community college days (!) and a child from that short-lived marriage.
He even withheld this information for the longest time from his next wife. However, she was looking at this as a "bird in the hand" chance to get married (no comment) and was REALLY upset when she found out, but married him anyway. Amazingly, he had the nerve to try to mend the situation with his first child, with whom he made no effort to stay in touch, through Facebook. That didn't go over too well.
I know of a guy who might lie -- but I don't know him well enough to know if he does.
The guy was and is still married, but he had a girlfriend who got pregnant and had the child and took him to court for child support. His wife accepted the situation and maybe forgave him but did stay with him. The wife could never have children.
He is not a part of the child's life other than the child support.
Whatever the circumstances of his relationship with his son, that's his business, and if he classifies it as having no children, that could very well be indicative of their relationship, and not a lie by his perception.
Someone with whom I was at school has a mother who edits the number of children that she has, yet the father does not. The reason for this is one son married someone of whom she did not approve, so she wrote him out of her life and will, having severed relations with him, his wife, and now their children. The husband in this couple, however, tells the correct number of children, counting both sons and their daughters, and secretly sneaks off to see the disowned son when he travels on business, and attempts to have as decent a relationship as he can, despite the situation with his wife. It's a very strange situation, to say the least, and unfortunately, it does not appear that reconciliation is forthcoming. If someone asks the wife why the husband says two sons, she replies "HE has two sons. I have one."
Another family I know lost one of their daughters as an adult, and it's so painful to this day for their parents that they edit the number of children to those who do not know them because the mother does not wish to speak about the loss of her daughter to people she does not know. Their youngest is my friend, and his sister was significantly older, and in graduate school, when she was killed in a tragic accident. I swear his mother died that day as well, though her body continues to live on; and while she can function, she has never/and likely will never be able to recover from such a profound loss. Before, she was the picture of joy, but now there's a melancholy that those who know her well can sense, despite appearances to the contrary. Technically, yes, it would be correct to say that she had four children, but it's just much less emotionally painful for her to say she has three children to those who do not know her well enough to know the circumstances, not three surviving children.
So, there are reasons as to why people may characterize the number of children that they have as being different than the numerical value of those that they have brought into the world. I don't know that I would call every situation a lie, however, since some elements of a particular family's dynamic and composition are private.
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All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.
~William Shakespeare (As You Like It Act II, Scene VII)
One of our friends had a child that died in a car accident. The Mom said that she really hated that everyone who she met would ask how many kids she had. She didn't want to say "three but one died" and "two" wasn't really correct.
Probably there is a reason why he lies, if he is lying.
No, that couldn't be it, the OP has seen his kid....he's just a liar, plain and simple.
My former best friend does this. We went to high school together and were even pregnant with our first children at the same time. I only had 1, she went on to have 4 more. So she has a total of 5 children. She only claims the last 3. Reason behind this is because her first & second children are biracial. Her next 3 are all the same race. Her first 2 stay with her mother, and she hasn't seen them in over 10 years. Her oldest is going to be 18 this month. We stopped talking for years, then met up again after she had the last 3. No mention of her first 2 were ever made. Finally I asked her about this and she says that nobody knows about them and went asked, she says she only has 3. This is disgusting to me, I could never not claim my child. We stopped talking again once I found this out.
My former best friend does this. We went to high school together and were even pregnant with our first children at the same time. I only had 1, she went on to have 4 more. So she has a total of 5 children. She only claims the last 3. Reason behind this is because her first & second children are biracial. Her next 3 are all the same race. Her first 2 stay with her mother, and shehasn't seen them in over 10 years. Her oldest is going to be 18 this month. We stopped talking for years, then met up again after she had the last 3. No mention of her first 2 were ever made. Finally I asked her about this and she says that nobody knows about themand when asked, she says sheonly has 3. This is disgusting to me, I could never not claim my child. We stopped talking again once I found this out.
That is a horrible story. If her attitude is THAT BAD maybe her first two children are better off without her.
Should you claim a stepchild if the parent is no longer around? (death, or divorce)
We have 5 grandchildren. And 5 step grands. And then, there is the one that was a stepchild and his mother died. Is he still a step child? Now he's married and has a child of his own....should we claim her? And the new baby has an older half sister. ?????
You have to draw the line somewhere. But frankly, I think it's what I want to do, not what someone else thinks I should.
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