How to create a parent-sized hole

Missing -- our dad

Are you finding that the other parent to your children is becoming insufferable?

It may comfort you to know that you are not alone. But it does rather lead one to ask what has changed so much given that you did, at some time, "lie with" that other parent. You have offspring to prove it.

No matter, you don't have to put up with it. So, here's a plan by which you can create a parent-sized hole.

Step 1: make allegations that the other parent has been violent, and seek a restraining order or aggravated or domestic violence order that legally locks the other parent out of the house and keeps them at a distance from you and the children.

You don't have any evidence of such an incident? It doesn't matter: make it up. No-one is going to check or challenge you -- or at least, not for a long time... which leads to the next step.

Step 2: in court (multiple years later), highlight the time the estranged parent has been absent from the lives of the children and that therefore, this parent is no longer relevant.

Voila - one parent-sized hole.

There are however, a few caveats.

First, this is a messy operation. It will very likely rip the heart out of the other parent in a manner akin to surgery conducted with a wood saw, without anesthesia and very likely leave the patient breathing, but only just and simultaneously wishing it were otherwise. (It might have been more merciful to simply dig a hole and bury the offending parent).

Second, it is a scorched earth policy destroying that which is precious to human life, the very life that we create. That is, it will almost definitely burn the children - although the legal system will argue that this in the best interests of the children.

And this then leads to the final rather more legal caveat. Existing laws really only allow this strategy to mums, not to dads.

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(The illustration is by Gaye Dell and appears in the book, The Other Glass Ceiling.
For more detail on how this strategy is executed, see this person's expanded account.)

Dad's still dad, despite a divorce

Learn to share !

These are not my words, but they could be! Carolyn Managh whispered them. I've co-opted them in a shout-out to dads post-divorce:

"Divorce invariably means one parent gets control, the other gets controlled access. Usually Dads (sorry ladies, the statistics back this up). Now, he didn’t stop being a Dad when the divorce went through. So why is time with his children determined by the amount of child support or the Family Court? Never having gone through this horrific scenario, it was shocking to hear Associate Professor Robert Kenedy explain that in all Commonwealth countries, the legal system and alimony (dollars & pounds) determine who is and who isn’t a Dad after Divorce. That sucks no matter how you look at it. Most shockingly from the children’s perspective because they didn’t divorce their Dads, but the system is forcing them to."

Check out the "Man whisperer" and read more of what she has to say beyond the above.

Meanwhile, let's try to get mums and dads and lawyers and judges and politicians to do what our children are taught to do in pre-school: "Learn to share!"

Dads have feelings too

Most expect single dads to contribute to the upbringing of their children. But most seem unwilling to accept that single dads have feelings, and that their lives are seriously disturbed by divorce.

One man tells his story of how he cried each night at 8pm, the hour that he would be involved in putting his four children to bed.

A friend of mine recently told me about his brother. Recently separated, the brother continues on with his life as best he can. He has been stripped of his wife, his child and his home. He lives in a bedsit. He barely ever cooks. He works late. He brings in food that he buys in the street. He probably drinks a lot more than he ought.

One day a week he gets to spend time with his four year old daughter. My friend, the child's uncle, no longer gets time with his niece. They both appeared to enjoy their outings, their trips to the park – but that no longer happens.

It is of course not only my friend that misses out on taking out his niece. It is her father. And the little girl. I'm sure that the little girl's life is busy, but it is now full of strangers. People who mean nothing relative to those who used to spend time with her and who want to spend the time with her. Why is she unable to spend time with these people? Because her Mummy and these other people are separated by an enormous divide called Divorce.