Some fathers show up for the second family after skipping most of the first one, and the children left behind are rarely in the mood to applaud the improvement.

A young man who spent his childhood watching his absent father cancel visits, forget birthdays, and drift further out of reach got a phone call after years of silence.

So when his father had a new baby and wanted to introduce them, his father made the excuse that life is short and the baby deserves family.

What he didn’t say was sorry, or that he understood the damage he had caused.

It was the easiest no this son had ever said.

Keep reading for the full story.

AITA for refusing to meet my father‘s new baby?

I (22M) haven’t spoken to my father in years.

My parents split up when I was young, and after that he was mostly absent from my life and my sibling’s life.

His father was never the best at following through — with his word or with anything else.

He would promise to visit and then cancel, forget birthdays, and rarely contributed financially.

We grew up in Europe with our mother while he gradually became less involved.

Eventually, I stopped reaching out and so did he.

So when he found out some details about his father, it would seem he was living quite differently now.

Recently, I found out he has built a new life in South Africa.

He remarried about a year ago to a woman who lives there, and they recently had a baby together.

My father still lives in Europe but visits South Africa about twice a year.

He has no plans to bring his wife and child here and instead plans to move there when he retires.

Before long, he finally hears from his father.

A few weeks after the baby was born, he contacted me and invited me to meet my new half-sibling.

He said life is short, the baby deserves to know their family, and that this could be a fresh start.

But this causes a big argument between the two.

I told him I wasn’t interested.

He said I was punishing an innocent child for my issues with him.

He finds the whole idea completely ridiculous, and just downright disrespectful.

The way I see it, he’s asking me to act like family now that he has started a new family, after barely acting like a father to me.

He has never really acknowledged the emotional or financial impact his absence had on me and my sibling, nor has he apologized for it.

He feels like his father should be held accountable for his actions in some way or another.

I don’t blame the baby, and I don’t hate them.

I just don’t feel obligated to build a relationship with a child I’ve never met simply because we share DNA.

AITA for refusing?

This one is really hard.

What did Reddit make of all of it?

It may have been the right message, but it was definitely the wrong messenger.

It’s pretty rich hearing this father talk about “punishing an innocent child.”

Accountability seems to be something this man has struggled with his entire life.

Wounds this deep tend to not heal so easily.

DNA does not automatically create obligation, and a father learning that lesson from his own adult child is one of the more uncomfortable ways to find it out.

If this guy had even a shred of self-awareness, he would know just how hurtful and ridiculous his request actually was. Everyone deserves to have a good father, but his first son never got that opportunity.

Fatherhood doesn’t get a restart button, and even if it did, this man doesn’t deserve one.