Crying for Daddy

Pee

I have a friend who has a five year old son. About two years ago the parents separated after a year of the relationship being very bad. There were various issues involved including violence, illness and adultery but she is a kind and loving woman devoted to her son and he also thinks the world of his son. (Their son.)

Due to the very poor relationship between them, the residence has gone through the courts and will continue to go through.

Sometimes she wants him back to play happy families and sometimes she physically assaults him and sometimes it is somewhere in the middle. She tells me that she doesn't love him and has other men, none of whom I have met, and she is obviously very angry about the adultery and the subsequent girlfriend. He has tried to go along with what she wants, to the point that he often has tea there on a week night - a couple of times a week on a good week - and sees his son on a Sunday all day, taking him out. Sometimes she will not let him take the son out. He turns up and is told he cannot see the son, he then goes away speaks to the Solicitor and usually the next week it is fine for a couple of months, then it is repeated. This has happened about five times in the past year.

About four times in the last year he has asked to change his day from a Sunday. Once this was something he wanted to take his son to on another day, once it was his girlfriends birthday and his girlfriend is not allowed to meet the son and twice it was because he went away for the weekend - once he had asked to take his son to visit extended family, the other time he was going with his girlfriend. There is no issue with the son not meeting the girlfriend as the father and son time is better.

She is very difficult about him changing the day and last time, the time he wanted to take the son, she has started saying he no longer cares about his son because he put his own needs first and left his son crying for his Daddy.

I am concerned as this doesn't seem to me to be normal for a five year old who sees his father 2 -3 times a week but sometimes not at all at the mother's insistence. She has never suggested he cries for his Daddy when she has turned his father away.

Quite soon after the break up there were some distressing incidents when she called him in the middle of the night saying his son wouldn't stop crying and he must come at once. This happened every other night for a couple of weeks and then stopped, possibly because when he got there son was indeed crying and demanded his full attention.

I have friends with younger children who seem to go through a stage of wanting whichever parent is not there to put them to bed, bath them, bandage their knee but is this normal with a five year old after two years of separation?

Foodhoarder

Hi Pee,
I am so sorry to hear how this is affecting this child, and it seesm to me that the boys behaviour is being made worse by the inconsistant relationship the mother has witht the father. Children need firm boundaries to be able to understand what is expected of them and what to expect from others. NI calling him in the middle of the night, it is setting a president where by the child can get upset/kick off and the mother panics, demanding the father comes running. All this really needs to stop.

I think that what is 'normal' for one child's emotional developement can be labelled as 'abnormal' for another child- if the parents allow this to continue, then i can't see any of them moving forward/healing from this rift.

mikey72

Without knowing both sides, certainly it sounds as if the parents are causing the problems, and could and should be behaving better.
Consistency, and good behaviour, would certainly improve the poor kids quality of life.
They should both make the child the priority, and not use him to score points off the other.

pigpen

Yes of course it is normal.. he loves his daddy and wants to spend time with him and can't understand why he can't.

my parents separated when I was 3 and I remember even at the ripe old age of 13 and 14 being upset I couldn't go see my mum when I wanted to.

I think the mum needs to grow up and behave like and adult and put her son first, he is being used as a pawn at the moment in the middle of their spite for one another.

My dad used to not let my mother take me if she was a minute later than the specified time or he was just feeling particularly nasty.. it is the crappest place in the world to be as that small child being abused in such a manner.. and it is emotional abuse and can be incredibly damaging! She WILL lose the son in the long term if she doesn't stop playing games.. he will realise what she is doing in time and won't thank her for it.

Reggie_Rebel

The poor child is utterly confused. Your mate does a great disservice to mothers