I received the oddest E-mail the other day.
Max’s Troop Leader E-mailed me directly…. I have zero E-mails from this gentleman.
He wrote:
Max didn’t make the meeting.
Chris – I can really use your support with making sure Max makes it to the Jamboree Meetings when it’s your weekend to have him.
Brian E. Cook
He also forwarded the E-mail he had sent to my Ex:
On Jun 26, 2015 3:48 PM, “Brian Cook” wrote:
Hi all –please make sure your boys bring their Boy Scout Handbooks and water to drink for the meeting on Sunday. Thanks.
Brian E. Cook
Now this weekend had already been ruined by my father being dragged to the ER because of a blood infection. In fact, this was exactly where we were… So I shot back:
Brian,
We were at the hospital. I’ll make sure he attends your meetings from now on. If it’s my weekend he can just stay at his mother’s. Your doing a great job raising my son. Thanks!
Now this guy has been setup. I didn’t handle it perfectly, he’s just doing what Christa asked him to do… Which I intend to rectify. His response was perfectly polite:
Ok – thanks for the information. I didn’t realize you guys were at the hospital. I know he had an incident with a truck, so I hope there aren’t any major complications.
If I can do anything to help you guys out, just let me know.
So Brian — before I E-mail to apologize to you for my short outburst I want to summarize my position.
I get my children essentially every other weekend. That’s 52 days a year. I get a couple of holidays which vary per year. So let’s be generous here and tack on four weeks. I’m supposed to get two weeks straight of vacation time with my kids, so far that’s been a mixed bag.
So… I get about 80 days with my kids and in a perfect work perhaps another 14, so at bet 94…. That’s 365 days of which if everything was normal I have roughly 22% – 25% of the time… That’d be great truly. Except realistically my Ex schedules anything and everything on my time….. Let’s just take a look at the last two months….
June 13th – 13th : Sam has “special” life guard training won’t be home until Saturday 5pm
June 20th – 21st : Sam has “special” life guard training won’t be home until Saturday 5pm (Father’s day weekend! Woo hoo!)
June 27th – 28th : Sam has “special” life guard training won’t be home until Saturday 5pm, Max Jamboree Meeting 5pm – 6pm
July 11th – 12th : Max gone, trip to Durango
July 25th – 26th : Max and Sam gone to “trips” overseas (15 and you are sending them alone on international trips?)
So — total here 10 days of time… Of these weekends each and everyone of them have special appointments and travel requirements that break up my family time one way or another. I get to see Sam basically 5 out of the 10 days (50%) and Max I get to see 6 out of the 10 days (Nice! 60% and technically it’s higher because we missed the Jamboree meeting because of visiting Dad in the hospital! 70%! Nice!)
Previous months during my time the usual Scout Meetings and Track and Field, which are six hour all day events on Saturday. Now all the other divorced people I talk to have varying degrees of animosity with their Ex and most don’t “agree” with the other’s household, but each and everyone of them state they WILL NOT schedule events on the other parents time, it’s considered rude.
So there we have it… Of my 22% – 25% of time I get with my kids roughly 50% of it is scheduled by my Ex… So I get 11% – 13% of my kids time… Not good.