Stacy Erickson
I
am writing you this letter to clarify to you my thoughts regarding the children
and the bases of my future contact with you. This document is NOT to be viewed
nor mentioned to either child until at least their 18th birthday. I solemnly
swear that I will NOT express these opinions to the children until they are
fully grown and able to make their own judgment about mommy and daddy. In other
words, I will not say anything bad about their mother or her choices until they
are grown up even if it gives me ulcers and kills me.
As
I have told you before I have no faith in you as the parent of our children.
Through my years with you I have found that I cannot trust you to make good
decisions in any aspect of the children's lives. I also feel that you are
incapable of providing them with enough love and attention or the right kind of
attention that they truly deserve. I
wanted so much more for the children than what you can possibly provide. I was
stupid enough to believe that I could provide that for them by staying with you
all these years. And now I find out that I was delusional to think that the
courts will see the unique contributions of a father and allow me to at least have
just as much time with them as the mother.
Despite
my best efforts, the courts have decided that you are the best choice for our
children. Hence, I have no choice but to abide by their decision.
Based
on this decision, I will be in contact with them only 10% of the time, which
mostly consists of weekends and special events which I consider to be
"visitation" and NOT "parenting time" with the children.
Knowing you and your history, I know that I will have very little opportunity
to be involved with their daily lives from now on and that I will miss out on
what is left of their childhood. I am now forced to resign myself to only be a
"Sunday Dad" which I had vowed never to become when you first became
pregnant with our child.
Henceforth,
I am letting you know that I will refuse to be held accountable for their
actions for the time they spend with you.
So if they have bad table manners, talk back, don't listen to their
teacher, etc I expect you to be fully responsible. I will not listen to any
more accusations and instructions from you in the nature of "The children
have been acting up at the dinner table ever since they were with their dad so daddy needs to work on their table manners when daddy sees them this week". They spend most of their time with you and you
are the one raising them so you are responsible for any misbehavior. But
on the other hand, and by the same token, should they win awards, get good
grades, demonstrate generosity and love, you are to be fully
credited. And in the event you provide
the children with any consistent parenting time with me during a regular school
day, I will take responsibility and credit for my influence on them for the
amount actual parenting time I have had with them.
Because
my hands are tied by the court system, I now have to trust that you have enough
sense in you to give these children what they deserve. I will not be fighting
with you every day to get more parenting time with them or pleading to you to
let them participate in extracurricular activities or arguing with you make you
understand the support children need to succeed in school. In the end, I do not know if they will be
able to forgive me for allowing them to be abused by your selfishness and foolishness.
And for the fact I was not able to be part of their lives and that I failed to
do anything about it. I don't know if I even deserve their forgiveness for
failing them. I am fully prepared accept the blame of not being good enough,
strong enough, rich enough to convince the courts that I am a good father and
the children deserve more time with me. It is my selfish desire for the
children to know that even though they grew up without receiving the kind of
parenting I wanted for them, I will never stop loving them and wanting to be an
actual parent to them.
That
being said, I would like to clarify for the record all of the things I AM
willing to do for the children above and beyond the court order. I wish to
state this loud and clear so that when the children look back on their
impoverished childhood they will understand that the only reason their lives
are impoverished is because that is
what you chose for them. I want them
to understand that it is not due to lack of my understanding of the need for
these things in their lives or the lack of effort on my part to provide it to
them.
Following
is a hypothetical scenario of what I am willing to do for them. You may feel that you cannot enroll the
children in Indian Trails Elementary because you don't feel that Alan should be
held responsible for getting the children ready for school after you have left
for work. Since I believe that Indian Trails is a better school for the
children compared to Holly Hill and I want the children to be able to go to bed
and wake up at a normal time, I will be happy to provide the assistance you
need to make this happen. I can drive to your house in the morning, at the time
they need to wake up, tap on their window to wake them up, wait outside until
they come out, and when they do, I will make sure they are properly dressed and
walk them to the school bus.
Another
scenario may be that the children do not have clean, ironed clothes to wear to
school. As I do not want the children to continue going to school looking
scruffy and unkempt, I will be happy to do their laundry for them. All you have
to do is ask me to come pick it up off of your driveway and I will drop it off
on your driveway in a couple of days. (By the way, they looked very smart and
well groomed on the day we went to court. I know it is not just their new
clothes but that you actually spent time making sure they were groomed
properly. If they always looked like that, I will have no concerns about how
you take care of them.)
In
the past couple of months, I do know that you have made at least one good
choice, which is Alan. I have seen that he is a decent hardworking man that
cares about our children. He has invited the children into his home and has
raised their standard of living. For that I am grateful. Even though you have
clearly stated that you do not want him involved with the children because they
are not "his responsibility" I hope you let him be involved as much
as he is comfortable with. And I also hope I will have a chance to meet him
soon because I want to get to know the man that will be in my children's lives,
if not actually raise my children for me.
I hope that this relationship will work out for you. And if it doesn't,
I hope to god that you will never make a choice to be with somebody that will
hurt the children in anyway. This includes domestic violence of ANY kind. I
couldn't care less about what happens to you but you better not let the
children OBSERVE a man hurting their mother or their mother hurting another
person. You can bet I will personally take care of the person who is
responsible.
Although
I feel that our children are lost to a hopeless cause under your care, I am
sure that they are strong and they will grow up to be adults with or without
their father as many other children have done.
I cannot help but be pessimistic about their future knowing you are in
total control. However, if they should grow up to be happy, loving people,
making an honest living, I will freely admit my mistake about the kind of
person I think you are and celebrate the children and all that you will have
done for them. I sincerely hope to be
pleasantly surprised.
Yours Truly