The changing face of the ex?

Sorry for the silence again - it was DS1's birthday on Monday so most of last week was taken up planning presents and parties, in between trying to get some work done - doesn't leave a lot of time for blogging!

I can't believe DS1 is now 6. I keep saying 'Where did those 6 years go?', but I know exactly where they went, the first three were spent dealing with the ex's harassment and coping with being a new mum, and the three since seem to have flown by with only slightly milder versions of the above.

I had a meeting with DS1's dad today. It was stranger than usual. I always dread these meetings, I get tense leading up to them because I know I can't just be myself. There is a way that I've learnt to behave with him that works, i.e. it gets me the best deal I can for DS1 - it's not how I naturally am, but it has become so automatic now that it almost feels natural - like a suit I put on.

The main thing we were trying to find a solution to today was DS1's switching behaviour so radically between the two of us. So essentially, as I was sat there being something other than myself in order to be able to engage with his dad, we were discussing the problem of DS1 doing exactly the same. The Irony.

All about Daddy?

How did two weeks go by without finding time for a blog?! Still, I'm here now. I think maybe I have been avoiding it as this has been on my mind for a while - you know when you feel you have to write something for you own sanity, but you know its going to be contentious and you're too tired for the backlash? I've been lurking on the lone parent threads on Mumsnet and Netmums and posting comments instead, but now I am going to put my cowardice and my need for my posts to have at least an element of humour aside...

So here it is, all about fathers. I feel like the instant, as a single mum I mention the word 'father', its like people are waiting with bated breath to pounce if I say anything that isn't completely positive. Why? Why is it that as soon as a man with whom you have children leaves you, you have to treat him like a saint? Who decided that was a good idea? These men often go out of their way to make lives difficult for their ex's and yet because they are the father of our children we seem expected to put them on some sort of pedestal, and worse, deny our children's negative feelings about them. How does this help anyone?

You see, people blithely comment in forums and in life again and again - 'We all know its important for a child to have a relationship with both parents'. That's what most people seem to think, society has accepted it as a truth, because almost everyone feels it. We want to believe that men and women are equal, therefore we extrapolate that mums and dads must be equal. On top of that we all have our own strongly held feelings about our relationships with our own parents, which are so deep embedded from childhood they feel like self-evident truths, rather than just our own experience. They are in the 'back brain' (sorry, can't remember the technical term) which structures how we think, rather than just something that hangs in that structure, so it is very difficult to re-conceive those ideas (without a lot of therapy!). But, if you can, I want to ask you to just put those ideas on hold while you read the rest of this post, please just hear me out...

Happy New Yell...

'Twas the night before term time and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even the ever-whinging-nearly-6-year-old who has misbehaved and complained his way through most of the holidays...


As you can tell, I am definitely ready for DS1 to go back to school. I was so looking forward to Christmas and although bits of it were lovely, almost every nice thing we did was marred by him not doing what he was told and complaining incessantly. He surpassed himself on New Year's Eve when, in the middle of playing a tickling game with his brother on the floor, he decided to kick him in the face - and then screamed the house down when I sent him to bed as punishment. "Why? What did I do? I said sorry!!!" He claimed it was an accident, but I was sat two feet from him and watched him do it - you know when you see something happening and you can't quite believe it and it seems to go in slow motion?  I know its all about attention seeking and its tied up with having to go to and from his Dad's, but its so tiring for me and unsettling (and often painful!) for DS2 - and I do think now he's nearly six, he could help himself a bit more. I mean, I give him every chance to talk about how he feels and try to help him find different ways of expressing it, but no matter what I do, he always seems to end up taking it out on either me or DS2, and doesn't seem happy until he's totally ruined a good chunk of our family time together.

DS2 went to the childminders today, so, in theory, DS1 and I could spend some quality time together and get him ready for school. I managed to just about get through giving him a haircut  - I only had to leave the room three times to calm down in the face of his constant refusal to sit still/sit up/stop whinging - and I only threatened death/social services twice, which given the provocation and the fact I had a sharp pair of scissors in my hand I think that was positively restrained!!