Dear Ex-Girlfriend,
As you no doubt recall, on Tuesday I got a call from you (sorta, but more on that later) about you having your son for the Thanksgiving holiday. You stated that the best day for you to pick up up would be this Tuesday, which was fine with me. I then mentioned that I expected to see him again on Sunday to which you said “Oh, I thought maybe we’d just keep him for a couple of weeks.”
Sorry, but no. Remember when we were signing the custody agreement papers? Remember you asking “well, you’ll still let me have him extra sometimes, right?” Remember what I said in response? Maybe not, so here it is again: “Sure, if you’re showing a real interest in him, I could see you spending extra time with him.”
This was after watching you totally ignore and abandon your son. After watching you snap at him for calling to you (he just wanted his mommy’s attention) while you were busy on the computer. After you throwing a fit if I suggested that maybe you could pick him up from the sitter since you weren’t working. After you kept him at your parents in the next state for nearly six months while you chatted on the computer or slept on the couch, too lazy to walk down the hallway. After everytime I tried to bring him back, you refused and made every attempt to block me from refusing to come along to saying “Well, you’ll have to get a sitter because I won’t watch him during the day!” After I had to get a lawyer and a court order to get my son back into the home because you just plain didn’t care.
After all that, I said “Sure, if you’re showing a real interest in him, I could see you spending extra time with him.”
What have you done since? Do you visit him? No. Do you call to ask about him? No. Do you ever write? No. E-mail? No. Good God, your mother is the only one who sends email asking about him. Your mother is the only one to call and ask about him. You sent me a money order and some clothes and books for him, I’ll give you that. With a letter in the envelope written from your mother because for some reason you can’t write your own damn letters?! When you “called” on Tuesday, your mother actually called me and handed the phone off to you. You talked for 3 minutes and said “I don’t feel like talking anymore.” I can just feel your commitment to your son.
You work. You have class. Big deal. Guess what? You have email at work. I’ve seen you at work. You had a Gameboy and a romance novel on your desk, that’s how busy you were. Perhaps you’re now studying at work. Guess what? No excuse. It takes all of five minutes to shoot off a quick email. You can’t give your son five minutes a week to see how he’s doing? But you want him “for a couple weeks”? Hell no.
Grow up. Show some responsibility. He’s your child. But until you act like it, I’m not giving an inch. You don’t act like you care for him and you sure as hell don’t deserve him. I would love for you to act like his mother for once, but until you take some steps I’m not handing him over for you to play “Mommy” for two weeks before you hand him back and go back to ignoring him until summer. He’s worth much more than that. You will pick him up on Tuesday, and he will be back here on Sunday. You’ll just have to make arrangements if that’s not easy for you. It’s called making priorities and your son should be on the top of that list. You will have him back on Sunday or on Monday I will be calling the talented and competant Ms. D once more and you will have to make more arrangements with work and class when you’re scheduled to appear here in court. I’m sure the judge will be more than sympathetic to your money order and that time you sent him a coat, even if it was too much effort to visit, call or write to your child. But thank you so very much for reading.