Friday, October 26, 2012

Part-time parenting.

This is a subject that really chaps my ass. And unlucky me gets to deal with this on a very regular basis. I have an ex you see, who is one of those parents who only bothers to even see the kids because he has to pay support for them.

Nothing is ever done on his part that doesn't coincide with his schedule, or what he wants to do. The kids go with him every Wednesday night, and every other weekend. And by weekend I mean a 30 hour stretch. Saturdays at 1 until Sundays at 7. Hardly a weekend, especially for someone who sat in court and argued for 30 minutes that he wanted the kids 50/50.

Now before you get all, well see he obviously WANTS to parent/see his kids on me, understand this....the ONLY reason he made that argument is because if he could get that type of visitation he wouldn't have had to pay support. We'd been down this road before you see, he gets some crazy schedule close to that, then doesn't pick them up, and I'm stuck.

So that idea or request of 50/50 gets shot down in court, much to his dismay. The judge tells him that it isn't going to happen but he can have them every other weekend and one day a week. So then the part timer chimes in that he works every other Saturday, until 12. Um ok?, you still have one weekend where you don't work at all, so what's wrong with that weekend? God forbid you lose half of every other Saturday to work, and the other to your kids....that would be just awful huh? Hence more arguing from the part timer, that isn't enough time for me, how would the judge feel if someone was telling him he could only see his kids that often? So the judge tells him that he can have them from Friday evenings to Sunday evening. No thank you says the part timer. Say wha?? Even the judge looked at him like he was a total douchecanoe.

It's now several years since this was implemented...and lets take a look shall we? Every Wednesday he picks the kids up from daycare, and promptly drops them off at his aunts house. She feeds them, often bathes them when they actually get bathed on wednesdays, packs snacks when needed, then the part timer picks them up and puts them in bed. Same thing on the weekends, unless some of his friends with kids are doing something, and then he'll show up with the Princess and Honeybadger and try to look like father of the year.

If anyone ever nominates him for that award I hope they consult with me before he gets it. Honeybadger has a book-it form in his daily folder, to read books, and if he reads 20 a month he gets a free pizza. The part-time parent apparently likes to fill this in, but not actually read to the Honeybadger. I guess this is a step up for him, because he never even bothered with that when the Princess had reading logs. The princess has been involved in cheer, basketball, and baseball for well over a year now, and the Honeybadger in soccer so far this year. Let me tell you how many games of either he's been to. Zero. He did take the Princess to one basketball practice last year, made a big point to ask the coach for a schedule, and still didnt' show up to any. The kids dread having any sort of practices or events on Wednesdays, or even "his" saturdays because they know he won't take them.

I don't understand at all how one can be so uninvolved. How a parent can just not care about what their kids are doing. How what they have going on is never important enough to show up, or to postpone whatever you just "have" to do. I promise nothing is that important, every single week. I don't know how these part-time parents have some people fooled into thinking they're actual good parents, and how the feel good about themselves. I don't know how one says they want their kids as often as they can get them, but never ask for more time with them, and routinely cancel the times they're scheduled to have them. Never to make it up. It blows my mind, and routinely pisses me off.

1 comment:

  1. Dear Lord, you're funny! THRILLED to have found you on the blog hop! I remember the book-it program fondly. I can guarantee my mom felt differently about it. She always felt like she deserved the free pizza even more than we did ;-)

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