I don’t want to this to come across as a rant but it may well go that way due to the subject matter. I’ve been thinking about my children and their relationship or should I say lack of one they share with their father. It brings me back to conversations, mostly overheard while sitting on the peripheral of friendship groups or acquaintances, and the articles and comments I’ve read about Dad’s being kept away from their children. I know it does happen and when it happens without good reason it is terrible. Any parent that deliberately keeps their children away from a good and loving parent, who is wanting and actively trying to maintain a healthy relationship with their child, needs to seriously look at their values and priorities. Children should not be used as weapons ever. That being said, I wonder just how many of these parents that are so desperate to see their children actually make the effort to do so? Just saying you want to see them and then saying “Give them a hug for me” when you don’t follow through on prearranged dates doesn’t actually equate to you trying to see your kids. I have sat there thinking “How unfair, what bullshit! “, but maybe I have felt sorry for some of these people without knowing the full story.
I have personally received messages from my ex asking to see the kids, telling me how much he desperately wants to see them backed up by many exclamation marks, only for him not to turn up for two days in a row just the following week. In a recent heated conversation I was told that he was telling anyone who would listen that I wasn’t allowing him to see the children. How many people have heard that I’m keeping the kids from him? How often has he lamented how unfair it is that he gets to see them so sporadically? To who I wonder? I know I shouldn’t be putting too much thought into these things but when it comes to the disappointment of my children, it plays on my mind. It also bothers me that there are probably people out there thinking I am being unfair, that my apparent behaviour is bullshit. There is an easy solution to that I suppose, I could just not care. I could just not give it a thought, but who am I kidding? When it comes to not disappointing the kids I could never say anything about their Dad, wait until he is actually on the doorstep before saying, “You get to see Daddy today.” Problem with this though is Master E is getting older and is starting to ask questions and putting things together himself.
Photo by Juan Pablo Serrano Arenas from Pexels
It has been 7 and half weeks since the kids have seen their dad, the week after he had forgotten it was his son’s birthday. He didn’t see them over Easter or the following weeks to say Happy Easter or give gifts apparently bought, not over the school holidays when Ethan had been on a break from preschool. Not for Miss E’s second birthday either. I have been told I have kept them from seeing their dad, which is categorically untrue. There have been days arranged but he always has something come up which prevents him from seeing them. On the latest phone call I received from him about seeing the kids and after opening with “You realise you won’t be getting child support this fortnight”, I was told he wanted “Access to his children” when it worked around his shifts. When I asked for specific dates that coincide with these proposed nights I was told to “Shut the fuck up”. I hung up and briefly thought back to a time I heard this almost daily. This is not the way people should talk to each other when discussing their children.
I may be wrong, but I honestly think regular overnight stays should be something that builds gradually after such a long period of unreliable visits. How about some days spent together first? How about phone calls and using Facetime to actually speak to the kids about their day? A parent who is engaged and interested in their children’s lives usually has some idea about the people and places that make up their child’s world. The name of the school they go to isn’t a question asked at the end of the first term. Teachers at their childcare centre, Kindy, swimming lessons are known or at least known by name. The names of their friends are used in conversation when asking about their day. Routines like starting times and days off are not a mystery. The improvement and growth in confidence is something seen first hand after taking the time to attend your child’s swimming lessons or the like. I know all these things because I care. I am engaged. I am interested. I am invested. I am available. I am reliable. And above all, my children rank highest on my priority list.
There are many, many awesome parents out there doing the very best they can to be active, engaged, loving and available for their children. There are also people out there that talk the talk but never manage to follow through. I guess we all need to remember that there are always different sides to a story. I just know in my story I have been able to provide a suitable home, enrol my children in education and extra activities, provide routine and structure, find a rhythm with employment and home that works, take my kids on a holiday, have all my bills paid, reconnect with old friends and make new ones all while making sure my children were my number one focus. I did this with the help of my family and his. They have been in my care almost 100% of the time. 10 overnight stays and months of not seeing their Dad over the past 12 months is my children’s reality when it come to the relationship they have with their father.
So, a little ranty. I guess people view the world and issues from their own personal bias; depending on what path they have travelled. I now sit on the other side of those overheard conversations, I am the parent that is separated and has majority custody. I am not a parent who is keeping her children from their father but I do expect to be able to have a civil conversation about it. I want to discuss, compromise and organise an arrangement that keeps things balanced when it comes to the care of my children in a way that doesn’t involve the use of profanities and name calling. I want their father to make the effort with phone calls and be more generous with his time. What I don’t want is for plans to continuously change, for my children or for myself and then be labelled as the difficult one.
Why am I sharing this? Well, I guess I feel that I can’t be the only one that feels this way. I’m not the only one that is now on the other side of the conversation and wondering just how often the unfair bullshit isn’t really bullshit at all but the consequences of ones own actions.
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