"My best is not good enough", (a parents lament)

grahamg

grahamg

Old codger
Location
South of Manchester, UK
My best is not "good enough",

My best is not enough,
what should I do?
I've strived, I think,
and tried to learn,
and all of that,
and loved my child,
as much as I could,
but still its not enough!

Who says so,
I hear you ask?
Well those who know,
what is required of you,
by all or anyone's child,
and they can't be questioned,
with "How do you know",
or "Why did you say those things"?

"Could have done better",
will be their report,
and from your life is taken,
that what you had treasured most,
who could not have been here,
had you not trodden this earth,
and whether it's true or not, whats been said,
no parent at all you shall become!

grahamg (2021).
 

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Bellbird said:
If your best is not good enough, who is making the call. ?
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Family courts, (or their officials at least, who, when spokespeople at their head office in London are questioned, say: "they understand more or less everything to do with children, when the parents cant agree about them").

Having said that, "show any weakness", and you'll have plenty of others jumping on the bandwagon! :(
 
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Paco Dennis said:
It seems like having a child/children is like a crap shoot ( gambling ). You can lose, or win, or keep trying over and over 'till one or the other happens anyway.
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Life's a gamble isn't it, (or so my dad used to say), and you don't have to be religious to feel sometimes we get the family/children we deserve, or can cope with perhaps(?). :)
 
Children devise ways to cope with unpleasant life circumstances. Not all come up with healthy coping mechanisms. One never knows how they might respond and what they're thinking deep down. Every child is different.

You and your ex apparently couldn't manage your problems with each other to the point where your daughter (I think you have just the one child) felt loved, valued, nurtured and secure with the two of you independently and as a parenting team.

Family courts have the unenviable job of managing what the family itself couldn't figure out - and are tasked to do so while hamstrung by laws, too little time or insight, insufficient funding and conflicting, self-serving stories describing a family's dynamics.

Since you've posted about this quite often, it is obviously - and understandably - very painful for you. You have my sympathies.
 
Bellbird said:
If your best is not good enough, who is making the call. ?
Click to expand...
I forgot to mention two local librarians, (a husband and wife team), basing their opinions on my lack of parenting skills, or the quality of my relationship with my child on the basis of watching her arrive back from a contact visit "ON ONE OCCASION", and this was enough for them to condemn me in statements provided to the courts!

Then my child's school chose to intervene and write to the courts condemning me, something quite unusual I believe, as the governments rules, and advice to schools, is to avoid becoming embroiled in disputes over children's contact with their parents, (so the rule book got trashed too!). :(

All in all, seven people, besides my ex., provided evidence used against me, so a veritable throng just ready and eager to jump in, (none of whom ever witnessed a single contact visit of course!).
 
StarSong said:
Children devise ways to cope with unpleasant life circumstances. Not all come up with healthy coping mechanisms. One never knows how they might respond and what they're thinking deep down. Every child is different.

You and your ex apparently couldn't manage your problems with each other to the point where your daughter (I think you have just the one child) felt loved, valued, nurtured and secure with the two of you independently and as a parenting team.

Family courts have the unenviable job of managing what the family itself couldn't figure out - and are tasked to do so while hamstrung by laws, too little time or insight, insufficient funding and conflicting, self-serving stories describing a family's dynamics.

Since you've posted about this quite often, it is obviously - and understandably - very painful for you. You have my sympathies.
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The reason I post about these things now has nothing to do with any pain it might have caused me, (though you're right to assume it took years to adjust and "get my head around" what happened, to use a very clumsy phrase!).
 
I just thought it might be worth trying t resurrect this thread following the arrival of my latest grandson I learned about a week ago, (by my former brother in law and his wife telling me they'd received an email about this event a couple of weeks earlier, and I didn't even know my daughter was pregnant, though this is no surprise nor reason to upset oneself about now, after such a long estrangement).

Our little joke about the arrival of this new baby, (my former brother in law and I), is that my daughter "Is going for a football team", as its the third boy, but no doubt they've been tempted to try for a girl.

Here is a poignant, though slightly corny, comment upon grandparents etc., (hope you can read it):

Grandpa.1.jpg
 
Murrmurr said:
Wow. A bit lacking in gratitude for @StarSong 's very insightful, heart-felt post.
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I dont disagree, though if you dont mind my saying, there are a good many things you are ignoring about the family law situation in the UK, (should you have read the comments I've made before as it appears our other forum friend has), that should make you exclaim "Wow" before my not thanking anyone for a post on this forum, particularly when I believe shifting the attention to this aspect, quote: "Since you've posted about this quite often, it is obviously - and understandably - very painful for you. You have my sympathies" is unhelpful in my view.

If you read my "gatekeeper" thread you will see there I'm trying my best to put forward the idea opposing those parents acting as though they have the devine right to decide who else should have anything to do with the child under any circumstances is what our courts should be about, and yet under "the best interests paramount principle", (and assuming it should apply, again in all circumstances), this is not what our courts focus upon as at least an equally important matter than the interests of the child as the courts see such a thing.

Dont forget too that "deciding what may be in a child's best interests is no lesser a consideration than the meaning of life itself", (according to Mnookin).

And the United Nations declaration on the rights of the child has the best interests of the child as "A" main/paramount criteria, not "THE" main/paramount criteria, and that seemingly small difference makes all the difference in the world, especially in some extreme cases.

For example it would be unlawful for our family courts to decide in favour of a father or mother getting to see their own children before they die of cancer, (or some other often uncurable and usually non transmissable disease), on the basis this is the right thing to do in a humane society for that parent, putting aside some notion of whether some official, or "court appointed busy body declares this it is n this child's interests to see their dying parent, but not in the next child's best interests".

Remember it is simply a "rebuttable" presumption in favour of contact for decent parents I seek, so even if I'm dying and being denied contact with my child, the ex can still oppose it but this time the courts are allowed to take my interests into consideration above that of my child's where there is no threat of harm being done, (and if you dont mind my being facetious for a moment I'd guess most dying parents arent so much in to abusing their children I'd suspect, as being overwhelmed by the pleasure of seeing them).

Anything there to make you say "WOW"?!
 
grahamg said:
I forgot to mention two local librarians, (a husband and wife team), basing their opinions on my lack of parenting skills, or the quality of my relationship with my child on the basis of watching her arrive back from a contact visit "ON ONE OCCASION", and this was enough for them to condemn me in statements provided to the courts!
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You know what, I believe you.

I well remember the time our pastor told my husband that I was severely abusing our three year old triplets.

What had I done? Nothing.

What had my boys done (the size of 2 year olds; they were 3 months premature)? They stood in front of the standing pastor (I was there too) and did not make eye contact with him when he talked to them. The boys were not used to putting their necks back to see someone that high up. They would not have been able to look the pastor in the eye anyway. Most adult went to their level. Pastor did not know this because he did not have kids. Besides, he was an a**hole.

My husband stood up for me. But then when we went for marriage counseling with the (turned out to be faked credentials) licensed counselor/pastor, on the second session the pastor opened with telling my husband he must divorce me and take full custody of the kids, who were ages 11 and 12, to protect them from me.

My husband was horrified -- he didn't want to be a single father to 4 kids. Kids were 10 and 11. I was horrified because I didn't abuse the kids and no one else had alleged that to anyone, and my husband was rarely home when the kids were awake. Shortly before that, I went to my father's funeral in another state, and the first thing my husband did was tell the kids to ignore the instructions I'd given them, and do what they wanted.

Another time, the lovely and gossipy neighbor lady called the police on me. She told them I was allowing the kids to play baseball, unsupervised, and they were "mentally retarded special needs kids" and she was "afraid a fox would attack them". She called several times, and a police officer went to the cul-de-sac to check on the kids, and then came over to my house.

He told me what happened (which is where I got the quotes) and said not to worry about it. The boys were 11 years old, and our 100 lb. guardian Rough Collie was with them. They were with all the neighbor kids, playing baseball. An adult (the mother of one of the kids) was sitting there supervising the kids and my dog, who was in charge of retrieving fly balls.

The cop said the lady was a nut.
 
I am truly sorry for your pain, @grahamg. You're correct that I'm not well versed in UK custody laws, nor am I more than passingly familiar with the custody laws in my own city and state, having never needed to personally navigate them.

What I DO know is what it's like to grow up in a dysfunctional family anchored by a marriage that devolved into a hot mess by the time I was a small child.

There were five children, each of whom integrated the pain, disappointments and betrayals with whatever coping skills we could personally muster, and each responded accordingly. To this day we carry the shields we developed back then: One remains angry, another is peace-at-any-price, another is a right-fighter, another withdraws and distances, and the last repeated the cycle with her own children.

Adult relationships with our parents (and each other) have been equally diverse, including some close ties, some barely-there ties and some estrangements.

Please don't underestimate the terrible suffering of disastrous marriages on their offspring. All involved see events through their own lenses and respond accordingly. Your daughter undoubtedly has a very different spin on the whys and wherefores of her distancing from you. Not suggesting she's "right" or that it's "fair," merely that she had to carve her own path through the pain.
 
StarSong said:
I am truly sorry for your pain, @grahamg. You're correct that I'm not well versed in UK custody laws, nor am I more than passingly familiar with the custody laws in my own city and state, having never needed to personally navigate them.
What I DO know is what it's like to grow up in a dysfunctional family anchored by a marriage that devolved into a hot mess by the time I was a small child.
There were five children, each of whom integrated the pain, disappointments and betrayals with whatever coping skills we could personally muster, and each responded accordingly. To this day we carry the shields we developed back then: One remains angry, another is peace-at-any-price, another is a right-fighter, another withdraws and distances, and the last repeated the cycle with her own children.
Adult relationships with our parents (and each other) have been equally diverse, including some close ties, some barely-there ties and some estrangements.
Please don't underestimate the terrible suffering of disastrous marriages on their offspring. All involved see events through their own lenses and respond accordingly. Your daughter undoubtedly has a very different spin on the whys and wherefores of her distancing from you. Not suggesting she's "right" or that it's "fair," merely that she had to carve her own path through the pain.
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My daughter was no in pain, (yes divided loyalties, yes a very controlling, though loving mother who as I keep saying was the better parent, and yes things were not always easy for her, but mostly things were pretty good, and she progressed like nobody's business, so no victim in the sense some might wish to portray!).

A guy here feels I'm an awful brute not thanking you, whilst ignoring all my comments about what should shock him in my view, "such is life though"!

I'm not thanking you now by my own choice, as I dont have to thank anyone for their empathy on any forum, where "my pain" you could say, is long gone. When I did struggle to understand all the ramifications I believe stem from those in authority believing they know what is good for children of decent parents, (whilst probably making a complete hash of bringing up their own kids), I believe I got there not through any sympathy anyone might have offered me, but by refusing to believe all the nonsense so many do gooders choose to spout continuously I'm sorry to say, (not that I dislike our "forum friend" you understand, that isn't a factor here!).
 
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grahamg said:
My best is not "good enough",

My best is not enough,
what should I do?
I've strived, I think,
and tried to learn,
and all of that,
and loved my child,
as much as I could,
but still its not enough!

Who says so,
I hear you ask?
Well those who know,
what is required of you,
by all or anyone's child,
and they can't be questioned,
with "How do you know",
or "Why did you say those things"?

"Could have done better",
will be their report,
and from your life is taken,
that what you had treasured most,
who could not have been here,
had you not trodden this earth,
and whether it's true or not, whats been said,
no parent at all you shall become!

grahamg (2021).
Click to expand...
What do you mean you loved your child as much as you could?
 
grahamg said:
I believe I got their not through any sympathy anyone might have offered me, but by refusing to believe all the nonsense so many do gooders choose to spout continuously I'm sorry to say, (not that I dislike our "forum friend" you understand, that isn't a factor here!).
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Outrageous. You're right, you deserve no empathy, sympathy or anything else.
 
"A guy here feels I'm an awful brute not thanking you"

I didn't say you're an awful brute, I said you're ungrateful...ungrateful for kind, supportive words. And that's the best anyone here can give you.
 
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