The Life of A Single Parent 14

Well, I now realize that I may have left you guys hanging at the end of last week’s blog. For that I do apologize. You may remember I spoke of the ongoing custody battle I went through a few years ago with my now ex-husband and I left out the end result.

With the help of many of the agencies I listed in that blog I was able to regain custody of my son after not having seen him in more than a year. It has been 3 years since our divorce was finalized, and my son is still suffering from the effects of it. He visits with a child therapist once a week and he also speaks to his school counselor on a regular basis as well. He suffers deep separation anxiety, and often has trouble expressing his emotions.

Now, for all that trouble that my ex went through trying to gain full custody and basically push me out of my own child’s life; you’d probably be surprised to know that since the divorce 3 years ago his father has literally seen him a handful of times, pays little to no child support at all and has since moved back to Houston to live with his parents blissfully unaware of the residual effects of his actions and how they’ve impacted our son.

In the aftermath I have been left to pick up the pieces of my child’s broken heart. He is recovering slowly but surely although it is a day to day struggle. He’s growing and for now seems to be on the right track. I can honestly say that if it had not been for the help of friends, family, and a few outside resources I wouldn’t have been able to keep fighting for my son and what was right.

The Life of A Single Parent 13

Imagine if you can going to pick your child up from school only to find when you arrive, he’s gone. When you ask the teacher and administrators where he went and who picked him up they don’t know. You call everyone you know to ask if they may have picked your child up & nobody knows what you’re even talking about. As a parent it is the worst feeling in the world, there I am I’m freakin out and a hysterical mess in the school office when the attendance lady comes to me and says, “Well his mom signed him out early today.” I’m standing there in shock. All of a sudden it hits me, his dad took him and I’m never getting him back. You see we’d been in the middle of a long, nasty, custody and divorce battle.

 So, I call the police to make a report that my son had been parentally kidnapped by my ex. Much to my surprise in the state of Texas in an ongoing custody battle neither parent has custody of that child until it is written in ink on the final divorce papers. It becomes a civil matter for the courts to decide.  The officer informs me that there isn’t anything he can do for me; he kindly excuses himself and walks away.

That would be my fate for the next year. It was as though they had fallen off the map. Court dates stopped coming, and I had no idea where or how to locate my child or my ex for that matter. I felt hopeless, until I did some research and found that there was something that I could do. It takes some persistence and fight but hang in there, because it does get better. Here’s how. If you think you can’t afford help guess again there are many agencies out there to help single or low income parents.

·         In Texas Lone Star Legal Aid (services are free or reduced depending on your situation if they can’t help you they will provide outside referrals).

·         Look online there are limitless possibilities

·         Fathers for Equal Rights (they helped file my divorce response and petition for full custody, which I now have).

http://www.abanet.org/child/pkprevrem.pdf

http://www.lonestarlegal.org/

http://www.fathers4kids.com/html/Home.htm

The Life of A Single Parent 12

As a single parent I have learned to kind of swallow my pride and ask for help from people that I normally would not normally. I ask advice on parenting tips, on time management ideas, and sitter references. It does make a difference while not all advice is good advice, I am able to filter through and make a better informed decision about things.
I realize that this is not the case for a lot of single parents out there but for parents that don't there are many available online that I've found and even used from
time to time.
Believe me when I say being a parent to a 13, 11 and 2 year old is not easy and without a good support system and resources available to me I really don't know what I'd do. I've chosen a few good resourses that I've used in the past and listed them below. These are just a couple but there is more to come.


singleparents.about.com
http://mobile.associatedcontent.com/article/394639/resources_for_single_parents_from_food.html

The life of a single parent 11

I was having a conversation last night with my 13 year old son. During which we discussed various topics from school to girls and pretty much everything else in between. 
My boyfriend and I recently got him a cell phone, he has good grades, participates in group sports and for all intents and purposes is a pretty good kid all around with the exception of normal teenage stuff. That said, as we were chatting with one another my middle son comes up and asks, "Hey, Nate can I borrow your phone to call my dad?" he was permitted... It occurred to me that Nathon had not given his dad his new number, I asked if he wanted me to give his dad the number and he declined. 
That kind of caught me off guard, so I asked well why is that? My son said, "I don't wanna talk to him, he does nothing for me and if he wants to talk to me he can call me his self."
To understand his sentiment, you would have to know that his dad was pretty much absent until my son was 5 years old and has really only been active in his life for the last couple years. I've never been one to bad mouth my ex's or say things that are unfavorable because I feel like my children will learn on their own, and this seems to be the case with Nathon. He has grown so used to empty promises and an absentee dad that he no longer wants to deal with it. I am not going to push the issue, nor will I try to sway him in any way because i truly feel like he is old enough to make that decision on his own. 
Being a single parent is not an easy job by any means but in my own experience I have learned that sometimes it is better that the other party just stay away because coming in and out of a childs life in the end causes much confusion and resentment for children. My mom always said, "it's better to have one good parent, than to have two messed up ones that can't get along".