Single Parents Vent

I took my son to oz when he was 10 months old. Its hard work espically by yaself. (his name is also Hunter :)).

My sons father has not seen or talked to his son (or me, YAY) for over a year so I decided to go to court and get day 2 day care of my son. And the court requested that we go to councelling to figure this out. what the hell is up with that crap! He doesnt deserve his son in his life he walked away from him. Now I get to wait 3 weeks to see if he will go to counciling and tell them what argangement he wants. And if he does that then we both have to go indivualy to a parenting class on parenting through sepration. I am so pissed off with the court. I do everything for my son. He does nothing. yet they are doing everything towards helping his father. Who the hell is helping me!!!

KAC that sh*ts me so much. Though Bec is right, your soon has 'the right' to free and open access to both parents. I was going to do the same thing - get the parenting order - but figured if i pushed him he might walk in and ask for extra days or whatever just to punish me. So i just stay quiet and hope he stays away.

Oh and it drives me mad to waste time as I dont have any to really spare right now I should be busy working on making a stick figure walk across a screen (my uni work). But I really wanted a paenting order so I can feel safe taking him to places where he might pup into his father, I always have a fear of him taking my son away just to be evil d*ck.

Been there done that KAC. My DD's dad had never cared for her by himself when we split when she was 11 months old. Never given her a bath or fed her or put her to bed. He lived in the house but was not actively involved except for changing the odd nappy. He kept threatening to take her from daycare or not bring her back from visits so I wanted to get the custody sorted so applied for day 2 day care.

The courts helped DD's dad along. They served papers on him which he was supposed to reply to by a certain daye, he didn't and they gave him 3 extentions on the time frame. He got angry in councelling and walked out and demanded a new councellor, they gave him a new one. He couldn't finish the sessions in the required period of time, they gave him an extention. He wanted an extra session to make up for the one he stormed out of, he got it. The court appointed DD a lawyer who helped him find a lawyer to fight me because he apparently deserved to be represented even though he couldnt be bothered finding his own lawyer. We were each supposed to go to the parenting through separation course and he refused to go, they gave him another chance and allowed him an extention to get his certificate for doing the course to court. The whole process dragged on and on and on because he wasn't really interested enough to do what was required but he got so much help through each step. It made me so angry.

I agree that the child's best interests should come first, and that every child has a right to know their father, but I felt that the court system ran around after DD's dad when he wasn't really interested enough to keep the process going himself. I think the problem was he originally decided to fight me to get back at me for leaving him, and then was kind of pushed along the process. When he was ready to come to a compromise it happened really fast (we were booked to go to mediation in court and he decided he wanted to compromise 6 days before, we had the documents drawn up and signed within a week). And he had fought me for shared care (him having Thursday to Sunday every week and me having Monday to Thursday morning) but accepted 2.5 hours on Monday afternoon and 5pm Thursday to 5pm Friday. I don't think he ever really wanted shared care, he just wanted to upset me.

Is such a bogus system now. I dont see rights to be in a childs life I see it as a privilage & should have to be worked for. But apperantly not. So I hope my ex is prepared for a tough battle. (He has decided to fight me on this) Because if he misses any session it will be noted and I will request his rights to be taken away. I am not having him in my sons life just to disapear when he starts relying on him. Hes done it once. I am not forgiving when it comes to my sons life. He is too important to be corrupted by his father.

its pure mind games and minupulation.

minik8e (or anyone else for that matter) do your girls cry for their Dad? My DD is going through a phase of crying for him all the time and its driving me nuts. I know she misses him but she is going a bit over the top at the moment. Wednesday afternoons in particular have been bad when I pick her up from daycare, partly because on Monday he picks her up, Tuesday she doesn't go and Thursday I pick her up and take her to his house. Every Wednesday when I drop her off I say I am picking you up today and then we are going home and going to do whatever, and then when i pick her up she spends 20 mins to half an hour screaming and crying coz we are going home and she wants to go to his house instead. Today I snapped and told her that I knew she missed her dad but all the screaming and crying was hurting my feelings. And that she could still tell me she missed him but I needed her to accept that she can't always see him when she wants. Not sure if that was the right thing to do or not, I'm just so sick of hearing about him and how she wants to see him instead of me

No they don't Shelt. They never once asked for him in the 2 weeks we were away, and it will be 3 weeks between him seeing them. They've never asked for him or his parents once. I think it is an indication of the time spent with them though - they may be in his "care" 2-3 days a week (depending what week it is) but he only spends one day of that with them, if they are lucky and he doesn't have work to do on his race car

Have you only recently broken up? if so,it sounds like shes confused,two year olds don't see the world as clearly as us,and shes probably wondering why her daddy that was there all the time is suddenly not around so much anymore,perfectly understandable for her age,it will cease as she gets older and starts to understand it better,in the meantime everytime she has a cry about it,let her get it out of her system while you sit and hug her, one thing i've learnt over the past 9 years is that the more you try to get a kid not to do something,the more they will do it,so it will probably help you with your problem,let her get it out of her system and then after that every time she says it just say "yes,I know,im sorry you miss him" and change the topic or distract her....her wanting to be with him doesn't mean she loves you any less,kids tend to have a fairy tale opinion about the absent parent.
My daughter still cries sometimes for her dad,when they moved to Wellington she was a wreck,she writes letters (that she never sends) telling him how much she misses him and will have a cry to me about it.I just hold her till she feels better,thats my job,I could take or leave her dad,but he means a lot to her,so I just shut my mouth and give her cuddles cos thats all I can do

And if hes never really been there,then the only thing I can think is that maybe shes noticing kids at DC with dad's and shes starting to want hers there too,she'll get over that as she grows too,she may revert back to it once she gets to school (my daughter did) but she wont for very long.


Edited by TheKelly

my friend's daughter comes from a single parent household (her mum,my friend has been dead since her daughter was an infant) and when she got to about 2 and a half,she started taking a big interest in mums and wondering why hers wasn't there,so its probably a phase they get when they reach that age,cos they are starting to be more aware of other people etc ...your daycare theory sounds about right.
For what its worth,my friend's girl got over the phase of "why don't I have two parents " and onto "why don't I have brown hair " ....