Quote:
Originally Posted by Indiana  Sorry, Johnny, I'm just not buying. |
With all due respect, when you actually understand the situation, I'm sure you'll 'buy in' to my advice.
I hope to help you see what you've been missing in this attempt!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Indiana Your advice was 'get a full-time nanny to take care of your kids so you don't have to.' This is an explicit dismissal of his responsibilities as a father. |
Rather than respond to your paraphrasing of my advice, I will repost it here:
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Johnny Soporno Quote: |
Originally Posted by elias_naur See, I've got two kids, aged 6 and 2, both of them not-that-planned-for (first one while on the pill, second one using nuva-ring) with my ex-wife, and twice I wanted abortion and she wanted to keep them....
I ended my (traditional?) relationship that had lasted 7 years (4 years married) also about a year ago, for reasons I paraphrase as "She is very much into family and kids, and I not so much".
My problem is time. I now have two kids by myself for 1 week every other week, and it's draining me. I'm a freelance programmer and my schedule is very flexible, but even though I love my kids I don't see much satisfaction in the day-to-day child-care. As you've said, time is the most valuable asset, and I basically don't enjoy my time alone with kids.
I enjoy my weeks without kids quite a lot and I rarely miss my kids like my ex-wife does when she doesn't have them. She, being a familiy-kind-of-woman, loves to have the kids and craves more time with them, but being a medical doctor doesn't allow her to take more than the 7 days she's already got.
What would you recommend? I would very much like to hear about anybody
you know in a similar situation and how they handle it. I see:
a) Refuse to have them all 7 days. Hardly fair when she's a doctor with little extra time. She's got a new (familiy-compatible) boyfriend, but he's _also_ a doctor with even less time!
or
b) Suck it up. That's basically what I do now and will continue to do if no other viable solution comes up, and I've become competent enough in the fatherhood business to know that my children are not being harmed that much by having a douchebag father ;o)
Being kids, you can't just say "I don't enjoy time with you so I don't think we should see each other" like you always can for adults. And what about the old cliche with the dying man on his death bed going "I wish I had spent more time with my kids"? | I expect that most-likely you could have a frank and sincere conversation with her about your needs and motivations, reminding her that you had explicitly opted not to be a father (and had been blind-sided both times, having relied on A) hormonal medications and B) her appreciation of your desire not to assume the responsibilities of a father at this time.
While I am sure you love and adore your kids, I completely sympathize with your not wanting the burden of caring for kids that young at this time in your life. You need to communicate to her than YOUR KIDS WILL SENSE that they are overwhelmingly NOT WANTED by you, and it will cause them psychological and socialization harms which neither you nor your ex would want for them.
Frankly, I expect you're probably pretty ADHD [Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder] yourself (based upon your obvious intelligence and your career path) and this isn't conducive to raising youngsters: KIDS NEED ATTENTION, regardless of whether they are actually interesting to you at each moment or not - and failing to give it to them will end up causing inestimable damage to their self-esteem and their emotional welbeing. (This doesn't, of itself, make you a douchebag! But failing to find a positive solution does!  )
Personally, I recommend that you offer to cover or share the costs of a live-in nanny to tend to them (nominally at her home) and to see them on a less onerous schedule, which would give you time to crave their company and yearn for the time you'd spend with them, thereby ensuring that they feel treasured and appreciated. If your ex wants to tend to them on her own when she would otherwise have had responsibility for them, she should be assumed to have invested her half of the nanny's costs in so doing... but as an MD, I would imagine she'll ultimately leave the kids with the nanny a lot more than she would spend time with them directly. |
Nowhere in there do I advocate or sanction dismissing his responsibilities to his kids - in fact, I am very clear about both how and why he needs to rectify the untenable situation,
for his children's sake. Quote:
Originally Posted by Indiana I notice that the one part of my post that you didn't quote was the very salient point that Elias ended up with not one but two children, despite his supposed commitment to not having them. |
Just as you omitted my agreement that he should have has a vasectomy
We are not (any of us, including Elias) disagreeing that his failure to ensure he could not impregnate his partner is why he has two children. In his initial message to me, he acknowledges this explicitly:
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by elias_naur If you don't mind, I'd like your input regarding having and bringing up kids. I know you chose a proactive solution to that, but it's a bit late for that in my case |
(In case it's not clear, he was alluding to my own vasectomy operation.)
[My response is too long, so I'm continuing this in the next post:]