Less Father than there should be.

Liz - an email contact

Why is there no contravention of orders when fathers do not turn up for contact? It cost a fortune to settle on terms of contact that were acceptable to my child’s father, and now six months down the track he never even bothers to turn up.
 
I had to ignore all the nastiness and verbal abuse towards me and the kids during the marriage and was told very clearly to “move on” because the children had to have a “meaningful relationship” with their father and I was not to interfere and to actively encourage their ‘happy’ participation in this.

Well, I did. I told them that daddy had changed now that he was not living with us. That he loved them and wanted to be close to them. He did seem OK for a couple of months and I was starting to enjoy a bit of ‘time out’ from the kids and get some part time weekend work. That was before he discovered internet dating though. I guess he has a ‘right’ to that as well.

I asked if I could breach him.  After all, the order says he has to meet with me and take the kids. I was warned of the consequences of not having them ready to go. But he can not show up for weeks on end and bad luck for me and my job. Then he had the hide to show up and the kids had made other plans. What a joke, he was screaming at me, the kids were crying and I had to force them to go with him. He had them back by six that evening…busy he said. What about the overnight contact he wanted “so badly”.

Mind you, I don’t make any noises to the Child Support Agency or Centrelink. He gets a cut in the meagre payments he gives for the kids (self employed and lots of deductions and “cashies”). Plus some Family Tax Benefit. I am not going to interfere with that, I don’t want to risk the consequences or make him mad.

It seems that the fathers or “non residential” parents have the choice or the RIGHT not to show. Residential parents, especially mothers,  it seems, have  no right whatsoever until the orders are ended not to have the child ready for contact each and every time, because the order says child to be with dad from X to Y so child must be ready to go.  

It’s wrong. It’s hard on the children, who suffer emotionally not knowing if their father cares about them at all. And I guess if they don’t cope with this roller coaster that he has put us on, and they get into some sort of trouble, then I will get the blame. Those kids were “fatherless” is what they will say without a mention that their father chose to be a whole lot less in their lives than a father ought to be.