For one, she can take advantage of a California program called CalWORKs (California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids). It provides education, job training, employment to help families get jobs and move towards self-sufficiency. Child care, transportation, work expenses and counseling are available for families in work activities. So, she would get free child care, free job training, and job placement assistance, and give her cash to pay for her bills. It’s a win/win situation, but unfortunately Susan has opted not to participate in this program. She won’t explain why.
But beyond this, 5 out of the 6 kids are in school. Her mother could babysit the youngest one while she works. (Her mom is retired.) Or her boyfriend could babysit the kids. Greg’s oldest is almost 15. He could babysit the kid while mom is at work. She could work nights.
Even if she had to pay for childcare for the youngest, she would still make a profit, even if it were small. And she would be gaining job experience for the future.
She chose to have a child when she was 18, she chose not to go to college, she chose to have a bunch more kids even though she couldn’t afford it, and she has chosen never to get employment.
Heck she could even babysit one or two young children in her home and make some money. She’s home all day with her youngest anyway, why not watch another kid for money??
What information did Rumor give me? I don’t see where she gave me any useful information or facts. She gave me a bunch of her opinions, but not information. Most of her comments are aggressive, argumentative and inflammatory and not done with good will, but with the intent to insult and argue.
What good advice did I ignore? Do you mean Shayna’s advice? Because as I have said several times, Greg is already doing those things. The only other thing was people advising Greg to quit his job and move there, and I am others have explained how that is not an option for him.
Just curious, how exactly would a single mother with 6 kids (ages 14 - 2) care for them? How would she drive them places, shop for their food, prepare the food? How would she lift the baby, change a diaper, bathe the children? Buckle the kids into car seats? Get them dressed. Do their laundry?
If she was genuinely disabled, the best scenario I could see would be for her to move here, even live next door to us, and have Greg take care of the main parenting duties for his kids that she could not perform. Heck, I’d even help her take care of her younger children. If she was genuinely in need, I would genuinely help.
As for all these many people who are on SSDI with kids, I am genuinely curious how they do it. Maybe they have spouses who help them take care of the children? Or family members?
First, thank you everyone for your kind words about my post. I appreciate the support very much.
He would have and should have called the local police and have her picked up for violating a court order. They may not put her in jail for an extended period, but she’d certainly be arrested and have to appear before a judge to explain herself. If she ever does it again, that’s what Greg needs to do. I’m entirely serious.
I understand the emotional reaction you have to how you think Greg’s money is being spent. I really do. I get it. But the fact of the matter is, Greg has absolutely no say in how that money is spent, so long as his children aren’t being neglected. You might like it if there were “extra” money and Susan would use it for “lessons” or sports or a college fund, but even if there were “extra” money, she’d be fully within her rights to move to a bigger home and pay higher rent, and not spend a single dime on extra-curricular activities. You will be a lot happier and less stressed and angry as soon as you accept that fact.
I’m going to assume that every horrible thing you say about Susan is 100% true and that the judge was a complete moron not to have seen it and give Greg primary custody. Ok, so now what?
Well, you work with what you’ve got. Greg is X amount of time into a 3 year commitment to his employer. He’s certainly entitled to put his long-term career before proximity to his children, but if he’s going to do that and doesn’t want his kids to resent him for it, he needs to find other ways to insert himself into their daily lives. I’ve already made several suggestions as to how.
And although you say the boys’ teachers don’t respond to emails, what I suggested was that he call the principal and make arrangements for an in person meeting with the teachers and the guidance counselor. He needs to fly out there and meet with them face to face. And as a joint-custodial parent he has a right to every piece of correspondence that goes “home” to the parents, to every report card and to be kept informed of any problems related to those children. It is incumbent upon him to impress upon the principal and teachers that those are his minimum expectations.
My former boss’s ex-wife took him back to court to have their joint custody modified because the teachers informed her that every day following the father’s custodial nights, the son was having problems in school. The judge changed the order so that his weekends didn’t start until Friday after school and ended Sunday evening instead of being able to pick him up Thursdays after school and bring him to school on Monday mornings on “his” weekends. The school can be Greg’s advocate here. But the bottom line is, since they’re failing, he needs to take a bigger direct role in their education regardless of whether it results in any custodial change.
And as soon as he is able, he should relocate to be as physically close to them as possible. Those boys need their dad, even if they don’t think so right now. If I were Greg, I’d get myself a credit card that accumulates mileage points on whatever airline flies the most frequently between VA and CA (probably American Airlines), then get a Frequent Flyer account with them and start racking up points. On his custodial holidays, he should just fly out there and be with his boys in what is now their hometown. Or pick them up in CA and take them on an outing they’ll enjoy, like to the Grand Canyon or Yosemite National Park, then drop them back off at home and go back to VA. He can even have the boys bring friends, which they will love.
He needs to stop focusing his attention on being angry as Susan, and start being creative about how he can have a bigger role in his sons’ lives.
And you need to deal with your anger, too. Anger is an evil emotion. It will destroy you if you don’t get it in check. Instead of keeping track of all of Susan’s sins, start keeping track of all the blessings you and Greg have. I promise, you’ll be a lot happier, and so will those boys.
Are you seriously telling me that you don’t understand that there are different kinds of disabilities that don’t require someone to be 100% incapacitated? I am absolutely astonished that you would even ask such a question. Words are failing me right now at the thought that you are serious
I honestly don’t know, that is why I was asking you. It is my understanding that to qualify for SSDI, that you have to show that you have trouble with many of life’s daily activities, such as bathing, using the bathroom, dressing, cooking, etc. So that is why I asked how such a disabled person would be able to take care of 6 children, including an infant. It seems to me it would be very difficult to do the many things a parent has to do in the care of children when one is significantly disabled.
As for myself, I have two medical issues that are disabling, so I am certainly empathetic. With my rheumatoid arthritis, I have a lot of trouble carrying my nephew, putting him into his crib, in and out of the bath, into and out of his car seat, etc. I have thought about how this would affect me having my own children. But I am not too disabled to work (not yet anyway, knock on wood). So I am honestly wondering how someone who qualifies for SSDI could effectively care for 6 kids. With family help, I am sure it is possible.
Because once she completes the program, she still can’t earn enough to pay for daycare and have enough left over to make it worth working.
Maybe her mother doesn’t want to babysit every single day, becoming an unpaid daycare provider. Do you want her boyfriend babysitting Greg’s kids? Good luck getting a 15-year-old to be an unpaid babysitter every day to a passel of kids. Working evenings means nobody’s watching the kids again except the boyfriend, and working graveyard means she has to sleep in the daytime instead of watching her kid. You really have no concept of the difficulties of arranging and paying for childcare and then coming home and having to stay on top of all the issues of home life like cooking, cleaning, and shopping.
She might end up with $1 or $2 per hour profit. Would you work for that? I wouldn’t, given the logistics of taking care of the house and kids.
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Yeah, but then you’d feel like she was spending Greg’s money to feed them. Watching someone else’s kids would benefit her money-wise, but it wouldn’t help Greg’s situation any. She’d have to watch them under the table as she’s not licensed, so it wouldn’t affect Greg’s payments at all.
I’m actually kind of stunned that you would think that a mother taking care of a household of 6 kids has any realistic chance of getting a job that would benefit her situation. Add up the numbers instead of imagining that she can conjure up free childcare from whoever happens to be willing. I’m not trying to threadshit, I’m just trying to point out that Susan’s unemployment is pretty much a given at this point.
What a clusterfuck you’ve created here, Nyctea! I’m all sympathy to you and Greg, with some sympathy for those who’ve advised you, “Yeah, honey, it may suck, but that 's how it just be’s.” I do wish they could be empathetic and more kind towards you, though.
I think this thread should be mandatory reading for any male considering marrying and procreating: “Can you be THAT sure, son, that this doesn’t potentially describe you and your betrothed a few years down the road? Are you lying to yourself when you answer ‘Yes’ to that question? Is ANY degree of marital bliss worth even the CHANCE that Greg’s nightmare situation–perfectly legal, and in some way perfectly predictable–will be yours?”
To qualify for Social Security disability you must be unable to work due to a medical condition that is expected to last at least a year or to result in death. It has nothing to do with ADLs, although that definition is used for other benefits. As it happens, an aunt of mine received SSDI and a disability pension for years while caring for her five children. She certainly would not have been able to care for five infants, but she didn’t have five infants at the same time. As children get older, they require less physical care and more supervision.
You do realize that her insightful comments were echoing what other people said that you completely rebuffed? i.e. move closer, get over how the money is spent, stop focusing on how awful Susan is.
Again, bullshit. The OP is not complaining about her money being used for renting a house or paying utility bills. The child support is being used to support 8 people in addition to the three it is intended to support, Greg’s children are not being treated fairly by Susan.
We all get it that the court’s decided, and Greg’s not going to get what he wants, and the kid’s aren’t going to get what they deserve. That doesn’t make it right. And I’m not talking about nit-picking dollar by dollar - you are. If Susan can’t support the children she’s accumulated, and Greg’s children aren’t being adequately cared for as a result, the courts should re-consider whether Greg’s children are better off with her or with him.
I completely understand how she feels, but at some point, she has to decide whether it’s better for her to be RIGHT or to be HAPPY. The courts are not going to reduce child support nor have they decided to switch primary custody to their father. So, what does that leave? IMO, their only sane option is to quit fighting a losing battle, quit agonizing how the money is spent, and work on repairing the ONLY thing in this whole mess that he can control, and that is regular visitation with his kids. I’d have my lawyer draft a document outlining the exact visitation ("…every third weekend of every month and every Christmas from 7am to 11pm odd years.) and keep a copy of that document when I flew to visit them. Then if the ex-wife didn’t comply, I’d call the police.
You’d be astonished how unsatisfying (and how traumatizing to the kids) calling the cops can be. You can bet she’s going to claim that, yes, it’s every other weekend, and your weekend was LAST weekend, for example. My ex- used to pull this all the time, the cops couldn’t decide who was right and who was wrong, and if I had her arrested (as if they’d do that, or that I’d want them to, in front of my kids), she’d finally (i.e., NOT that same day) explain to the nice judge , “Oh, I was mistaken, sorry, judge, won’t happen again,” and the nice judge would tell her to be more accurate in the future, and meanwhile I wouldn’t get to see my kids. She could do this repeatedly, and things very much llike it.
But what the OP is doing here that is distasteful and doesn’t help her case is the portrayal of Susan as a complete demon and the portrayal of Greg as a complete angel. Susan may have made some bad decisions, but hey, so did Greg, but the OP doesn’t want to consider that, and only seems to want to paint him as a poor victim. That alone turns me off to any sympathy towards Greg. Most of us realize that very few situations between people are that black and white. Then you have others coming in with off-the-wall suggestions such as “have her arrested” or even “she should die”- we’re talking about the mother of 6 kids here. I find the whole thing to be just rather over the top.
Well, something that I have learned from long experience is that most people’s exes are insane/crazy/psycho/evil/etc.
One of the reasons, btw, to let go of the anger about how the money is being spent, besides just that it will help your general outlook and overall stress levels, is that many kids are pretty sensitive to that sort of thing. Even if you’re extremely careful never to mention the money issue in front of the kids, I guarantee that if you ever talk about it with Susan, it will get back to the kids, and even if she doesn’t say anything, the kids are likely to pick it up in your attitude. My parents split when I was an infant, and my dad always had a massive chip on his shoulder about what my mom was spending his child support on. My siblings are from different fathers (her second and third husbands, respectively) and he was hugely, massively resentful at the idea that any of MY child support money would go to pay for HER kids, regardless of the fact that I consider my siblings to be full siblings in every sense but the technical, and that we all lived together and ate the same food and so forth. This huge animosity towards my mother – who, by the way, I’m quite sure he described as his crazy psycho ex – and resentment about money, did nothing to endear me to him. I mean, keep in mind that while you see this person as a crazy psycho who is actively trying to destroy her children’s lives, to them she’s their mom. It’s hard for you not to hate her, but it’s not going to help your or Greg’s relationship with the kids if you are carrying around a massive hate-on for their mom. I mean, again, I totally understand where those feelings are coming from; I’m just saying I don’t think it’s going to help you guys with the kids.
There’s a solution for that. A good attorney (no offense meant to yours) will write the visitation order something like this:
BEGINNING Friday, March 4th, 2011, and every other weekend following, Petitioner shall pick up the minor children at Respondent’s residence between 6:00PM and 8:00PM, returning them no later than the following Sunday at 8:00PM.
BEGINNING Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011, Petitioner shall have the minor children for the Thanksgiving weekend in ODD NUMBERED YEARS, picking them up at Respondent’s residence between 6:00PM and 8:00PM and returning them no later than the following Sunday at 8:00PM.
(or words to that effect - I’m not a lawyer, so my legalese is sketchy at best)
The point is to have clearly delineated DATES and/or YEARS spelled out as specifically as possible. None of this “every other weekend” vagaries. Print a single page calendar that covers the entire year and highlight the custodial dates in yellow. Keep that with the court order. The police can do basic math. She can claim until she’s blue in the face that the father has the wrong weekend, but so long as it’s clear from the court order that Friday, April 29th, 2011 meets the criteria spelled out in the order, they will have no choice but to rely on it.
Having missed the edit window, I know Greg can’t be flying out there every other weekend, but I would certainly recommend that he have his custodial visitation once per month. Have the court order state something to the effect of, "Beginning Friday, March 4th, 2011, and the FIRST WEEKEND of every month following. . . "
Plenty of people live bi-coastal lives and manage just fine. And it’s a lot less expensive for Greg to fly to spend time with his boys in their “territory” than it is to fly 3 boys to him. AND, if he’s with them where they live, he can arrange outings (movies, dinners, day trips, etc.) to include the boys’ friends.
For adults, flying is a pain in the ass. It’s stressful and exhausting. And a cross-country flight is looooong and boring. It really shouldn’t be a surprise that the boys would resent having to leave their home and their friends and get on a plane by themselves for that kind of flight.
And even though they might be old enough to fly on their own, and it would be more costly to do so (this could be where mileage tickets are used!), for the longer Summer visits, Greg should just fly out to California, pick them up himself, then fly back to VA with them. They’ll have a lot more fun flying with their dad than by themselves. I worry about finding the right gate, missing the boarding call, not finding my way through the destination airport, and I’m a grown-up, seasoned traveler! Even with an airline escort, there’s still a great deal of anxiety to traveling for those boys.
If Greg can’t live closer to them now, he can at least GO to them to either spend time there or to pick them up for their excursion back East. And especially since it was his choice to move away, it is the least he can do to minimize the stress on his kids while still playing a bigger role in their lives than he is now.
If Susan uses 100% of Greg’s child support money to pay to rent a 4 bedroom house, it’s not supporting the other children. the other children are deriving an externality from the expenditure of the child support funds.
again, what you’re not comprehending is that it is impossible for other family members to not derive benefit from child support monies paid for a small subset of that entire family. it’s just not.
There’s no indication that Greg’s support monies are being used to feed and clothe the 3 other kids to the detriment of his 3 kids - just some loose and unintelligent math that goes along the lines of (total income/number in household) - (total child support per kid) = AMOUNT STOLEN FROM GREG. OMGWTFBBQ (or whatever that equation was - I don’t care to go back and re-read it)
except the court did so. and Greg lost.
does it seem odd to you that custodial parents can be multimillionaires, and still force their children to live as if they were on food stamps? (not on food stamps, as if they were on food stamps)? The threshhold for providing “adequate” care to a child is extremely low, and the state isn’t going to waste time and money hearing fights along the lines of:
Greg: well if she didn’t use some of my child support money to pay for the other members of the family, my kids would be eating solid white albacore instead of chunk lite tuna!!!
