Missing grandaughter so much

icanhandthemback

If you were to go before the courts as a parent who missed payments, access would be considered an entirely different issue. In this day and age, when people are struggling with the cost of living and the fact that he is unemployed, I think that to take away access is cruel.
Let's face it, this is not about not having enough money. If it was, your child being fed and watered by somebody else for the weekend would save you money. If the situation continues, I'd advise you fund an access application for fixed access for your son to see his daughter. It doesn't have to be an expensive exercise. We had to do it for our son and the courts were very understanding.
Of course, if your son is out of work, he can apply to have his maintenance payment reduced whilst he looks for work. Yes, he has responsibility to maintain his child but if you do not have the money, you can't magic it up out of thin air.

Totally agree with this view,& also some practical advice for the OP. Well said ICHTB

Cg65 nailed it

It is still unclear how many weekends we are talking about, from the original post

I am not surprised of the misogyny expressed in this thread - women are usually the worst offenders

If the situation continues, I'd advise you fund an access application for fixed access for your son to see his daughter.

I missed this piece of advice given to the OP.

Well the OP seems to do everything else that enables her son to see his daughter, so this wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest - right down to making and driving her son to the appointment.

She appears to do everything else that enables her son

Some women, not women

No GG65 has not nailed it. What she has done is read an awful lot into the OP that isn’t there, and based a damning criticism of the father on what she imagines is there.

The OP has done everything she can to maintain the relationship both she and her son have with the child. That’s a good thing, isn’t it?

Don’t jump to conclusions about the mention of 5 years. We are not told how long the couple have been separated.

It isn’t helpful to the OP to criticise either parent based on the very limited information given here.

We have a father who:

• doesn’t have a suitable home for his daughter to visit with him, despite having 5 years to rectify this.

He has to find maintenance for his child and may be on a low income therefore not able to afford a "proper home" for his child. If he is a single man, he will not be eligible for Social Housing for years and years.

• has his mother collect his daughter for his contact time, every single weekend.
• has his mother return his daughter at the end of contact, every single weekend.
He has been working so may well have not been able to collect his daughter. He may not drive whilst his mother might. Maybe the couple have parted acrimoniously and Mum has stepped in to avoid more conflict. My mother had to do that for me.

• spends said contact time with his daughter at his mother’s house, every single weekend.

My son had to do that with his son. He lived 200 miles away and couldn't get his son backwards and forwards without a four hour journey each way nor afford a hotel as he was paying maintenance plus his travel. It did not make him any less of a father and he got to spend quality time with him. It also meant that he got to see his wider family who would otherwise would have missed out.

• has missed child support payments and is currently not in a position to financially support his daughter.

He is currently unemployed and we don't know if this is a recent development. Even if you can get a job within the first month of unemployment, you'd have to wait a month in hand for your money. If you can't get a job, you have to wait for your benefits to come through. It is perfectly possible that he is a good but currently broke father who will make his payments regularly when he his finances are in order.

And ”some have criticised the mother from preventing her 5 year old daughter from seeing her father because that is what she has done.” Where is the criticism for what the father has and has not done? Isn’t he equally responsible for his daughter? Or is he held to a lesser standard?

Maintenance is a separate issue to access. Even the law thinks so. He may not have been able to help his tardiness in access payments because of his circumstances. The mother has control over whether she allows access. She is the one who is withholding THEIR child from seeing her father and family. To bring a child into their argument is unfair on the child.

He’s certainly not fulfilling his responsibilities given his daughter’s mother clearly has the lion’s share of responsibility, and his share is being picked up by his own mother.

The mother may well use her mother for child care, etc. Is she less of a mother because of that? We don't know her living circumstances, she may live with her parents. There is a lot of assumptions here. We don't even know whether Dad usually has access at other times. We only know that at weekends he stays with his mother so the child can spend access nights with him.
It is more common to get residency therefore they often end up with the family home. If it is Social Housing, she will pay far less rent than he'd have to in a private rental. He might well have wanted the privilege of residency and to take on his daughter full time in the family home but he more than likely won't have had that opportunity.

So, sub par “parenting” from this man is unworthy of comment, yet one decision by the mother who has had all the responsibility for raising their child for the past 5 years, and is now dealing with a sudden and indefinite financial loss, is open to criticism and worthy of being branded “cruel”.

I don't brand her cruel but I do think she is using her child as a weapon to make him pay money he obviously hasn't got. I don't think helps anybody and won't get her any extra money if he hasn't got it. You can't get blood out of a stone.

Yeah, you’re right, no misogyny to see here
Perhaps you could be accused of man hating here. You are determined that he must be a lousy father based on assumptions.

icanhandthemback Well said.

The father apparently paid what he could and this could be the first time he has missed payments on time.

Stopping a child seeing her father and grandmother, whom she loves, is wrong. Children should not be used as pawns in their parents' arguments.

It always makes me uncomfortable when people accuse others of using a child as a weapon.

Children are people not chess pieces

Where does this saying originate because it is an uncomfortable one no matter who uses it and we shouldn't be looking at children as objects

Children are people not chess pieces

Well, that's precisely what I said VioletSky. What exactly are you saying?

Children shouldn't be used in this way.
Yes, they are people with feelings, with relationships with those they love who they are used to spending time with. Covid made this difficult enough without a parent stopping the other parent's access to that child because they were late with one payment.

Yes, the parent stopping access is using the child like a pawn on a chessboard, reducing the child to something to be used to emotionally blackmail the other parent.

It's wrong.

@icanhandthemback

Excuse after excuse after excuse as to why the father can’t parent to the same standard his child’s mother seems to be able to.

I don't brand her cruel but I do think she is using her child as a weapon to make him pay money he obviously hasn't got.

Misogyny right there.

“Using her child as a weapon”
“Make him pay money he hasn’t got”

Or maybe it’s the straw that broke the camel’s back. Maybe she wants him to be an actual father to his child, without his mother doing all the work. For him to understand that parents don’t have the flexibility he appears to think they have, with regards to their responsibilities towards their child. Maybe she is extremely upset at what she perceives to be his lack of prioritising his daughter.

I could imagine a great number of things going on in a single parent with all the responsibility’s head in a situation like this. How seem to have jumped straight to her “using her child as a weapon”. Why is that?

Perhaps you could be accused of man hating here. You are determined that he must be a lousy father based on assumptions.

I’m not a man hater at all, I have only sons and, as the mother of sons, I find the level of effort the father in this thread makes as a parent to be unacceptable.

If this was either of my sons, I can’t even describe how disappointed and disgusted I’d be.

Is this it? Is this really the standard we are setting for our men? Is that what being an active and involved father looks like?

Sorry to make you uncomfortable, VS, but it's how I see it.

I'm saying that those who have been withheld from a child are often use this term.

So they are the ones viewing the child as an object or weapon or game piece...

Whether the person who withheld the child views it that way is an unknown quantity

So it only comes from those accusing...

That makes me uncomfortable. It gives me the creeps really

Sorry

*You (not How!)

VioletSky

I'm saying that those who have been withheld from a child are often use this term.

So they are the ones viewing the child as an object or weapon or game piece...

Whether the person who withheld the child views it that way is an unknown quantity

So it only comes from those accusing...

That makes me uncomfortable. It gives me the creeps really

Sorry

I know what you mean by uncomfortable.

For me, it’s seems like projection.

Accusing others of “using the children as pawns” because that is exactly what they would do.

Think of certain fathers’ rights movements, that sort of thing.

So they are the ones viewing the child as an object or weapon or game piece not at all. Those who withhold a child from contact with the other parent unless there are genuine concerns about the child's safety and welfare, are the ones using that child.

icanhandthemback well said and well done! I started a post making similar observations but gave up and deleted it. Those that are determined to put their own spin on this situation (without one iota of actual evidence!) will carry on. If anybody bothers to actually read the original post and doesn't expand their own particular prejudices upon it, then it's obvious most of the "assumptions" are just that, bigoted, preformed judgements that don't care one jot for whether they're based on truth or not, just as long as the vitriol can be spilled.

GG65

maybe Maybe

Maybe is supposition. We don't know any of that.

Yes, we do only know one side of the story but better to stick to the facts as we know them as Yvonne asked for advice.

Advice was given at the beginning and now this is going off into suppositio and fantasy.

I could imagine maybe again

I can imagine all kinds of scenarios but how does that help the OP?

GG65 I could imagine yes, so could we all. How about I "imagine" things about you and type them on the internet as factual? Still happy with I could imagine?

Callistemon21

GG65

maybe Maybe

Maybe is supposition. We don't know any of that.

Yes, we do only know one side of the story but better to stick to the facts as we know them as Yvonne asked for advice.

Advice was given at the beginning and now this is going off into suppositio and fantasy.

Was this message meant for me?

I seem to remember that @icanhandthemback kicked off the suppositions on page 1 when she proposed the idea the mother was “using her daughter as a weapon”. I simply offered alternatives to that supposition.

Perhaps you can redirect your message to the appropriate person.

Callistemon21

^I could imagine^ maybe again

I can imagine all kinds of scenarios but how does that help the OP?

How does it help the OP to be told her DIL is using her granddaughter as a weapon?

Perhaps you can redirect your message to the appropriate person.

I did.
🙂

GG65

Callistemon21

I could imagine maybe again

I can imagine all kinds of scenarios but how does that help the OP?

How does it help the OP to be told her DIL is using her granddaughter as a weapon?

Withholding her daughters contact with her father is using her daughter as a weapon. Do you imagine for one second the daughter has been asked "if daddy doesn't pay child support do you want to not see him and granny?"

Callistemon21

^Perhaps you can redirect your message to the appropriate person.^

I did.
🙂

No, sorry, you haven’t.

Why are you singling me out for making suppositions, when all I did was provide an alternative to a disgusting supposition that has gone completely unchallenged by you, that the mother is “using her child as a weapon”.

the mother is “using her child as a weapon”. It is so blatantly obvious that the child IS being used as a weapon. Do you really assert that the child has been consulted on this, that the child has agreed "if daddy doesn't pay I don't want to see him or granny"? The mother is making this call, she alone is responsible for denying her daughter access to the daughter's father and grandmother. She is abusing her own child for revenge.