Sturggles In Parallel Parenting

It’s odd to me that BD and his family have made comments saying that I hate him. Y’all, I truly don’t hate anyone. Who has that kind of time and energy? Also, if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have the child that is A. For that reason alone I could never truly hate him.

Do I like him? Not really, but it isn’t simply because he’s her biological dad and therefore I think he’s the enemy or whatever else they may think. It’s because he doesn’t treat me like a human deserves to be treated (let alone the mother of his child), and he’s far from a “good dad” or even a dad, really. All of this will eventually effect A, and that truth eats at me every day.

We’ve done our best to shield her from it. Her visitation isn’t every other weekend, it’s two Saturdays each month so there is no set routine in going. I find this helpful because if she does go for a visit it’s almost like a treat. We don’t tell her in advance about her visits because we don’t want to get her hopes up. We also never say “you’re going to go see your dad today”. We say “you’re going to go visit your grandparents today”. Her visitation takes place at the grandparents’ house so we do know that at least they will be there. Also this is to not get her hopes up that he’ll be there in the event that he doesn’t show (which certainly does happen).

Days like today are days in parenting that BD will never be able to understand.

This morning I woke up, took the dog out, made A breakfast, got a cup of coffee and went upstairs to wake A up and get her to come downstairs to eat. Twenty minutes later I go downstairs to refill my coffee. She’s barely eaten anything and says she doesn’t like her breakfast. This was the new oatmeal she herself picked out, by the way. I told her if she would try to eat at least half of it that would be wonderful and I wouldn’t fix that kind of oatmeal again. Maybe 5 minutes later she comes upstairs saying her tummy hurts. She’s known to fib so I assume it’s her trying to get out of eating her oatmeal, so I say “if you don’t want your oatmeal, don’t fib about your tummy, just throw it away and come get ready” and she says “no, my tummy really hurts” so again I say “okay, well then go throw your oatmeal away and come get ready”. As she starts going down the steps she vomits. All over my stairs. Also, it’s not a normal vomit, but an almost watery vomit, so I ask her to come to the toilet and give her a smooch on the head and tell her I’m sorry she isn’t feeling well.

Well, today (of all days) my RDO and my boss from UT were visiting in regards to Joint Commission. It’s a big deal.

A had just finished her antibiotic for the strep she had about 2 weeks ago so it seems unlikely that she’d be sick again. After I clean the stairs and throw her oatmeal away I come back upstairs and ask her to go lay down for awhile. At this point I text all my bosses to let them know I may not be coming in to work today.

After about an hour of her laying in bed, I go take her temperature, it’s fine, and I ask her on a scale of one (which is fine) to 10 (which is she’s crying because it hurts so much) how badly her tummy hurts. She responds, while smiling at me, an 8. I ask her if she’s sure, because she’s smiling and doesn’t look to be in pain. She says she’s sure, so I let her lay for another half an hour. At this point we’re way past being late for school and I can’t make it to work before 10am due to my commute.

I go back in and ask her again. She says her tummy is a 5. Then a 6. I tell her she doesn’t look like she feels bad and I think she should try to get ready for school. She, reluctantly, gets her clothes on, goes into the bathroom, and begins brushing her teeth. Thirty seconds later she’s crying. I ask what’s wrong and she says her tummy REALLY hurts. I tell her to get her jams on and get back in bed. A few minutes later I go in and ask her what’s really going on. Come to find out she’s just worried about possibly vomiting at school. I explain it’s been 2 hours since she vomited and I think she’s going to be fine. I also discuss how I have very important people visiting me at work, and she hasn’t been to school in two days due to snow so I’m sure they have a lot to go over. She then decides that her tummy is only a 3 and she’s good to go to school. I remind her that she is my number one, main priority and that if she truly feels she needs to stay home, we’ll stay home. She says no, she thinks she’ll be fine at school.

At this point I call my grandmother to see, in the rare instance that I need to pick A up from school early, would she be able to do so for me? She says yes, which is wonderful. I feel comfortable going to work. We get ready and head out the door. She gets to school around 10 and I get to work around 11:30. Luckily my bosses were very understanding and I didn’t miss anything important, but this is the life of a true parent. Things come up and you have to plan your whole life around your child(ren) and ensure they’re your priority. Sometimes things come up that you can’t plan for and you have to be ready to deal with it.

This is a lesson we are teaching A but sadly it is a lesson that BD also needs to learn.

Last year (2017) he had 15/24 visitations. During those 15 visitations he spent anywhere from 2-3 hours with A. This means, at max, he spent 45 hours with her the entire year. That's not even two full days. To truly drive home my point, he made zero attempts to contact her outside of visitation. No phone calls. No texts. Nothing. Well, except for the one 2-minute phone call he made to her on her birthday (and that only happens because I fussed at him for not calling her on her second birthday).

The year before that (2016) he attended 12/24 visitations. Again, he was not spending the full 8 hours he's allotted with her. During that time he was spending around 4 hours with her at each visit, so that was a little better (~48 hours), but he still was not making any contact with her outside of these visitations. He called for 5 minutes on her birthday this year, and called her once while we were at the ER for a lacerated forehead, but he didn't follow-up on that at all. He didn't even text to ask how she was doing. She was close to needing stitches so this was a pretty big deal for a little girl.

How can you sit there and say that you love a child and are doing "your best" when this is your track record? He doesn't attend any extracurricular activities. He doesn't try to contact her. Heck, he doesn't even send her cards on holidays. So how is this showing a child you love her?

Yesterday A (my daughter) saw her BD (biological dad) for the first time this year. I was absolutely sick to my stomach the night before. Her BD is not the nicest guy, and he definitely doesn't act like a dad. He never calls to speak with her (she's 8 so she's definitely old enough to talk on the phone), beyond that he doesn't even text to ask how she's doing. For example, last Saturday I ended up having to take A to urgent care. Turns out she had strep. As we were leaving the urgent care I texted BD to let him know. His response was "Oh nooo" and that was that. No follow-up texts to see how she was doing. No phone calls to check on her. Nothing.

Visitation happens at his grandparents house (per our court order) and since it was such a short visit, my husband and I decided to drive her all the way there and pick her up from there as well instead of meeting (it's an hour an fifteen minute drive one way). We dropped her off on time and, of course, he's no where to be seen. You'd think the least he could do is be on time so he gets as much time with her as possible, but no.

We always like to talk about how A's day has been. Be that her day at school, her time at our family's houses, a friend's, etc. So when we picked her up we asked about her day. She said she had a good time. She saw her grandparents C, L, and K. She even said that C & L (who live about 30 minutes away) made it to the house before BD did. Which, to me, says that BD was likely around 15-30 minutes late for a 2 hour visit.

This is so aggravating. One, we were on time when we have to drive more than twice as far as he does. Two, this means we can't make many other plans, even though he's only using 25% of his actual allotted visitation, because the two hour visit takes up 5 hours of our day. Three, the visitation has always seemed to be more for his grandparents to see her than him (you'll see as I post more stories), and although I love her having a relationship with her great-grandparents, I should not be forced to take her there multiple times a month.

When we picked her up, he was still there, which is nice because he at least stayed until the end of his visitation (which he wasn't doing previously). He kept kissing her and tell her how much he loved her and missed her, but actions speak louder than words, and his actions say something completely different. He gave her this oversized Valentine's card and told her he didn't mail it because he "couldn't because it's too big to fit in the mailbox". Really? You could have mailed it if you wanted. We all know that. I have my own assumptions about this card, but will not get into those. Per A, he didn't even get her anything for her birthday a few months ago. NOT EVEN A CARD, so I guess the fact that he gave her anything period is a positive step. With that being said I shouldn't have to be happy about such a small gesture. That should be common place.