Just LR

This kid does NOT identify GG as her dad, never has. She also has not been told she can't talk to him at any point she has requested to contact him.

He has been told that when they talk he needs to be dealing with her as a parent, or he doesn't get to talk WHILE SHE IS BEING DISCIPLINED.

No one has to like it. But here is the reality: GG agreed to donate sperm so this child could exist. No, I am NOT being sarcastic. No sex was involved. She is a sperm-donation child. HE CHOSE not to have any legal rights, with one caveat: if either Maca or I die, he maintains the right to be in her life, and if both of us die, he retains SHARED physical custody with my sister, who retains full legal custody.

His "parental" rights are a gift only given on agreement to OUR expectations for her care, AS HE AGREED. Functionally, she is adopted and he does not have a say-so. Period.

He will have her for two weeks all to himself starting next Friday. He still freaking lives in the same home. He isn't being asked to not have contact. HE IS BEING TOLD HE WILL NOT UNDERMINE OUR AUTHORITY. HE WILL NOT SPEAK TO HER WHILE SHE IS BEING DISCIPLINED. This is true of her siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, as well, all of whom she is quite close to.

Your opinion is noted and now you can reserve it for non-blog posts, like his.

If he chose abusive behavior he would lose all contact until she was 18. Period. I too raise two children whose bio-parents were addicts, were abusive, lives out of control. I believed the biological relationship was important and fostered contact in safely-controlled environments. As adults, both children feel they would have been better off having never had anything to do with the other parent (different parents). Both struggle with insecurities and fears of what parts of them are from their other parent and why they aren't lovable by that parent. It is a great theory. As adults, they go to therapy, where they are taught that even if you share blood, you do not need to maintain relationships with abusive dysfunctional people.

Funny, they should be learning that from day one.

*Caveat* GG is not an addict or abusive. He is in a process of learning and making decisions. By his own admission, he prefers to avoid conflict in any relationship and has always avoided being part of disciplining SourPea. THAT IS FINE. Her aunts, uncles, extended family/friends are not required to be part of that process. However, they have to stay out of it.

Additionally, she has medical needs. Having spoken with the doctor yesterday, there are several EXPLICIT NEEDS she has, which he has been screwing up.

- A STRICT daily routine that doesn't change from day to day (over time this changes, but is required as an immediate intervention for her well-being due to high levels of anxiety created by the ADD).
- A STRICTLY structured written set of rules that are maintained with no change.
- A reward system which includes contact with others outside of the immediate caretakers in controlled and pointedly awarded manners for accomplishing maintaining her routine and schedule each day.
- A minimalist-like design for her room and belongings, because again, the sheer quantity of options triggers anxiety, which in turn triggers acting out in destructive patterns.

These things are (ironically) exactly what GG needs and refuses to give himself. He can clearly state that this is what she needs. He also cannot handle it.

FINE, then stay out of it. Because we are going to be the parents that follow the doctor's recommendations, not the parents who make excuses for why they can't. WHICH IS EXACTLY WHY HE WAS WILLING TO BE A SPERM DONOR FOR US, BECAUSE HE KNEW WE WOULD DO EXACTLY WHAT WAS BEST FOR HER and not allow any bond between him and me to detract from that.

That is the final decision on that topic. He always has the opportunity to be a part of her life. But he will only receive privileges in accordance with the level of responsibility he maintains. Period.
 
Yesterday I was looking through old threads, from when I first joined the board, mostly for personal amusement purposes because I was bored.
I found this little nugget and thought it was pertinent this morning in my blog. The post continues, because it's ACTUALLY about an argument that was going on in a different thread on the board. However the example I used directly relates to the topic here.

For simplicity's sake I've highlighted what is pertinent. For comprehension's sake, I left the whole paragraphs intact.

http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1632&highlight=communication

"WOW. Just wow.

I see no point in writing on the thread that left me saying that today. It seems to have gotten caught up in so many technicalities of defense that it's been rendered useless to me.

As a child I heard my father say something so many times it literally makes me sick sometimes to hear it now, "I want the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth..."

As a teen I saw the movie "A Few Good Men" where Jack Nicholson says, "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!!"

As the two things rang in my head and wandered amongst one another I started to find some thoughts of my own.

One of them is that, sure, we THINK we want the truth. But Jack is right. Quite often we can't HANDLE the truth. It's not a matter of willingness, we simply can't handle it.

So we get some portion of the truth, or truth somewhat manipulated, and a person like my dad would say that means it's purely a fallacy. But it's not. Because it's not PURE. It's just not a PURE truth either.

I can tell my daughter that GG is her father. But she will look at me like I'm stupid, because to her this is NOT SO. Maca is her father, and she's not interested in biology, because she's not CAPABLE of handling the truth of it right now. Her brain isn't WIRED for that truth. HOPEFULLY someday it will be. But it sure as HELL ain't at 2 years old. Does that stop me from telling her GG loves her too and he loved Mommy and Daddy SO much he gave her to us? No. I tell her, because someday she WILL understand AND she will understand that I told her the truth AS SHE COULD HANDLE IT.

Is it logical to say that Maca is her father? Nope, it's not, because her DNA proves that he is NOT her father. We KNOW he is not, so saying he is, is NOT logical. And yet it would be very illogical to try to convince her that he is not her father, because in her HEART he IS her father 100%, and the heart she has doesn't give a DAMN about biology.

Someday it might. Some hearts DO care about biology. But it also may not, for some hearts never do care about biology. Now it's arbitrary, because when it comes to matters of the heart (like poly or mono relationships), LOGIC has little to no meaning. Logic can't heal a heart; logic can't give you love; logic can't support a friend; logic can't solve the world's problems. But a loving heart CAN heal another heart; a loving heart CAN give you love; a loving heart CAN support a friend; and enough loving hearts can solve the worlds' problems.

What is right? I guess that depends on precisely who you are, where you are, when you are there, why you are there, how you are and a crapload of other details."


Bottom line, whatever he is, GG is NOT SourPea's "dad." She's 7 now. She KNOWS the biology. She KNOWS how she was created. She identifies Maca as "Daddy" and GG as "GG." That is her choice, and GG completely supports it.

So no, he does not get to jump in and claim "But I'm her father." He CHOSE to give that up legally, AND he chose to give it up in name, AND he chose to give it up in action.

I realize this may be an unusual or atypical situation to some. But it's actually fairly damn common in this day and age of open adoption. Many people give their child up for adoption, and are allowed a relationship, but are not allowed the freedom to make parental decisions, and that includes WHEN the child is available for conversation/visits.
 
Just to reiterate, the CHILD is "in time-out/grounded." When she has served her time, her phone privileges will be returned. This is not a punishment for GG. When my husband or I are out of town, and the kids are being punished by the other parent, the phone conversation only lasts about a minute or two, and goes something like this, "What did you do to get in trouble? Why did you do that? What should you have done? Good night! I love you."
 
Exactly, Sneac!

Maca spends a lot of time working out of town. When he calls, the very first thing he always asks me is how the day went and I tell him a tidbit about each child. Then when he gets on the phone with them, he asks them how the day went.

If it went good, YEAH, they talk about whatever they want. If it went bad, he iterates why XYZ behavior is not acceptable. He says he loves them and hopes that tomorrow they will choose appropriate behavior. End of subject.

Furthermore, the older siblings do the same thing with the younger siblings, Mimi does it with all of the kids, and the grandparents do too.

This isn't a NEW concept for GG. He's been involved with the raising of ALL of the kids and knows this is how we deal with them. 21 years-- he is freaking well-versed in the process. It hasn't changed.

AND, if he wants to stick to the process, he CAN talk to her while she's being disciplined, to reinforce the importance of her behavior to her.
But if he's going to ignore it and just wants to play around and goof off, he can wait until the issue is resolved. It really is his choice.

In addition to our 5 kids (23, 18, 17, 14, 7), we've done this with the 2 girls we have watched since birth, who are 13 and 11 (and their parents do the same with ours), as well as my sister, who is now almost 21, that we helped raise, and our grandchildren, who are 3 and 1.

That's 10 kids over 21 years. I mean really, this is a pretty basic concept. Reinforce the rules and expectations; don't confuse the child. Adults create a united front for the children, which gives the children stability and security in understanding what is expected of them. Period.
 
LR, thank you for being willing to share the explanation about GG and Maca's roles as parents (or not) of Sour Pea. It's useful to understand GG's role in Sour Pea's life, especially with your current situation.

And regardless of that role... When it comes to contact or lack of between a parent and child, that's really only the business of those directly involved. There might be many factors as to why a child is better off having NO contact at all with one or both parents, and many factors as to why they *should* have some contact.

My former mother-in-law was a huge proponent of keeping both parents in kids' lives in the case of divorce, and of both parents not badmouthing each other in front of the kids. This came from her own experience as the oldest child of divorced parents; her mother completely severed her father from the kids' lives, and none of the kids ever understood why. She told them horrible things about him and then said they were just like him. They grew up believing their father didn't love them and that they were bad people because he apparently was, and when they reconnected with him as adults, they learned that there hadn't been any reason for the severing; their mother just didn't like the guy, so she kept the kids from him as punishment.

But... even my former mother-in-law accepted my decision to take out a restraining order against *her son* and prevent him from contact with my daughters after he threatened our older child. And for the year and a half that order was in effect, not only did she support me completely and take the kids for occasional weekends to give me a break, but she and her husband told my kids' father that he was not allowed on their property or even to call them if my kids were there. When one of my ex's cousins tried to sneak him in to see the kids at her house, my ex's mother called the police on her.

She didn't necessarily *agree* with my decision. But she understood that I believed I was doing what was necessary to protect my kids, and more importantly, she understood that it was MY decision to make, not hers.
 
We're also talking about a child who, after two days of no phone contact, has had a complete change in attitude. She's finished all of her chores and her schoolwork without a single argument. She's stopped kicking and hitting the dogs, and has started being friendly and affectionate with them.

I opened the cabinet that has the Tupperware in it, and it was all matched to lids, and stacked in an orderly fashion. I asked her "Did you do this?"
"Yes, Mommy. It was just such a mess, it made me crazy, so I fixed it. And I did the other cabinets, too."

Sure enough, she'd organized EVERY cabinet, and not just "organized" like a child might do. It's all squared off to the cabinets themselves and sized bottom to top AND side to side. The laundry basket was also squared off and the clothing sorted by color/type. This was all done in her free time. She also washed her hair and brushed her teeth with no fight.

She's been happy and free-spirited and friendly and nice to be around. She was like that our whole trip to California, when it was difficult for her to get more than an occasional message from GG, left on the machine.

But after a couple of days in his company, she spent most of 2 weeks pissed off at only god knows what, throwing raging fits, kicking the puppy and jerking the dog around by his collar. She was screaming and yelling and throwing things. She was sneaking off (as in, off the property). She was lying about all sorts of random things that made no sense. She was taking 8-10 hours of one-on-one supervision to finish the same amount of schoolwork. Chores were simply impossible.

So yeah, his talking to her has a FUCKING HUGE impact on her. He knows it, and so does EVERYONE else.

She isn't "a normal healthy child." She's got some issues that really DO require a great deal of structure and stability and PREDICTABILITY in regards to expectations and schedule.

If she is medicated, she's NOT a problem. But we're struggling to get the medications because we need a doctor who can REGULARLY see her and prescribe them. The doctors agree she needs them. But there is exactly ONE psychiatrist in our town who deals with children under 8, and her waitlist is well over 6 months long. Unless the child is considered "an emergency" (generally suicidal or put in-care), it's a son-of-a-bitch to see her. Are we trying? OF COURSE.

In the meantime, what works?
- A predictable, steady structured set of expectations that don't change.
- A steady diet that doesn't include having someone sneak her in candy and sweets because THEY WANT TO BE NICE. It's not NICE when the consequences are SO severe.
- A STRICTLY regular bedtime. (She has sleep issues, as well)
- A regular wake-up time.
- A LOT of cardio. She just so happens to LOVE LOVE LOVE to run. So it's not a drag for her to do the cardio, which helps A LOT. If someone will simply commit themselves to taking her outside somewhere she can do it. She will HAPPILY and JOYFULLY run for 3-5 miles without stopping. She can do that a couple times a day.
- NOT having someone, ANYONE, call her and do the "I miss you SOOOO much," etc., etc. It riles her up, sends her down a rabbit hole of depression and creates a clusterfuck emotional disaster that she doesn't have a CLUE how to manage.

Do we miss her when we are away? FUCKING OF COURSE! But knowing she has these issues, WHY would you trigger them on purpose?

If she says "I miss you. Daddy." Maca replies, "I know, baby, how many days til I am there?" Then redirects her to what they will do when he's home, followed by asking what she's been doing. He does NOT feed her misery by going on and on about missing her and wishing he were there etc., etc., etc.

And for crying out loud, the world is not black and white. It isn't "You can't talk to her forever" OR "You can talk to her anytime you want to." Give me a break.
 
KC43 said:
She didn't necessarily *agree* with my decision. But she understood that I believed I was doing what was necessary to protect my kids, and more importantly, she understood that it was MY decision to make, not hers.
Click to expand...

Exactly true! My grandmother did that to my grandfather, and it was devastating for all 7 kids. My parents took the tack of "no bad mouthing" and contact allowed. But my stepmother was abusive and it blew up in my mom's face.

We took that same stance with the older children, and as I said, two of them resent it. Their other parents were addicts. The horrors Salty Pea went through in his mom's care are just frightful. He ended up running away and living the last three years of his "childhood" with friends, in order to not have to deal with her at all. He ran away from HIS WHOLE FAMILY because we promoted the relationship and he couldn't handle all of it. He now maintains contact with us but not her.

The 17-year old is living on his own in order to avoid contact with his abusive parents.

The 23-year old suffered through it, and now, in the last 6 months, has begun asking WTF was the point of keeping me in touch with him? He's a self-absorbed asshole who never gave a shit about me.

Um... yeah. There ARE times when a child wants contact and it may be warranted, but this isn't a case of cutting contact and ties with anyone, and
it isn't a case of a parent's rights. This is a case of a child's best interests being addressed appropriately. and boundaries that protect her well-being being appropriately respected by all of her caretakers.
 
I always cringe when someone posts something critical toward the author of a Polyamory.com blog. As I understand it, the blog board here is supposed to be a sanctuary from criticism. If the blogger wants advice or criticism, they'll post a request on another board. It is inappropriate to tell someone off on their blog thread.

Having said that, yes words can have a negative "magical" effect on people, even over the phone. The "magic" part is the brain processing the words and examining a meaning resulting from those words. An ADD child being disciplined doesn't need to hear a trusted adult saying, "Awww, you didn't do anything wrong ... You shouldn't have to do that ... I wouldn't make you do that if I was in charge ... Come on, let's do something else ..." etc.

I guess if the courts force you to expose your child to such ill-timed messages, then expose your child you do, and deal with the fallout later, but otherwise you make the sensible parenting decision and cloister the child for the duration of their time out. If you were in charge of a recovering alcoholic and his old drinking buddies wanted free permission to come and go in his life as they pleased, would you grant it to them? I wouldn't.

I don't know if we're taking a poll but I'm guessing that if we were, the majority of voters would vote in support of what LR is doing and how LR is handling it -- for reasons already stated. LR is in charge of a complex household and is juggling a ton of jobs. She can't be there to micromanage every little word that is spoken.

Just wanted to add my 2¢, hope I'm not overstepping my bounds. For the record, I'm not sugar-coating what I'm saying to make LR feel good. I'm stating the plain old facts as I see them. Though if I did have some criticism for her, I'd save it for another board where she was asking for advice.

Respectfully,
Kevin T.
 
The rules do state that, Kevin. I opted not to take action as a moderator because this is my blog, and that could appear to some as a conflict of interests (which is also why I haven't iterated any of my point of view in GG's thread, EVEN THOUGH it's not on the life stories and blogs page).

But GG has full access to this blog, and has since I started it. He also has an ability to post his own thoughts/opinions/feelings in a thread of his own creation, if he were to choose. He hasn't chosen to address anything, I think, all week.

I briefly texted with him this morning and somewhat last night. He did not ask to speak with SourPea. In fact, he stated that his choices have led to a place where he a detriment in her life and it's dysfunctional for her to have contact with him.

Hmmm... take that as you will.

I personally have chosen to bypass that comment as quite possibly him feeling sorry for himself and falling into the depression I mentioned being concerned about, because he is beginning to SEE just exactly how much REALLY messed up shit he has that needs to be addressed. It would be overwhelming for anyone. But people with ADD have a tendency towards feeling overwhelmed and hopeless when faced with their own mistakes/issues/problems.

As I'm not his therapist, I'm not jumping back into the mess with him. But the signs are HIGHLY suggesting that he's falling into a serious depression. The risks are high that it will result in him giving up and stagnating again. Won't be the first time, won't be surprising to anyone.
From limited phone/internet contact, Maca and I have already noticed the procrastination (that he is supposed to be directly working on these two weeks) has begun to increase again. He managed a few days of staying on top of things. But at least as of Saturday things started slipping again, significantly enough for us to become aware of them.
 
School

There's a program through the college called "Degreeworks" that UNOFFICIALLY tracks the requirements for the degree program you are enrolled in and the classes you have taken. It then tells you how many credits and which classes you have left to finish to be eligible for graduation. Additionally, it has a "what if" option, where you can enter different degree programs, or add a minor or second major, and see what you would need to do in order to graduate under those circumstances.

I went through and itemized exactly what I have left for my General Associate of Arts (blah), which is 3 classes, and my Bachelor of Science in Psych (yay), which is 50 credits. I sat down and figured out which classes couldn't be done simultaneously and which ones needed to be later than others. It looks like, if I go full time (12 credits per semester, which is 3 or 4 classes, depending on if they are 3 or 4 credit classes), I can finish by the end of summer 2016. Of course, barring complications.

I will be finished with the requirements for my associate's by this coming summer. I am going to go ahead and put in for the associate's degree, just because that "locks in" the classes that are finished (such as the general education requirements) so that if some sort of crisis arises and I can't finish my bachelor's by the required date (which is 2019), I won't be in the position of having to retake the GERs. Not that I have any intention of not finishing my bachelor's, but covering bases is a good plan, because if you don't cover the bases, that's when shit happens.

Since I'm not taking classes this semester :( I am working through algebra and trigonometry books (already finished those classes) as review, so it comes more naturally and easily, because next semester is going to be calculus. :/

It looks like next semester will be calculus, 2 different 3-credit science courses, and a fine arts class. The calculus is required for my bachelor's, the other three for the associate's, but will also count towards to total of 16 science credits needed for the bachelor's and fill the last of my GERs (fine arts). :)
 
Doctor appointments

We have an appointment for Sour Pea on Wednesday with the pediatrician. Fingers crossed that she can get us in to see the psychiatrist sooner than 6 months.
 
Sweet Pea

Sweet Pea texted to let me know they were going through the Painted Desert today. He got to see a meteor somewhere along the way and was very excited about that. Says he's getting lots of pictures (which is good-- he's working through some photography stuff for school) & exploring all sorts of history stuff (which is good, because he's doing US history this year). He flies home Tuesday and I can't wait to pick him up from the airport!

He said he would make time for me on Wednesday evening or Thursday afternoon to go for a walk together and "catch up" before he leave again Friday morning with Maca for hunting camp!

He sounds like he's doing good. I think it's cool he's getting to travel with Grandma and Grandpa. Grandma has been having him do some of the driving (he got his permit a few weeks before they left), and he says that it's fun on the highway, but NOT IN TOWN! LOL. Go figure.
 
Split Pea/Salty Pea

Now that both are living on their own they have gotten back in touch with each other on Facebook.

Salty Pea has moved to Anchorage and is looking for a job, while trying to get into the IBEW apprenticeship.

Split Pea is trying to finish high school. His bio-parents screwed him out of a year of school by refusing to enroll him while they argued over custody of him. He is supposed to graduate at the end of this year, but it depends on if he can catch up on enough of the required classes.

He talks to me regularly and asks me ALL SORTS of questions. He thinks he wants to try to go to medical school. So we've been talking a lot about what types of classes he needs and how/where to get support for the struggles he's having in math.

All in all, he seems to be doing ok. He's got a LOT of resentment about his parents. He had always called me his "M-ad" (he made it up as part mom and part dad). But more recently he's started just calling me mom & periodically latching on to "2-mom," which is what SaltyPea always called me. I haven't commented on it, just noticing.
 
So you're getting ready to take Calculus eh? I love math but that doesn't mean I'm a math whiz. I loved taking Calculus, but it was a hard class. Fascinating, but hard.

Ironically, my art (drawing) classes were by far the biggest college ordeal I went through. That professor had an amazing sense of entitlement when it came to the amount of homework she piled on us. More than once I had to stay up all through the night to get it all done. For me that's saying a lot. Calculus was easy in comparison.

Haven't heard from GG on his thread for a few days. I'm worried about him (believe it or not).
 
Today he is out looking for a car. But I can't argue being worried.

I enjoyed trig. I am looking forward to calculus. I am not looking forward to the art class. I have heard from others here that it tends to be an easy topic with an asininely large amount of pointless paper trail, which just so happens to be very time consuming (suck). But I only have to take one. So knock it out and get it over with, I say!!
 
You have the right idea. :)
 
I haven't posted, but have been following your blog with interest. My Dude does share a number of traits with your GG and I have gleaned some good points from your postings. (Luckily, there are no kids in our equation, but when that was on the table our plan was similar to yours. Dude was slated as "sperm donor" and MrS and I were to be the legal "parents".)

Just for the record, as much as it is not ideal, I don't think that a year or two of public school will do Sour Pea any permanent harm, and the positives outweigh the negatives in this case. You do the best you can. :cool:

JaneQ

P.S. Ack... calculus. My nemesis!
 
I did okay on calculus until we got to vectors. The professor loved vectors. I hated 'em. "Vectors are great," he would say. "They're not numbers. And they're not directions!" to which I would think, "Jeezh man, make up your mind. Is it a direction or a number?"
 
We made it home about 4:30 am Sunday morning. The dogs did well on the ferry and the drive. It took almost an hour to get the coolers of fish unloaded and fish moved into the chest freezer, then get ourselves into bed.

Maca was up by 10 am to go riding on the motorcycle. I got up at 10 and ate breakfast, went back to bed for 2 hours. Then was up at noon, but groggy all day.

I went to bed about 8:30 last night and felt MUCH better this morning. Spent some time with the grandkids today, took both dogs in to the vet for their yearly exams, picked up a few things from the store, ordered new glasses (my frames broke).

GG and I talked. He seems ultra-depressed, says he's been trying to stick to a daily routine, but hasn't managed to yet. That doesn't really surprise me. I think he thought that saying he was GOING to change "this time" would mean that it was easier. Guess what? It's not easier. It doesn't matter what the situation, self improvement is work. The longer you "let it go," the harder it is to get it started again.

Anyway, we didn't make any progress. We talked, no arguing, about the same things we have discussed many times and still no conclusion. So I'm not going to repeat it all.

I'm going to talk to Maca who just got home from work. Then pick my father-in-law up from the airport and go to bed.
 
Questions, if you don't mind:

This is kind of personal, but I was surprised to see you say GG was a mere sperm donor for Sour Pea. Why was this choice made? I mean, I think you've been sexual with GG on and off, over the decades. Were you not at that time? Why make a baby with him?

Where is GG living now in relation to your place, and to his bio kid?

Why don't you just sever ties with him (except for his limited contact with his bio kid)? It seems like you two are done.
 
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