> the young woman's confidence has improved, destructive behaviour stopped, bullying stopped

What makes you think that wouldn't have happened over time by itself? What's the message here, bullying someone for having lost her father is okay, not having a father is not okay? That's normalizing people being bullied for being humans. It's normalizing not allowing a widow to find another lover who at least may have an actual "bigger brother" style connection to her children than some actor who has none.

We don't need "figures" and "role models" for what they seem like, like pixels on a screen. That need comes from being someone, at least the natural initial desire to become someone, and it aims at people who are someone, too.

> Ethics is not black and white.

Except of course for the father figure she "obviously" needs, and how the confidence has "improved" (implied: from not good enough to good enough), during that "critical" part of the development as if there were any non-critical ones in life.

> O righteous crusaders for truth, if this girl was put in front of you, would you tell her?

That's not the question. The question is, would you fake being her father, or would you hire a fake father, and the answer to both of that for me is no, I can bet you my life on that, in writing. Oh righteous crusader for deep considerations, can you at least not turn faking being a father into the burden of "telling the truth" in a situation we would not have incurred in the first place?

When something makes you sad, there is usually good reason for it. Why not simply give her drugs to make her happy, and money to make it not matter if she has a career? If truthfulness, who you actually are, is just this thing on the side trumped by "outcome", why arbitrarily stop there? Why not permanently install on VR helmets and drug pumps onto everybody right after birth, done?

What would people who don't mind something like this have to withstand something even more twisted? How about this is already 20 iterations past sane, how about no? How about having a decent society instead of a rising tide of shut-ins and suicide and elderly people with plastic robot dogs? If you can't see those elephants on the couch, how can you be all life coach about this maybe not being the sad, nutty thing it is on the surface because it's possible that in 20 years it might have turned out well? Start everything like you want it to end. If you can't handle even someone else's mortality, how about your own? When I worked in a hospital, I was constantly amazed at the idle chit chat relatives made with people who had very short time left. I felt like those of the stuff who made human connections were the only ones remotely realizing what was going on. The visitors just dipped in, coated in a shell of activity, and left before anything could sink in. And I believe many genuinely loved those they visited, for some they were the apple of their eye; they were just so inept at life that they wasted those last moments together, too. In short, just to repeat, no. No to all of it. No to that entire branch.

edit: while I don't like to add even more to such a long rant (please don't take it personal in the accusative sense because I mirrored your "oh.." phrasing, take it as personal as meaning a lot to me), another thought occurred to me that actually does make me a bit angry: he's not "giving" her a fake father, he's taking her real and unfortunately dead father away from her. In the sense of role models and emotional support a LOT of things and people can do -- in the sense of the person you are and who your parents are, there are no substitutes. This is unforgivable to me; not that it's my call in this case, but if I was that girl, and I found out one day, that guy would have to fear for his life. How is it even possible that it's legal for him to not own up when she turns 18? Just because the lie started when she wasn't an adult? There is not one single aspect of this that isn't utterly fucked up to me. No, it's not understandable. It's understandable as in you needed to clean the dishes and now there is a 100 m tall sea monster destroying the whole block.