Am I wrong for wanting to protect my kid
I am not sure what to do and I am hoping that having an unbiased opinion will help me so here it goes. I am a single parent to a 9 year old, the father basically walked out the day I found out I was pregnant. There were many excuses involved none of which I actually think was enough of an excuse to walk out and not be a part of the pregnancy. Due to him not being in my life anymore I didn't call him until the day after I gave birth and let him come see our child. I had to be induced it was very scary and all I wanted was my mom and sister there he would not have been aloud in the room and visiting hours were over by the time my child was born. He only stayed 30 minutes then left. I did not see him again until a month later when I called and said I was moving states so if he wanted to come see his kid now was the time he came and visited for an hour. So over the course of the next few years he saw our child 2 more times in person a couple of video calls and pictures from me. He stoped paying child support he managed to do this the legal route. So for the last about 4 almost 5 years I have not heard anything from him until about 2 weeks ago. He messaged me apologizing saying he wanted to start sending me money and hopefully build trust to start being involved,as well as admitting to being in the program. So before I said anything back I called and verified that if I accepted this money it would only be considered a gift and for him to have any rights he would have to take me to court. With that I messaged back saying that if he does send money I would take that and open up a college fund and anything they send would go to that. I want to make it clear that before he stopped messaging I always maintained that I would not deny him the right to see his kid whether it was pictures or video calls I tried he did not. So while my child is aware of who their father is and has seen pictures they do not know him. My replies have been short but polite, if he asks a question I answer but I am not overly sharing, I do not want to lose my temper so I am trying to just feel out what the situation is. He has tended in the past to want to be involved for a short time then stopped talking to me after a couple of weeks so I want to take things slow and see what happens. The problem is when he messaged me I freaked out and told my family and they have been bombarding me with their opinions ever since. My mom and sister think I should not have him involved at all (keep in mind they are more in the loop of all that I went through with him over the years) While my dad and brother are of the mind set I should keep a father away from his kid and give him a chance to step up. While I can appreciate their points of view I also think that protecting my child's emotional well being should be my first priority and should keep him at a distance until I can see that he is going to stop around this time. But now I can't help but feel like maybe I am wrong so please any advice would be great.