Maybe I’m wrong but I believe transporting kids back and forth for parenting time should be the responsibility of both biological parents, not just left up to the non-custodial parent.
Maybe I’m wrong but I believe it is wrong to say/preach/promise one thing then do another.
Maybe I’m wrong but I am not a clockwatcher. There is more to life than the keeping of time.
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My husband and I had my stepson this week-end. We bring him back to his mom’s house on Sunday night, usually somewhere between 8 and 8:30pm. We usually drop him off late – naughty us. It isn’t on purpose and I suppose it is mostly my fault – I am not the type of person that lives by the clock. Also we don’t feel it is necessary to rush around to get the kid back to his mom’s – after all he is with his dad. There are several reasons I don’t feel the need to rush the kid back to his mom’s house and I probably shouldn’t mention them all here. Lets just say a big part of it is about respect – if you don’t respect me and those I love (meaning my husband and my stepson) I am not going to be all that concerned about respecting you.
One reason I will mention is this: my husband doesn’ t drive due to an eyesight problem – he never has. He has to depend on others for rides, and mostly it is me driving my stepson back and forth. I will admit that sometimes it is inconvenient (I am only human) but for the most part it is a small inconvenience and I don’t mind doing it. You do for your kids and for your family. My stepson has at times shown his appreciation also, which I in turn really appreciate =)
But…
His ex-wife chose to make a baby (or made a baby) with a man that doesn’t drive – she knew this. She knew, like I did, when she hooked up with the father of her son that he does not and will never drive. She also chose to divorce this man and move to a different town with their son. I have always felt that is only fair that she provide some of the transportation for parenting time. This has rarely happened even though a promise had been made. Perhaps I was cleaning my husband’s (then boyfriend) house one day soon after we met and found a letter. Perhaps it was written by his ex-wife; in it she promised to drop their son off any time my husband wanted to see him. As far as I know this has never been the case.
Plus as an aside I would like to add that many divorced parents share the task of transporting their kid(s), pick up and/or drop off, for parenting times.
OK all history aside, most of the time the transportation issue is fine; my husband and I have done our darnedest to make it work and like I mentioned before it is not a big deal because I usually don’t let it be. Anyway my stepson is a teen now, close to being on his own – transportation and parenting time will soon cease to be an issue. Why am I writing about this now?
For a lot of different reasons. Tonight, for one, we were late and had to listen to my stepson get bitched out. Maybe I am just tired of the bull shit. I definitely feel the need to call attention to problems blended families face, non-custodial parents and/or step-mom’s face. And part of it is I just feel the need to call attention to a certain person’ s bad behavior (and taking her messed up shite out on others) and perhaps explain my less than stellar behavior too…
As usual, tonight we were running late – we had an issue with dinner being burnt and the roads were bad. A winter storm warning was in affect. I guess the roads started getting bad around 3 or 4 this afternoon. I had other things to do than worry about the weather today and we did not think it too big a deal because my stepson has no school tomorrow. I think he wanted to stay with us another day but knew his mom would say no, even though he spent Friday with her (no school that day either). We didn’t say anything, we generally let him make the call on that. He chose not to call her earlier.
We started out for my stepson’s mom’s house a little after 8pm. Right away my stepson wanted to call his mom as soon as he realized how bad the roads were. He called – no one answered (I actually think she didn’t answer the phone on purpose – she has been avoiding talking to my husband). He was hoping he could remain with us then we could just turn around and stay safe at home but we pressed on and it was slow going, about 25 – 30 miles an hour.
My stepson called again and his mom answered this time and from what I could hear she was all in a huff. My stepson said “I’m not goin’ to lie, the roads are bad.” My husband and I could hear her bitchin’ on the phone then nothing – silence in the car. I think my stepson said something but I can’t remember what, I just got the feeling he was a little perturbed about the phone conversation (if you can call it that) with his mom. Then my husband said “Well we are almost half way there.” and then, “So what did your mom say?” UGH! I don’t know why he asked that, we had a pretty good idea from the tone of the conversation but I think my husband wanted to give his son a chance to talk about it if he needed and perhaps make him feel better.
My stepson replied, “You don’t want to know,” I pshawed and thought I probably don’t, then my stepson continued, “She said I had to come home and you guys knew the storm was coming and could have brought me home early. Then she hung up on me” Nice.
I laughed and said smartly, “Nope, bringing you home early is not an option and actually there is another option – your mom could have picked you up.” Now I think I probably shouldn’t have said that because it may have given my stepson the impression that I was mad, or that I was mad at him. I hope it didn’t though because I wasn’t mad. I tried to cheer him up the rest of the way but he looked pretty glum when he got out of the car when we finally reached his mom’s house.
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Here is my personal response after all that explanation:
Haha, yeah right! Bring the kid home early? I don’t think so or ‘ABSOLUTELY NOT’. First of all, even though a storm is predicted does not mean it is going to hit. Winter storms miss us much more often than hit us so I am not even going to entertain the idea of bringing the kid home early (and cutting our time short) for something that might not happen. Second, our time with the kid is limited, and I am not going to bring him home early unless it is at his request, period. Third, if my husband’s ex were a nice person, a reasonable person, she would have/could have let my stepson stay with us – he has no school tomorrow. Fourth, again if she were a nice person, she also knew the storm was coming and could have made arrangements to pick him up in her husband’s truck. It would not have killed her.
And fifth, I just thought of this – it kind of goes with the first 2 points – the kid wanted to stay with us. Many a time his mom has said it’s up to the kid when he comes over, which days, etc. Now he is older and he should be able to make those decisions. If it were truly up to him then he would have stayed with us tonight. I am not saying that to be a bitch or hurtful, there is nothing wrong with it and it certainly doesn’t mean he wants to stay with us forever or loves us more than anyone else. It just seems that whole letting the kid decide is a bunch of bull shit – when the ex can’t manipulate a situation to her liking or when it isn’t convenient for her (or perhaps she is just having a bad day?), she throws a fit. That all goes back to the whole respect issue.
I foresee many troublesome times ahead when the kid turns 18.
So that is my opinion on the matter, like it or not but maybe I’m wrong…
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