“Please let me just hug them – I will only be with them for a minute”….
“What are you doing here? ” my husband’s nanny asks with a shocked look on her face.
I look at my daughter’s face, whom I haven’t seen for a while. She is unsure: it’s clear she wants to hug me, but she also knows how angry her nanny will be if she does…Her hand is held very firmly by the nanny’s hand so she cannot let go to come to me.
“I was in the school for a meeting. I’ve only just noticed you go by. I didn’t know you were here.” I find myself stammering, shaking and apologising for my very presence in my own children’s school to a nanny who has no parental rights over my children – she is their nanny not their parent. Why am I apologising? But I know the power she has to make life even more difficult for me whilst the children are in her care, so I avoid a row and swallow my anger. Like a mother bear, I want to protect my children from another female who is trying to step between me and my children so that I can’t get to them. I hope instead that she will see how desperate the children and I are to give each other a quick hug.
“We won’t be long” I plead, so longing just to hold them for a few seconds.

“NO, we are going now. There is no time for a hug. We’re leaving. Come on kids” Her face is taught with anger, showing clearly how much she dislikes this situation. She is entirely dismissive of me, the words almost spat out with no effort to apologise for her inability to be accomodating of my request. She could stop for a few minutes if she had wanted to. There was no serious deadline she had to meet. So why can’t or why won’t she permit this little request? Do I also detect a certain look on her face as she grabs hold of both children’s hands and whisks them off to the exit of the school? I don’t know. All I know is that they are looking back at me, clearly distressed, while I have to just stand there looking into their dear faces, whilst another woman takes my children out of the door without a second’s feeling for mine and my children’s plight. I feel a huge surge of strong feelings: anger, resentment, frustration, shock, hurt. The very core of my motherly instinct is ripped. This stranger to our family, no relation even, now has the children she’s always wanted. At 50, she has never been married nor has had her own children – something which has deeply upset her. Instead, she’s found another way of having children: taking mine instead.

It’s just a dream, I tell myself when I wake crying. Except it’s been the pattern of these dreams for quite some time now. The dreams are always the same: I am back in my own home, one that she now lives in. I am unwelcome in their even though, in real life, I am still the owner of that home. In this dream home, she is the one who is in charge of my children. In these dreams, I am sometimes a ghost, sometimes I am merely invisible, a mere on-looker whilst all my children, the nanny, my ex husband, his guests ignore me as they simply look through me. When I am visible in these dreams, I am constantly reaching out to my children in all manner of ways: I am trying to feed them, I am trying to hug them, to talk to them, to protect them from a stranger……….always trying to be close to them. Invariably, I am met with palpable hostility from both the nanny and my ex husband – “why is she still here, when this is our territory now” is the unspoken question that hangs in the air. There is no attempt on their part to be hospitable, accomodating, kind or compassionate for the children’s plight or mine. They make it clear that I am now in their territory, their home, their space, their rules. I stand in my own home, with my own children and am made to feel like I’m the intruder, the unwelcome pest.

Although these are my dreams, these dreams are simply a representation of what is happening in real life, in my real situation, in my real experience of how my ex husband and his nanny treat me. The discomfort  in his employee’s face is painful and hurtful to see and experience and I ask myself what I might have done, or what he might have told her, for her to treat me in this way. She treats me like I’m an irrelevance, like she’s the mother and I’m her employee and one that she doesn’t like at that. Ocasionally I stand up for myself and tell her not to treat me in this manner, but there is never an apology on her part, nor any change in her behaviour.

I bitterly resent this. I carried those children in my womb for 9 months. I gave birth, screaming with the pain and bear permanent physical scars from the births. My eldest had to be pulled out as she’d got stuck and I live with the scars of that birth today – a constant reminder of her bond to me. I breast-fed each child, waking several times a night to feed them, comfort them, nurse them, sleep with them to keep them calm. I slept beside their beds in hospital as each of them had their various baby illnesses: diabetes, tonsilitis, pneumonia, meningitis. I held them when they were scared in hospital, comforted them till they fell asleep in my arms, argued with the doctors when I instinctively knew that they were not giving my son the right treatment when he was vomiting with his diabetes, spending hours by their sides unable to sleep whilst their bodies fought off various infections.

Now, in my dreams, my children are being told by their nanny to call her “mum” – to hear them say that about another woman who has come into their lives and taken over, rips me to the core. When my youngest daughter is with me, she often calls me my nanny’s name and call’s her nanny’s name mum, before quickly correcting herself. For this child to have another woman in my shoes is clearly confusing for her and hugely upsetting for me. I remind the children that they only ever have one mum and one dad. Nobody else in their lives will ever be their mum or dad. Other people can play those roles and provide huge support, kindness and comfort as did my step father who has looked after me since I was five. But he is not my dad – my real father is my dad. I love my step father as much as I love my dad, but that doesn’t make him my dad.

There is a bond which is never broken between parent and child and when a stranger comes into the children’s lives and tries to break that bond, it is the cruelist and most hurtful thing they can try to do to both the child and the parent. But this behaviour comes from a deep insecurity, selfishness and unkindness on the part of the person breaking that bond. Because they don’t have their own children, they seek to take on somebody else’s. It happens in many animal species where one animal who has no children, tries to take another animal’s offspring. We are just animals too fundamentally. What is playing out in front of my eyes is another female animal trying to steal my children.

My children are hurt, angry and resentful about the way this nanny treats me, but what can they do? They are only children with no power over the way the grown ups in their lives are behaving. They tell me they desperately want to be looked after by their mum rather than by a nanny but there is nothing they can do about it. They are forced to accept her even when their dad is supposed to be looking after them. He employs her even at the weekends and during his holidays with them. She even spent Christmas with them! Even when he came to collect the children from me, he brought the nanny with him on the 4 hour journey! It’s as if he is treating her like his surrogate wife even though she already has her own 8 year long relationship with another man and she is certainly not my ex husband’s type…..I don’t understand why he is doing this other than to think that he doesn’t like being on his own, either with himself or when he’s with the children. He has to have a woman around…..

When will these dreams ever stop? Even the sleeping tablets that have been prescribed for me by my psychiatris for post traumatic stress disorder brought on by having my children taken from me, don’t stop these dreams from penetrating my refuge of sleep. Sleep is meant to be my place of healing all the hurt in my daily life, all the stresses that we all go through, yet mine just brings further haunting, further distress that lingers throughout the day, playing on my mind as I go through each dream scene feeling each hurt afresh.

Oh God, if you ever listen to any of my prayers, listen to this one: “Please let these dreams stop and let me heal…”

I am a mother animal, an animal with powerful instincts to protect and defend her young from intruders and danger. I am a mother whose whole being has become that of caring for her young over and above everything else, even at the risk of her own well-being. Every fibre of my body is wired in this way and nothing can override it. My programming was set millions of years ago and won’t change over my life time.

My instincts are so powerful that they form a deep part of my subconsious, a subconsious that is there for the good of all our animal young. Survival of the species, survival of the fittest. Those with the most powerful instincts will save their young and bring them to adult maturity. My instincts drive me to protect, warn, hunt down, track every danger, obstacle, intrusion which may prevent me from following through on my mothering. These instincts are so powerful that I spend every night dreaming of my children. Every night in my sleep I am looking for them, tracking their movements, sniffing out danger, hunting down intruders, finding my way to them to protect them from danger, fighting anyone in my way to help them in their distress. I am mistrustful, hyper alert, viscious if they are being threatened, fearless, courageous and 100% determined that they will survive at all costs. My own life is unimportant, I would die fighting for my children with not a moment’s hesitation. Their survival and well-being is more important than my last breath.

I grieve for them daily, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. They are alive but not under my protection, I am helpless against intruders, I am unable to nourish them, to comfort them, to teach them and guide them. My life has become half shadow even in bright sunshine. They are not dead, so I am not fully grieving yet I feel like a member of a herd whose young has gone missing and crying out for them to come back to me. I feel like an animal in a cage in a zoo with her young in another compound. I feel like I am pacing, pacing, pacing in circles, with a hunger in my stomach, restless and unable to settle.

Animal children’s instincts are set to seek protection from their mother. To find nourishment and comfort from them, to follow them, to be guided and taught by them, to return to them at night for safety and protection.

How does it feel for them to return to an empty nest? Animal young often die without their mother or fail to thrive. Some literally wither and die as they lose the will to live. They lack skills to defend themselves. They cannot hunt as effectively. They don’t know where to find the best catch or how to find a mate or worse, how to mother their own children as they’ve lost their role model and teacher. Any nature programme teaches these fundamentals and we all accept them as true for animals. Why do we question it for humans?

Male animals in the majority of species are not the primary carer. They don’t chose to stay with their young and do the nurturing. Even when they choose to stick with the mother of their young, they are distant and uninvolved; their role is hunter-gatherer. THey will fight for their children, yes, and often to the death with an overriding instinct to protect mother and child. No-one doubts that the male of the species is a fundamental part of the pack.

But they are not the nurturers. They are not the one that the child seeks out for comfort, even when both parents are present. This is not the way all baby animals are wired – they are wired to be with their mothers.

We all know and accept these fundamental instincts of animal behaviour. Why do we think that homo sapiens are so fundamentally different that these animal instincts and behaviour no longer matter? We are animals to the core. Only our “sophisticated” brain tells us otherwise. Our instincts don’t listen to our brain. That’s why we have them – they are there to overide the brain, to keep us alive and protect us even when our brain misinforms us.

I won’t settle. I won’t give up. I won’t stand aside and watch another person mother my children. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO.

Dream diary:

Friday 23rd Oct: I dream that I am at a school function with some of the parents; we are waiting for the children to come in to eat lunch at the buffet. I am looking out for my son, oblivious of anything else going on around me. I say to the Chef” you see, Chef, it’s vital that my son eats before the others, he’s got diabetes, he must eat first and eat well….” I spot him and hurry him to the front of the queue and make sure that his plate is piled high with all the best of the food. I settle him down to eat with his friends whilst I go back to see what’s left of the food. Very little. The chef tells me he’s put some aside but when I uncover the plate, the food has gone. Nothing. I go hungry…..but at least I know my son is eating…

Sat 24th October: I dream that I’m skiing with the children in an unknown skiing area. There are very few people around so it gives all of us room to ski really well. We are in the midst of a strange mountainous areas of craggy rocks with deep cravaces to large, expanses of snow. We are clearly in an off-piste area with much of the snow being fresh with no ski marks on it….The sun is out and the day is beautiful…all in all fantastic conditions to ski in.

My kids and I are happily skiing along when my youngest goes to near the edge. Before I can blink, she has fallen over the edge; I hear her screams as she falls. My pounding heart has leaped into my throat, I cannot breathe through panic. I make my way to the edge and look over…My worst fears are confirmed; she is lying face down in the snow at the bottom of the crevace.

She is dead…..

I awake sobbing, shaking, terrified……Thank God…….it’s a dream…..

This case is just so horrible to read. Of course, I am the first to say that I haven’t read the details of the case as I won’t be able to find them given the confidentiality/secrecy of the courts, but I am inclined to believe many of the facts of this case. Equally I appreciate that this account is one-sided – I have not heard the father’s story and we all know that there are 2 sides to every story. So please read on bearing that in mind….

Essentially, a mother has lost custody of her children to a man with a vast number of criminal convictions (including sexual abuse) who is dying from AIDS. The father claimed that the mother was discriminating against him on the basis of his AIDS/HIV and the courts agreed with him. The fact that he is dying from his illness raises questions of how well he can parent the child in the mean time. He’s been given 7 years to live and the child is only 7. Her daughter is only allowed supervised visits with her mum despite having reported that the daughter is being sexually assaulted in her father’s house.

This is an interesting dilemma. I fundamentally believe that no-one should be discriminated against and I find discrimination against HIV sufferers to be totally inhumane. I have watched a dying man in an AIDS hospice and felt nothing but profound sympathy for those sufferers. There is no doubt that a parent can parent regardless of AIDS. However, there comes a time when the effect of an illness on a person’s ability to provide care for a child becomes an issue of concern. If a person has become so ill that they can no longer function properly, then how can they be capable of parenting? If they are no longer capable, then surely the other parent should step in in preference to some other carer UNLESS that other parent is deemed incapable.

So what are the comparables between this case and a case involving a parent with a mental illness? A mental illness, if properly controlled, means a parent can live a normal life. They won’t die from their illness and it won’t deteriorate unless the sufferer refuses medication. Someone dying from AIDS is highly likely to suffer from depression, anxiety and stress and be unable to hold down a job once the illness becomes severe.

Yet to refuse an AIDS sufferer parenting on the basis of their illness was held by this court to be discriminatory and yet the judge in my case was able to decide that I couldn’t be the full time carer due to my Bipolar illness.

Can anyone help me to see this differently? Am I missing a point here? These questions are not sarcastic – I genuinely would like to hear other peoples views on this…

The mother claims that her troubles have arisen from challenging the court system – the more she has challenged them, the more they put their foot down and refuse to help protect the child.

When does a parent’s determination to protect their child, turn into “trouble making” in the eyes of the Court (or a “vexacious litigant” in our English court speak). She has been told that she is simply refusing to accept the court’s decision and therefore she should go and get help with coming to terms with the decision.

I often wonder whether any of the family court judges have lost custody of their own children. If they have, I doubt very much that they would maintain that a parent should be critised for “refusing to accept” a decision which the parent knows goes against the well-being of their child. The fundamental parental instinct is to protect your child from any harm, including psychological and emotional harm. If a parent believes that their child is suffering from the result of not seeing them (which has been proven many times in research), then they will fight, argue and refuse to give up until they know their child is being looked after properly.

Surely, the Judges realise that this is simply a fundamental human response to their child’s distress? Do they honestly think that a parent will give up?

If the Judges themselves could talk from personal experience of how they came to terms with having their children taken away, then their assertions about a parent needing to accept a decision may become more credible.

Until such a time, I am inclined to think that every parent will continue to fight for what they believe is the right solution for their child. They will put their child’s wishes paramount to a judges disapproval.

Do read the following account from this mother – it’s heart rending….

http://www.aic.gov.au/conferences/2003-abuse/abuse.pdf

I came across this article on Justice for mothers: http://justice4mothers.wordpress.com

It’s a fantastic piece of research and well worth a read…..

One of the pieces of research shows that mothers who don’t have their children cope better when it is their choice to hand over the parenting to the father; those who don’t choose their role as the non-custodial parent find it much harder to cope with than those who do. That’s a no-brainer really…..

I woke up crying from a dream I had last night. The tears started during my dream: my dream-self was crying and as I woke up, I was still crying.

I had dreamt that I had become a ghost. My ghost-self was able to be anywhere that my children were – it felt wonderful. If they were asleep in their room, I could sit on the end of the bed and just watch them sleeping. If they were sitting quietly reading a book, I could sit next to them mouthing the words alongside them and watch the expressions changing on their faces when they read a funny piece or a puzzling piece or simply watch them becoming drawn into a fantasy world. A world where I was too. I could run outside and play with them, chasing after a ball or just cheering them on…

Nobody would notice, so nobody could stop me. No-one could tell me that I shouldn’t be near my children. I could spend all day and all night with them. If I was lucky, they might become aware of my presence in a positive way and just feel comforted that their mum was with them then they could sleep soundly, assured in the knowledge that my love was all around them even when I was not physically able to hold them and cuddle them.

No wonder I awoke crying…..it’s simply a dream and not a possibility…..

[Don't worry - I'm not suicidal. Far from it, I would never do that to my kids and I feel no reason to do it since making a full recovery]

I dread going to sleep nowadays. Most nights I dream about missing my children, about them being taken away, about them being in trouble and not being able to help them, about having to witness their tears and not be able to wipe them away, about them growing up without me, forgetting that they had a mum. I can only sleep with a sleeping tablet and then I still wake up fretting with a dread in my stomach and memories of the dreams I’ve had floating in and out in the early hours.

I never tell the children I have these dreams. When they tell me of their own bad nightmares, they tell of dreams of me having my head chopped off or about being eaten by a giant spider or about being kidnapped and me not coming to rescue them. My youngest wakes up scared that I really have had my head chopped off and is constantly scared that her dream will come true. She’s fretting about whether I’m safe and whether I will die. No matter how much reassurance I give her, she’s not convinced that I’m alright. She’s often telling me that she loves me “to the moon, and all the way around the universe and every atom in the universe!…..” but then goes on to ask how much I love her, seeking constant reassurance that I do.

My son is being teased at school for the fact that his mum doesn’t live with him; they tease him in front of other boys saying “your mum doesn’t live with you” in a taunt, repeating it until my son has to walk away. What does he tell them? How does he explain? He can’t; he simply has to walk away, hurting. No other boy in the whole school has a mother who doesn’t live with her son. He has to nurse that hurt on his own. Unlike other children with divorced parents who can share their hurt, he can’t; his family story is different from everyone else’s. It’s acceptable to have a father living away, but there is no other mother who is……How does he explain that even to himself, let alone to anyone else….

No wonder we are all having nightmares; it is a nightmare, whether you are awake or asleep and there is no end in sight….this is not a dream, but a harsh reality that my children and I are living in and we won’t wake up to find that it’s just a dream…..it’s horribly real.

My ex husband has decided that my son needs orthodontry treatment and so has gone ahead – without my knowledge or consent – to taking him to the orthodontist and getting him braces fitted.

When I heard of this (from my son, not from my ex or from his nanny), I wrote to my ex to ask him why he had done this without my consent and asking him for details of the orthodontist so that I can ask various questions about my son’s treatment.

My ex has not replied to my email and has simply gone ahead and has had the treatment started – braces fixed.

Now I’m really annoyed about this. I agree that my son should have the braces fitted but that’s not the point. The point is that my exhusband had no right to go ahead and give medical treatment to one of our children without my consent. I have parental responsibility, which means:

I can’t bear this. The emptiness of an empty house; I was goint to call it a “home” but without my children, the place I’m living in doesn’t feel like home. No laughing, no shouting, no arguing, no giggling, no crying, no recorder playing, no arguing over the computer, no one asking for a cuggle, or a snuggle, or a hug or telling me that they love me (”to the moon and stars and back againm,mummy”) that they love me, that they miss me, that they want to sit next to me at the dinner table, that they want to tell me about their day at school, about the fights in the playground, about the lesson they found boring, about the exciting new game they’ve invented, about the picture they’ve just drawn, about the pig they’re making in pottery, about the lunch that they didn’t like, about the cheating in the maths test…………………

No little person creeping into my room in the depths of night scared from a nightmare and wanting to snuggle up to mummy to comfort them and take away their fear.

Nobody running into my room in the morning to tell me that they managed to tie their shoe laces for the first time, that they’ve got themselves dressed without being asked, to ask me for their favourite breakfast, to ask me if they can sit next to me at the table as it’s their turn to sit next to me…..No chasing around trying to find a mislaid tie or a beret or the other plimsoll……No practising spellings or times tables over the breakfast table, answering the hundredth “why” question or explaining why God doesn’t have a mummy, or trying to work out how far we are away from the Sun, or why some people are mean to each other……..or why mummy and daddy can barely talk to each other…….or why they can’t see me more often…..or why the CAFCASS think mummy can’t see them more often…..

Nobody.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Just an empty house. The television adverts show me all the family adverts: adverts for family cars, adverts for washing your children’s dirty clothes, family holidays, family home insurance, children’s medicines to stop them coughing at night, calpol to help your baby sleep………I have been deprived of my “Right to live a family life” which, by the way (or at least in my case its “by the way”) is one of the Rights set out in the Human Rights Act…..

No family for me anymore.

Just an empty house. And silence.

I can’t bear it – it hurts too much…….It really hurts….

 http://www.mind.org.uk/Information/Legal/Legal+briefing+The+Human+Rights+Act+1998.htm 

I’m lying in bed surrounded by my children’s cuddly toys – it’s the nearest I can get to having my children with me. The teddies smell of my children – some even have slightly discoloured bits where one of the children has spilt something on their teddy as they’ve dragged it around with them. Last count, there are around 30 cuddly toys in my room – all belonging to them. They’re crazy about them. There are leopards, lions, sheep, rabbits, bears, glow bears, cats…….all sorts, shapes, sizes, colours. All of them much loved.

There here with me because the children want me to have something to cuddle when they’re away from me. Each time they come here to me, they bring different ones so that the teddys do a “rota” system: the teddies spend a few weeks here, then a few weeks at their dads…………

My son gave me his favourite rabbit to cuddle whilst he’s gone. When I objected, he said it was the only rabbit that had enough of his love in it to keep me going – he wanted his rabbit to love me whilst he’s gone. He took away another new one and said that I could have the new one once he’d loved it for a bit so that it was filled with his love and then I could cuddle up to the newly love-filled rabbit……Rather like the duracell bunny, I guess….

Only problem is, these teddies don’t cuddle back. They don’t bring tears of laughter to my eyes when we swap a silly joke or make up a story. They don’t have warm, loving hands that hold mine. They don’t tease and argue and fight and joke and laugh and cry  and sneeze and jump and muck about and giggle helplessly. They don’t look at me with love, kindness and care; I can’t even bear to look into their glassy, cold eyes and see………….nothing.

They’re empty in truth.

And that’s what I am without my children.

Well, somehow I knew it was going to happen – the continuing excuses as to why my husband still thinks I shouldn’t be able to see the kids………

In April,I was forced to leave the family home following my husbands Occupation Order to get me out on the basis that my presence in the house was causing the children “significant harm”. I didn’t agree that it was my “continuing presence” that was causing them harm, but the arguing and bickering was distressing for them. My own view though was that it would be even more distressing for them if I left, especially without another home to go to and for them to call their own too. But I was advised by my lawyers that the Judge would force me to go so, rather than spending another £20,000 of wasted legal fees, I was told I should go. So I did, very unhappily. Not surprisingly the children were terribly upset. They told me they kept going into my empty room and couldn’t believe that I was gone………..and so was my bed that they cuddled up to me in.

However, I have Shared Residency Order which states that the children are to live with me for half the holidays and every other weekend during term time, and another afternoon or possibly two each week for the mother as agreed between the parties. So my solicitors wrote to his, suggesting that the kids and I should see each other every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon after school – an arrangement which the Judge had said in the Court Order that she would “welcome” but it would have to be with agreement by both parents.

However, I thought at the time the Order was made that the reality was that my husband wouldn’t agree to it and, sure enough, he is still refusing to agree to an afternoon after school so that the kids and I can see each other. His reasons are still the same as they were 6 months ago: “the children need routine and stability.” Well, surely the same afternoon each week for contact is “routine”. Surely the children will feel more “stable” if they see their mother once a week? “The children have a very important year ahead of them at school.” Oh, and not seeing their mother is going to help them with that??

Where are the children’s rights here? Or their Human Right to have a family life (one of the Rights set out under the Human Rights Act). Or my “mother’s rights”…..Who says there are any such things???

Herein lies one of the biggest problems with a Court Order in Family Law which leaves any kind of extra time with either parent to the agreement between them: it was so obvious to me that my husband wasn’t going to agree to any extra time. When he and his barrister both made oral promises to the Judge that he would definitely encourage and facilitate as much time as possible with me, I could see through his charm, but the Judge was convinced by him. The Judge, however, didn’t go as far as to enshrine any right of the kids to see me mid-week so my requests for more time will continue to be met with refusal.

(To give him his due, he did allow the kids and I to celebrate my birthday together last Thursday which was absolutely brilliant! They got me a Scooby Doo birthday cake with more candles than space on his vast face………yes, I’m ancient……Best birthday I’d had in a very long time. Just me and the kids. Bliss). But that is one rare occasion of “extra” time.

What can I do about it?

I will keep asking, just keep writing, keep writing, keep writing with the same request hoping that he will eventually realise that it isn’t kind to either the kids or me to keep us separated from each other.

The only other option is to go back to the Judge and ask her to adjudicate again on the issue of these after school times. My husband must surely be expecting that I will have to do this; he can’t think that I wouldn’t want to keep asking to see them or that the kids won’t keep asking to see me?  It makes so much more sense though to just be sensible rather than going back to Court again. That would be distressing for all of us, but maybe not as distressing as the continuing absence of my children and I being able to spend time together. 

The thing is, my Bipolar is completely under control and has been ever since before the Court hearing started; I have repeatedly been given the all clear by my psychiatrist who says I am perfectly stable. So it’s not like I’m manic or hypomanic or severely depressed or alcoholic or abusive or anything else – I’m just a really decent, loving mum who wants to see her kids and, most of all, give them loads of love and hugs………..I’ve even told him that he can insist on making me have a psychiatric assessment of my mental health every 6-8 weeks if he needs any reassurance, so why’s he refusing to take me up on it?

His latest reasons are that I have been “turning up at the kids schools and this has distressed them.” What I have, in fact, been doing, is to attend every single school event that I can so that I get to look at the kids even if I can’t hug them or talk with them. So I go to all the school masses, services, sports events, coffee mornings, kids parties etc. I am fully legally entitled to go to these, so I’m not just “turning up”. Also the kids want me there at their sports matches, their masses, concerts etc. The only reason they are distressed is because they’re not seeing enough of me, not because I’m there!

He then cites the fact that on around 3-4 ocasions, I have dropped the children back between 15mins – 1 hour late on a Sunday night after my long drive back up to Kingston through Sunday afternoon, London-bound traffic. This is “proof” that I am unreliable and irresponsible……………..clearly.

So, I just have to keep asking. Most importantly, the kids keep asking me why they can’t see me more often and they ask me to ask him. So I do. And he says no. So I ask again. And he says no. When the children ask me why he says no, I simply have to say “I don’t know why, you’ll need to ask him yourself.” What else can I say?

My eldest daughter (frighteningly mature and perceptive for her age) said: “Mummy, you have to stand up to him. If you don’t, he’ll just keep treating you badly and ignoring you. If you let him get away with it, he’ll carry on doing it. You can’t let him carry on like this.”

Well, that may be the truth and I want to stand up to him for her and my sake. But just how do you stand up to a parent who is determined to put you down and stamp on you? I can only think that I have to be as level headed as possible and appeal to his legal/rational mind. So I keep writing to him.

Unfortunately, due to the incredibly strategic manner in which my husband ran his case (he’s the head of a litigation department, so he knows all the tactics), I have learnt to ensure that there’s a paper trail of correspondence so that he can’t claim that I haven’t requested time with the kids.  I send the emails with the “Read receipt” and “Delivery report” option so that he can’t say that he didn’t receive it (which he has said in the past about emails that he’s denied receiving). When he doesn’t answer, I just keep forwarding the email asking him to reply. If this goes back to Court then I will have all my requests documented that I have continually asked to see the kids and he is persistently refusing. By asking him to reply by email, he has to put his reasons down in writing. Which of course are then also documented so there is no way that he can argue that he didn’t give the reasons that he has, in fact, given. Our whole relationship has always been plagued with the “you said “x”" , “no I didn’t – I said “y”", “no you didn’t” etc. We even discussed this in our 2 and a half years at Relate: how can 2 people sharing a conversation remember totally different things about what was said, in what tone, with what expression etc? Even before we divorced, we agreed that we would write things down in emails to send to each other so that we had a record of what each of us had said in a vain hope of avoiding rows about who said what. Clearly it didn’t work, hence the divorce……..!

Oh, and I forward all the emails and the replies to my lawyer for safe keeping in case there’s any denial that these requests were ever made……………….

However, I am no longer able to afford to instruct a barrister to represent me; therefore I am a “litigant in person”and don’t have to pay any more legal fees. That being the case, any correspondence or further Court applications won’t cost me any more money so I don’t have to worry about the fees. I think my husband will still be paying for his though……

Any other parents out there also having similar problems? Did any of you manage to find a clever way of solving this issue?

Please let me know or just keep hoping for me……………

So what rights do we parents with Bipolar have if we are not living with our children full time or any of the time?

Just because you have a mental illness does not mean that you don’t have any parental rights. If you are told that you don’t, then check out the Children’s Act 1989, section 2. Here’s the link: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1989/Ukpga_19890041_en_2.htm#mdiv2

My child had an accident at schoool last week, breaking a limb. The school didn’t phone me to inform me, neither did my ex-husband, neither did the nanny. The first I hear about it is my child (age 5) phoning me when she got home. I wasn’t able to be with her at the hospital to comfort her and oversee her treatment or consent to any treatment necessary because I wasn’t informed about her being there. My daughter was upset that I wasn’t there with her.

Now, why wasn’t I informed by anyone? I’m her mum, right? What about my mother’s rights? What about my childrens’ rights to have a parent with them if they go to hospital?

Well, the school felt that it was only necessary to phone the nanny, as the nanny is the nearest person to the school (I am currently living further away – not through choice – but because I am having to live with my brother at the moment having been made to leave my home by my husband). The nanny didn’t phone because she said she couldn’t use her mobile in the hospital. My ex-husband didn’t phone because he was on business abroad. So, clearly the school and the nanny thought they should deal with it between themselves. This nanny is new to the children’s lives having only worked there for around 2 months; she is not someone with whom they are very close yet.

I figure that most children, especially very young ones, usually want their mummy (and often their daddy) when something hurts or frightens them, not a nanny, no matter how much they like their nanny. But neither my child nor I were given the option to ensure we were able to be together.

So, I phoned the school to ask why on earth I hadn’t been told. The school said that they only need to phone the “emergency contact” and didn’t think they had to phone me as well. I said that I thought they should in future but the school secretary was not convinced that she had to and, reading between the lines, I think that she thought that, because the children are living with my husband during the week, she should only have to phone him or his nanny rather than me. Any lack of communication between my husband/nanny and me was for us to sort out between ourselves.

Fat chance.

So, I looked up my rights as a parent. For all of those of you in the UK who may have come across a similar kind of “marginalising” of your parental rights, look up the Children’s Act 1989, which sets out your parental rights in a concept of “parental responsibility”:

Parental Responsibility is defined in the Children Act 1989 as:

Section 3.—(1)  In this Act “parental responsibility” means all the rights, duties, powers, responsibilities and authority which by law a parent of a child has in relation to the child and his property.

Parental responsibility for the children is given in respect of the mother and the father:

Section  2.—(1)  Where a child’s father and mother were married to each other at the time of his birth, they shall each have parental responsibility for the child.

This parental responsibility subsists irrespective of any Court Order, unless the Court Order specifically states that a particular parent no longer has parental responsibility. The only time parental responsibility can be withdrawn is if the Court makes a Specific Issues Order withdrawing parental responsibility from one or other of the parent.

That is not the case with us. I still have full parental responsibility for my children and  therefore have equal parental rights, duties etc – neither of us has more or less responsibility/rights than the other.

Information from the School

As regards to information given out to us both, I asked the Department for Education and Skills to clarify the situation regarding a school’s duties and was referred to a document which gives guidelines to schools about what information they should give out to parents and the nature of parental responsibility. It states that:

“This document is guidance to schools on who is a parent for the purposes of education legislation; provides a brief description of court orders which settle areas of dispute about a child’s care or upbringing and which can limit an individual’s parental responsibility; and sets out some general principles to guide schools as to who they must involve in issues about a child’s education and who they must keep informed about school matters.

For ease of reference I have inserted here the relevant passage:

“School and LEA staff must treat all parents equally, unless there is a court order limiting an individual’s exercise of parental responsibility. Individuals who have parental responsibility for, or care of, a child have the same rights as natural parents, for example:·         to receive information from the school (e.g. copies of the governors’ annual report, pupil reports and attendance records);·         to participate in activities (e.g. vote in elections for parent governors); ·         to be asked to give consent (e.g. to the child taking part in extra-curricular activities);·         to be told about meetings involving the child (e.g. a governors’ meeting on the child’s exclusion). Administration“Details of court orders should also be noted in a pupil’s record. Such information will be necessary when decisions need to be made about who can give parental permission for a school visit, or be contacted if the child is ill…..”20. Schools are also uncertain sometimes about the position where a child has an accident and consent may be needed for emergency medical treatment. The Children Act provision that people who do not have parental responsibility but nonetheless have care of a child may “do what is reasonable in all the circumstances of the case for the purpose of safeguarding or promoting the child’s welfare” applies in such cases. It would clearly be reasonable for the school to take a child who needs to have a wound stitched up to hospital, but the parents - including any non-resident* parent who has asked to be kept informed of events involving the child - should be informed as soon as possible. If, however, any decision needs to be made about alternative types of treatment, the hospital will need to discuss options with the parents. Schools will clearly not want to take responsibility for making decisions in relation to elective surgery - and it is very unlikely that hospitals would want them to do so..(*although I am a “resident parent” under the Shared Residency Order).