"Welfare of the children"
BM is on the warpath again - her new tack is claiming dh won't "discuss the welfare of the children with her" when he doesn't immediately give her an answer or doesn't give her an answer she wants to hear.
She has been emailing lately claiming that she has things to discuss with him that must be done in person and claiming that he "refuses to discuss the welfare of the children" with her(since he won't talk to her over the phone) He has said in the past that if she wants to set up a meeting with a mediator he will go, but of course, that meeting has never materialized. He has also said in the past that if there are ever any emergencies with the kids, she can call him. He has also pointed out that their emails ARE discussions and that if she has some big concerns she should email them to him.
Well, she left a message the other day saying it was an "emergency" while the kids were with us - when he finally got the message the next day, the "emergency" was that she was going to report him to CPS (see other post) and then she brought up sports sign ups which are the end of July, but she wants an answer on right this minute, his parents, and she was livid that he discusses parenting with me (funny how his mom said the same thing verbatim and now that they are buddies, BM suddenly has a problem)
How do you define "welfare of the children" I tend to think that when you have 50/50 legal and physical it means anything of note - injuries, big school news, medical issues, behavioral problems etc, not SPORTS SIGN UPS that aren't for over a month.
Maybe I am wrong.
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Comments
This is a crap control
This is a crap control tactic. In some situations emails are *better* for 'the welfare of the child' (insert snotty tone) b/c it decreases conflict between the bio-parents. There is no reason a sports sign-up issue can't be discussed by email. There may be a legitimate logistical reason she wants confirmation of the sports-sign up ahead of time--a month isn't all that far in advance--but it's certainly not an emergency or something that must be done live and unplugged. Psychological, health or education issues sometimes require a phone call b/c they can get complicated, but where there's conflict, the calls should be scheduled in advance and kept short, business-like and on-agenda.
She wants to make him dance. If it were really about the 'welfare of the children', email would be fine.
Tell her to call CPS
in fact, tell her you will make the call for her..... that should throw her for a loop. They are NOT going to concern themselves with wether or not he speaks to her. Let her call and make a fool out of herself, I think it would be funny!
This sounds too familiar
DH's crazy ex exhibits the same behaviors. Usually she could care less about the girls, or their school. She never goes to school functions or cares enough to have a working computer in the home most times, even thoug DH pays her $4250/mo in child support for them being there 1/2 the time! (sorry, I digress). And when DH has a serious problem with the girls, like the middle SD needing more therapy, she'll never return HIS calls.
HOWEVER, when she's bored, or needs attenetion (that happens a lot)because her new husband won't pay attention to her, or simply because it happens to be a 'crazy day', DH gets bombarded with the phone calls, texts, and emails. In the past, he would always pick up the phone immediately, "just in case there was an emgerency with the girls." Well I stopped that quickly. Becuase in over 5 years, there has NEVER been an emergency...ever. Only in her crazy head.
So now we have a new way to deal with crazy woman, because we cannot prevent her from calling, texting or, emailing. DH simply doesn't answer the calls. If it's really an issue about the girls, she'll leave a message (she usually doesn't). And if she does by chance, and it's something that is truly important about the girls, he'll text her an exact time to call him back to discuss the issue- and ONLY the issue she raised. And then he'll give her a time limit on the call. Because she's famous for going on, AND ON, AND ON, AND ON once she gets him on the line to rant and rave about everything. So I had to teach him how to deal with that issue, too.
It is ridiculous that these women would find school pictures, dance forms, computer ink, directions to the sports field, not knowing how to 'punish' a child, would constitute an 'emergency'! Yet these are the types of things his crazy ex has called him about, panicked, almost in tears, and left a message for him to, "call me back- it's an EMERGENCY!" The one time, she was hyperventilating and so worked up, we actually thought that his oldest daughter was in a car accident. It turned out that middle SD had yelled at her and she didn't know what to do. Pathetic.
"If you have never been hated by a child, you have never been a parent."
-Bette Davis