Tag: motherhood

Posted in Motherhood, Non Custodial Mom, Non Custodial Parent, Non-Custodial Dad

Parent of secondary residence

Posted on by cmfalato

Non-custodial parenting: Expectation vs. Reality

Technically, I am not – was not, custody ended 5 years ago when Joey turned 18 – non-residential custodian. My custody agreement says I am “parent of secondary residence.”

Same difference. New Jersey legalese says po-tay-to, the rest of the world says po-tah-to.

It’s New Jersey. Fuhgeddaboudit! Whaddaya want?

Just don’t refer to pork roll as Taylor Ham north of Newark and you’re golden.

No, seriously about the Taylor Ham thing.

Parent of secondary residence, non-custodial parent, non-residential custodian. It all comes down to the same thing: my kid doesn’t live with me.

No big deal, society has accepted weekend dads.

Yep, that’s where it gets dicey. Society has not accepted weekend moms.

Non-custodial, parent of secondary residence, non-residential moms haven’t accepted that about themselves.

Or, at least, I didn’t.

I divorced my husband; gave up residential custody, but somehow forgot that meant I was no longer part of Joey’s day-to-day life.

Maybe it was that long-delayed “childbirth amnesia” finally kicking in, because let me tell you, when a 9 pounds, 9 ounces and 23 inches newborn exits your body through a tube less than 1/2 inch in diameter, you remember.

Or you do until you come home to an empty apartment after working late because you don’t want to face not being able to tuck that now 4 year old into bed and tell him a story.

That pain, initially, is worse. Much, much worse.

There are just some losses you don’t ever get over. You just force yourself to live around them.

If I stop to think about how much my not being there every day hurt Joey, I won’t be able to keep writing. I’ll lose myself in the guilt a mother never gets over: the kind that comes when your child gets hurt because of something you did. Like when you forget to reapply sunscreen at the pool and they get a sunburn, or when you have to work so they miss a birthday party.

Except for non-custodial moms, it’s worse.

I once read a book for non-custodial moms that told me I should let go of my guilt and embrace my life as a “big hearted mother living apart from her child.”

I can understand spoken Russian better than I can comprehend that statement.

_____________________

“Coming to bed, dear?” my husband calls from down the hall. Then, “By the way, I think some of the clothes you put in my clean laundry pile actually belong to Joey.”

“I’m coming to bed in a moment,” I reply, followed by “And that doesn’t surprise me.”

The part about coming to bed in a moment is a lie. I’ve got at least another half hour on this chapter.

The part about my son’s clothing mixed in with my husband’s isn’t.

I am surprised that my son’s laundry has gone through the wash already. It’s only been a week and a half since he went back home to college. Did I really clean his room so quickly?

______________________

When I decided Joey would live with his dad full-time, it did not occur to me that I wouldn’t be able to see him every day. Joey would just be spending every night at his dad’s, except for the 2 Friday and Saturday nights a month he would spend with me.

Other than that, nothing would change. I would continue to be a part of Joey’s every day life, the same way I always had been.

I didn’t think I wouldn’t be there to tuck him in at night. I only lived 2 miles away. My now ex-husband wouldn’t mind my coming by his house every night.

I wouldn’t mind going over to his house – my old house – every day!

I would also take care of Joey when he was home from school, and pick him up at after-care. Joey would be with me any time his father needed a babysitter.

I am Joey’s mother. Of course that’s how it would go!

Or, maybe reading Frank Herbert’s Dune series during my pregnancy postponed my post-partum Mommy Brain Fog for four years.

Yes. I wanted to see my son.

I did not want to see my old house or my old husband every day.

Yes, said old husband wanted his son to spend time with his mother.

He did not want to see said mother, aka his newly minted ex-wife, every day.

Also, living separate and apart – more New Jersey divorce legalese – means, well, you don’t live together.

You kinda have to live with your kid to be a part of his every day life.

…until he turns 18, graduates high school, moves in with roommates, goes off to college…suddenly he’s the same age his dad was when you met and he’s calling you up because he left his iPad in his bedroom in Boston…

True story.

Posted in Long Distance Parenting, Motherhood, Non Custodial Mom, Non Custodial Parent, Non-Custodial Dad

Define Mess, Exactly

Posted on by cmfalato

You do what’s best for your kids, even when it hurts

When I say my life was a mess 20 years ago, or a disaster, because it was in my eyes, I mean I was completely disorganized, stressed out, and unmoored. I had planned this … life; this Disney fairytale where TheEx and I had 3 kids, lived in our cozy little Zaymoor Colonial in Bergen County, worked, and had big family gatherings for holidays.

I had been forced to admit that life wasn’t going to work out. Even though I was the one leaving, I still felt heartbroken. I felt shattered, and the fact that I hadn’t planned where I would be going to after I left meant I had no way of even starting to pick up the pieces.

Also, I didn’t have a job, which, for me, is a disaster. Even before I became a non-custodial mom, I defined myself in part by my career. I had quit my old job as a proposal writer in New York City on the (bad) advice of my lawyer, who advised if I was working outside the home, I could lose even joint custody.

Yeah…not smart. A job would have been an anchor point.

So, yeah, back then my life – new apartment with windows I learned after I signed the lease didn’t lock, noisy neighbors living next door, no job, hastily packed boxes of my old life and random bits of new Ikea furniture scattered about – was a disaster.

TheEx, on the other hand, had a job, making more money than I ever could as a writer, had the house because I couldn’t afford to buy him out of it, and was heartbroken, but also angry.

…and he could afford a better lawyer, and a custody battle.

We were in our old bedroom on a Wednesday, 1 month after I filed for divorce. I was packing up my clothes while we discussed the financial settlement, how we would break up holidays so Joey could see both of us at Christmas, whose CDs were whose, who wanted the wedding china; who would take the stoneware vs. the Correlleware –

–the stuff you hate to need to figure out when you end a marriage —

…when the subject of custody came up. We had been trying split-week custody for the last month. Joey would live with me Sunday afternoon to Wednesday afternoon, and with his Dad Wednesday night to Sunday morning.

“You take residential custody,” I said quietly, staring down at my hands folding a blouse, feeling my heart start to fall to the pit of my stomach as my entire body tensed up, like it was being asked to do something it was incapable of doing, had no choice but to do.

“Why the change?” my (still then future ex) husband asked.

___________________________

That afternoon, before I drove him to his Dad’s, Joey was riding his red and blue big wheel in the back driveway of my apartment while I hung laundry on the line.

“Mommy!” Joey called just as I was fastening a sheet to the line.

I rushed over to my 4 year old son to find he’d had an accident. The 2nd one that week, and the 5th that month on my watch, despite his having been potty trained since 3, and my asking him every hour if he needed to go to the bathroom.

The look in my son’s eyes showed how stressed he was.

I scooped my son up onto my hip, soaked shorts and all and smiled at him. “I’ve got you. Ready to clean up and head over to Daddy’s?”

Joey nodded.

“Do you want to live with Daddy all the time and I’ll come see you every day?”

Joey looked down, frowned, and then slowly nodded.

I smiled, hugged him tightly, and carried him into the bathroom. “Then that’s what you’ll do. You live with Daddy. I’ll come see you every day, and you can sleep over every other weekend. How does that sound?”

My son stopped tugging off his wet clothes, visibly relaxed, and smiled. “Can we watch Star Wars?”

“Of course, honey.” I ran the bath water, squirted in some Mr. Bubbles, tested the water to make ure it wasn’t too hot or too cold, and plunked him down in the tub.

__________________________

I remember that day; that moment with the yellow sun streaming, Joey riding his blue Big Wheel with the big red tire, the clothespin in my hand. I remember hearing his call, seeing what happened, and knowing.

You do what’s best for your kids, even when it kills you, and kids know. Kids know when something isn’t right. They know where they belong. They let you know what’s best for them.

In this case, best for both of us as it turned out, but it took me a long time to learn that.

___________________________

My phone beeps. It’s my ex, texting me a picture of Joey holding up his new video game.

I smile. Back to the t-shirt.

To be continued… 

Posted in Long Distance Parenting, Motherhood, Non Custodial Mom, Non Custodial Parent, Non-Custodial Dad

Back to the start

Posted on by cmfalato

The 2 Days of my son’s life I remember most clearly are the day he was born, and the day I let him go

Sitting here in front of my computer today, glaring meaningfully at a scrap of a former Cricut Infusible Ink transfer sheet in the vague form of an X-box. This is my second attempt at this t-shirt – my 4th if you count its 2022 and 2024 heat transfer vinyl counterparts.

Joey gets a t-shirt every year for his birthday. Hand made – well, hand-ironed on, sometimes custom designed. Although to be fair, I have cheated a couple times with Amazon.com, usually the few times I wasn’t able to be there in person for Joey’s birthday – COVID, neck surgery (long story), bi-lateral carpal tunnel release surgery (another long story), a mid-March Nor’Easter.

I have them all, too. I’ve saved them. I’m going to turn them into a set of memory quilts using an ancient quilt I made that became Joey’s favorite when he spent the entire summer up here in 2020.

Remember in when I told you we all have that friend, and that I’m her?

I digress…again…

Level 23 Unlocked!

Has it been that long already? For confirmation, I look up to shelf above my desk to the silver-framed photo of Joey at 2 months and then down at the more recent on the wall behind me.

Yeah, it has… 23 years ago I was staring at my baby bump saying, “C’mon honey, Mommy wants to see her feet again.”

____________________________

I did not expect Joey to arrive on his actual due date, that never happens. I had hoped for early, or at least not, following in the footsteps of both his parents, 2 weeks late. Those didn’t happen either. My son, the master of compromise even in utero it seems, arrived exactly one week after his due date.

Supposedly, you stop recalling things exactly as they were over time. There are things – both my weddings, the restaurant my husband took me to on our first date, the restaurant Joey’s father took me to on our first date, the first time I met my old boss at SimplexGrinnell – I can remember but not pull up a clear picture of.

I can see, clearly, any time I think of it, the first time I met my son.

After 30 hours of labor. Joey took his own sweet time joining the world outside my womb. I was cursing like a sailor for the first 10-20 hours of that time. They actually closed the door to my labor and delivery room; turns out those doors are actually soundproof.

The last 10 hours I just chanted “10 fingers; 10 toes; 2 eyes, a mouth and a nose.”

I don’t actually remember much about the labor itself, other than the swearing and the chanting. I just remember, at the end of it, a nurse said, “Meet your son Mrs. R–,” and putting Joey gently down on my chest.

“Hi little guy,” I said.

My son opened his newborn gray eyes and looked straight into mine.

A part of me I didn’t even know had been missing fell silently into place in my heart.

____________________________

The same heart that broke, 4 years later, in another moment I can clearly recall: the day I knew I had to let him go.

I did say earlier than when I divorced Joey’s dad, my life was a mess – or maybe I said disaster – either is rather accurate. That is what you expect to hear when you learn that a mother doesn’t have custody of their child(ren). You expect a mother without custody’s life to be a mess. You expect she’s lost custody through some fault of her own:

  • She’s an alcoholic
  • She’s a recovering drug-addict
  • She physically abused her children
  • She physically abused herself
  • She has a mental health disorder like borderline personality disorder or schizophrenia
  • She has a mental health disorder and refuses to stay on her meds or in therapy
  • She ran off with another guy
  • She abandoned her kids

I’ll grant in some cases that is true; those are the classic definitions of a life being a disaster.

Most of the time, it’s really just that Mom didn’t have the money to fight a custody battle, or she didn’t want to put her kids through a custody battle. Sadly, it’s not always assured that a court will grant residential custody to Mom anymore. Also sadly, custody battles are often decided by money: whoever has the most, and can hire the best lawyer wins.

In my case it … I pause to think for a minute. Writing this part is hard. I have had a very long road learning to let go of the guilt I felt over not fighting harder for my son; over not just staying married so I could stay with him; over all the things I did wrong 20 years ago…

________________________

Just now my ex-husband calls, breaking my train of thought. I’m actually wondering why my current husband hasn’t come up to my home office to do that yet. I so rarely get time alone to do anything on a weekend.

Anywhoo, Leading Man #4 (bumped from #3 by the dog) is out with my son today. “Joey, say hi to Mommy.”

A gruff 23 year old voice comes on the line, “Hi Mom.”

“Hey Leading Man #1! What are you guys up to?”

“Oh, we’re just going to lunch and then the game store,” my ex cuts in cheerfully. “Say, what are we going to do about college transportation? Are we still using the same service?”

“We’re switching, but after spring break,” I reply.

“Ok, well let me know what I need to do,” TheEx says.

“Will do.”

“Ok, say goodbye to Mommy, Joey.”

“Bye, Mom.”

“Bye sweetheart. Have a great time today!”

I wish I was there with him.

I have to finish this t-shirt!

–CMR

Posted in Autism, Learning Disabilities, Motherhood, Special Education

The perseverating spectrum of guilt

Posted on by cmfalato

It doesn’t matter how many times I tell my son he didn’t fail, he still thinks he did

My son calls me up from college during his lunch break and asks a question he’s been asking since he was 16:

“Did I get kicked out of my high school?”

I sigh and try to contain the anger that surfaces each time he asks this question. I’m not angry with him.

I am not even angry with the high school assistant principal, the case manager, and the classroom teacher who failed him.

NOT because they didn’t follow the IEP. Not because they took advantage of my soft-spoken ex-husband, the Joey’s residential custodian and in-state parent to avoid having to do so.

Not even because they took advantage of Joey’s definitely NOT soft-spoken advocate and co-legal custodian, living out-of-state, to move slowly.

I know the missteps leading to my son having a series of catastrophic meltdowns and finally having to leave the high school were not 100% their fault.

Some of it was my fault for not actually reading and understanding the IEP. Some of it was my ex-husband’s for not realizing, because things were fine at home, there was a problem.

Hillary was right, it takes a village to raise an autistic, learning-disabled child.

No, what I’m angry about is that my son keeps apologizing for this. JR thinks he failed the high school.

Autistic individuals – in my experience – never get over their own perceived failures. They – we – keep coming back to them, no matter how much time has passed.

…and those failures still hurt. It doesn’t matter how much time has passed. We keep coming back to those moments. We can’t escape the pit-of-our stomachs guilt of our real or perceived mistakes.

Each time my son brings up “getting kicked out of high school,” I explain how that was not what happened.

You didn’t fail, JR. I pulled you out of the high school because I wasn’t happy with them (I wasn’t).

Your dad and I wanted you to go to a better school (we did).

The high school wasn’t giving you what you needed (they weren’t).

I didn’t finish high school, either (I graduated 6 weeks early).

JR, you didn’t fail. The school failed you (they did).

JR, you are a good person (he is).

JR, you didn’t do anything wrong. You know if you did, I would tell you (that’s true. I don’t mince words with my kid).

I say these things every time he asks, and, 9 years, a high school diploma and 3 college acceptances later, he still does.

JR is thriving now. I tell him so all the time. Every time I speak to one of his teachers, coaches, caregivers, I let him know what they said. I highlight his accomplishments.

Your coach says you’re bench pressing 95lbs! That’s amazing (it is).

Your nutritionist said you lost 5 pounds! You’re beating your stepdad (he is).

I got your report card. You’re getting straight As in all your classes. Brilliant. (also true. I’m jealous)

Your Group Home manager said you cleaned your room without being reminded. That’s great! (and a rare phenomenon)

JR, your dad and I are very proud of you (we are).

JR, you are smart, kind, and any time you set a goal for yourself, you achieve it (he does).

You are the only person [our anxiety reactive boxer] Rocky doesn’t react to (100% true).

Still, that one moment 9 years ago, this one time he thinks he failed, still haunts him.

I understand why it does. I do the exact same thing.

I wish it didn’t. I wish I could make the assistant principal tell JR what happened wasn’t his fault. I wish I had insisted the case manager talk with him about what happened when it happened.

I want my son understand we: the school, my ex, me, failed him, not the other way around.

It finally took us hiring a special education attorney and advocate to fix everything we got wrong.

I learned a lot about IEPs, IDEA, and FAPE that year. It’s served me well.

JR was placed out-of-district at a special education school. In the right environment, with the IEP being followed, and all of the services he was entitled to and needed being provided (documented on that IEP), the catastrophic in-school meltdowns stopped.

In 2021, JR moved to group home, and a special education high school, where he continued to succeed.

None of that matters to him, though.

I think I’ll go call his father and ask him to talk to JR. Sometimes hearing it from dad helps.

Does your child perseverate on their failures? Do you have a way of reassuring them of their success? Drop a note in the comments and tell us about it.

Cheers,

Cris

Posted in Long Distance Parenting, Motherhood, Non Custodial Mom, Non Custodial Parent, Non-Custodial Dad

Heart FALL-ure

Posted on by cmfalato

Every time I cross the interstate border, my heart falls into place…A few days later, it falls out again

One thing I definitely did not miss in my years as a long-distance parent, with my heart falling into place every time I crossed the NY/NJ border. I was that much closer to my son. The mother and child reunion was about to happen!

My heart would break every time I crossed back a few days later

I also did not miss, by any remote stint or glint, clogged highways. I hit a LOT of traffic commuting back and forth between Boston and Bergen County, New Jersey. Invariably, whenever I am on the road to or from Jersey, a third of Worcester, Massachusetts’s population is there. All of Connecticut is present too. …and at least half the drivers in New York and New Jersey are with me.

Invariably these days those drivers are upset with me. If you watch that TV movie montage of all the years I’ve been doing this, you notice something. After the 2nd time I was pulled over, going the speed of traffic on the Mario Cuomo Bridge, I slowed down. It was newly built but technically still under construction, which made the ticket worse.

Oh wait! The montage doesn’t show that one. The camera couldn’t get a steady shot. The cars flying by me and the police officer who pulled me over made the on-ramp shake.

I’m not complaining about 2 tickets in 14 years. I’m just going the speed limit and riding the right lane a lot more these days. That makes me hated by most of Connecticut, at least when I’m driving through it.

Speaking of which…

I look at the old-fashioned analog alarm clock sitting in the corner of my desk. Even if I left now, no shower, just tossed a bunch of random jeans, t-shirts, bras, and underwear into closest of about 10 different suitcases and weekend bags I’ve tried over the years – I think that’s a Vera Bradley at present. It could just be my husband’s Army surplus rucksack – and hit the road, I would still arrive in Trenton at …

Ohhh, I’m feeling optimistic… it’s 3:00 a.m.? Ok, I’d get there by noon.

Not kidding.

I turn off my sewing machine – the one I’ve been in front of since waking up 2 blogs ago. I HAVE a perfectly good purse for New Jersey. Why does the state intimidate me so? If I try hard enough, I might be able to get in 15 minutes of REM sleep before I have to get on the road. I wonder if the dogs have left me any room on the bed.

To be continued… 

Posted in Long Distance Parenting, Motherhood, Non Custodial Mom, Non Custodial Parent, Non-Custodial Dad

All the little things I missed

Posted on by cmfalato

I’ve lived apart from my son for most of his life, so why is he so much like me?

I’m not sure how my son turned out to be so much like his mother. I wasn’t around in person for a great deal of his life. From the time Joey turned 8 and I moved up to Boston – the only place I could find a job while child support arrears and credit card debit were steadily growing – until he turned 21 and went into a residential program for disabled adults, I was non-residential mom AND a long distance parent.

And yes, I drove a lot. I actually saw him quite a bit.

But despite all that driving, I missed a lot of my son’s life. Joey was a different kid every time I saw him, even when it was only a couple weeks between visits. I’d come down for Thanksgiving and when I returned for Christmas, he’d be a size larger. Or, as he got closer to adolescence – the bane of even a long distance parent’s existence, trust me – his voice would be an octave lower.

It was also little things I missed. When I moved in January 2010, Thomas the Tank Engine was Joey’s favorite show. When I saw him again that March it was Star Wars The Clone Wars. I’d pick him up from his after school program, check his backpack, and find a report card I’d missed. I wasn’t there for school plays and band performances. I did send my parents, or my ex would sit with his phone on in the auditorium so I could listen, but it wasn’t the same.

I didn’t know my son liked museums until his 8th Grade Teacher told me on the class field trip to Washington, DC (which I chaperoned. Brilliant, except for the sound of 60 teenagers on a tiny school bus talking endlessly for 8 hours).

I did call every day. And in 2015, Joey got an iPad mini and with it, FaceTime, so I saw him a lot more.

Well, I saw him when he wanted to see me. Long distance or not, I was officially the mother of a surly teenager who didn’t like to answer his phone, much less his tablet.

As that crab in The Little Mermaid said, “Teenagers man!”

Posted in Long Distance Parenting, Motherhood, Non Custodial Mom, Non Custodial Parent, Non-Custodial Dad

The Rogue Road Warrior

Posted on by cmfalato

Featured image: the Governor Mario Cuomo Bridge alongside the old Tappan Zee Bridge it replaced.

If they made a movie of my life, all you’d see is me driving.

Ugh! I have to be officially up at 5:00 a.m., and on the road by 7:00 a.m. at the absolute very latest, so naturally, at 3:00 a.m., I’m in front of my sewing machine making a new purse.

You know that friend we all have? The one who magically whips up stuff?

  • You’re going to a 50’s-themed Halloween Party, everyone else comes in t-shirts, leather jackets, and blue jeans and she has a hand-sewn, perfect poodle skirt?
  • You’re going on a double date and she and her date arrive in matching t-shirts?
  • You send out those pre-packaged Hallmark party invitations for your kids. She creates custom ones from cardstock?
  • You take the kids to the beach, and at lunch time, you pull out a couple juice boxes and PB&J sandwiches and she unpacks a cooler full of freshly sliced veggies, fruits, and whole wheat turkey sandwiches with the crusts cut off?

Yeah, that friend is me. Except for the gourmet lunch at the beach thing. That was my friend Jamie, as in Jamie Sommers, the Bionic Woman from the 1970’s TV show of the same name.

Everything I learned about early motherhood, I learned from Jamie.

Toddlerhood was as far as I got as a “real”, full-time mom. Then the divorce happened, or rather, I made it happen.

It had to happen.

Moving on.

When I need to relax, I create something, and I REALLY need to relax before a trip through Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. My son lately has been joking that he wishes my dog could teleport.

Man! I wish I could. Maybe I could even sleep through it.

Not a chance.

—————-

If someone made a movie of my life, the opening credits would show an endless highway. Maybe clips of me driving from Boston to Philadelphia across multiple highways over the course of 14 years and four cars.

The seasons would change: fall, winter, spring, summer.

The time of day would change: night, early morning, midnight, afternoon.

The cars would change: A 1998 gunmetal gray Toyota Camry LE; a 2008 gunmetal green Toyota Camry LE (bullet-shaped and more aerodynamic than its 1998 predecessor); a 2014.5 midnight, so called “Parisian Blue” Toyota Camry LE (longer and squarer than the 2008, not as cool as the 1998).

Finally, a 2018, dark gray Subaru Forrester (bought used. After 10 years in New England, I decided all wheel drive was a necessity).

Maybe you’d see the odometers on the first 4 of those cars whirl up over the 150K mile mark faster than, it felt like at the time I was driving them, I could blink.

You might get a cut away to the time I was pulled over alongside the entrance to New York Route 87, just before the Tappan Zee Bridge, and hear me telling the officer in response to his question about what I had to say for myself, “Well, the Pats stink and I’m a Jets fan.” (That got a chuckle from the officer, but it did not get me out of a speeding ticket).

Possibly, you’d get a glimpse of me crossing outbound of the newly-built Governor Mario Cuomo Bridge, which replaced Tappan Zee in the mid 10’s, late at night, just as the last car ever to cross the old TZ crossed on the inbound side.

I would definitely get older. Not the least in part because of Northeast Corridor Traffic.

Kiddo would get taller. A LOT taller. As a gangly teenager I would tease my shorter Aunt Liz about her height. “How’s the view down there?” I would ask.

Man! Karma is a bitch! My son loves putting his hand flat on the top of my head and moving it to where it comes up to the middle of his chest. He smirks at me the whole time he does it, too.

Like I said before, Leading Man #1 is a lot like me.

Posted in Long Distance Parenting, Motherhood, Non Custodial Mom

Then and Now

Posted on by cmfalato

Featured image: Me and Leading Man #1 on my 40th birthday.

I can’t ever forget the day I decided not to fight a custody battle…even when my son is calling me at 6 a.m.

Sunday morning. I’m trying to sleep in – if you can do that with two, 85+ pound dogs hogging the bed while your brain, unaware it is NOT Monday morning, goes into overdrive about looming work deadlines you actually don’t have to think about for another 24 hours.

I finally shut my brain down, find a comfortable position around Rocky and Ella, who are doing perfect “play deads” on top of the covers, and drift back into REM sleep. I’m on the Millennium Falcon in Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back as Princess Leia, about to be kissed by a hunky Han Solo when my cellphone rings from the nightstand.

I attempt to ignore the phone and roll over straight into Ella, who pitches a low not-growl at me, and attempt to return to A Galaxy Far, Far Away.

The phone rings again, followed by the chime of an incoming FaceTime call.

Han Solo fades away. I flip back over and fumble for the iPad, knocking over the phone, a Kindle Paperwhite, a Charlotte Bronte paperback, and at least 2 hardcovers I will get to when I finish the Bronte.

“Hey Sweetheart!” I answer, just in time for my son to hear the thump of Stephen King and Liane Moriarty hitting the carpet.

“What was that?” Joey, my 22 year old son, asks.

“Oh, just some books falling off the nightstand,” I reply, glancing at the clock the nightstand on my husband’s vacated side of the bed.

6:50 a.m. What in God’s name is wrong with the men in my life?

Nope, don’t have enough time for that answer.

“Tell you what, kiddo. Let me call you back in 5 minutes. I just need to let the puppies out for morning piss & poop.”

“Sure. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye sweetheart I lov–” CLICK!

I’m cut off mid sentence by my son hanging up.

I set the tablet back on the nightstand, roll out of bed, pick up the books that fell to the floor and trundle down the upstairs hallway. At least Damien has made coffee. The aroma of Grounds & Hounds Rescue Roast drifts up the stairs as Ella tries to bolt past, almost knocking me down them.

Rocky, her adopted “furbro,” yawns and stretches into a perfect downward dog beside me.

“Show off,” I say.

FaceTime goes off again. It’s been 5 minutes.

I flip open the tablet, turn the camera so Joey can see Rocky, and head down in the kitchen.

“So, Leading Man #1,” I say, “What are we doing today?”

__________

If you had told me when I first got divorced and signed over residential custody of my then 4 year old Autistic son that he would be calling me at all in 20 years, much less in wee hours of the morning, I would have said, “I know. I’m very close to Joey. I always will be” all the while looking at you like you had 3 heads.

Back then, in my mind, that was never going to happen. I blew it – any chance of ever having a relationship with my son. I was his mother, and I signed over residential custody of – day to day living with – him to his dad. I moved out of our home. I left his father. Joey might forgive me for the latter. He would never, no matter what I did, forgive me for the former.

Society wouldn’t forgive me, either. I was completely unlikeable. Mothers did NOT let go of their children. They fought custody battles. They made their ex-husbands pay alimony, and the mortgage, and child support.

To quote my favorite Dixie Chicks song, “I never seem to do it like anybody else.”

It’s a lot more complicated than this, because motherhood, marriage, and divorce always are, but the short answer is I didn’t want a custody battle, and split custody, because of the Autistic Spectrum, wasn’t an option. Also, outside the divorce, my life at the time was a wreck.

I didn’t make the choice so much as the choice made me.

I have never stopped hating that choice. There are some losses you never actually get over. You just learn to live around them.

Even when intellectually, you know it’s not a loss because your toddler is throwing a temper tantrum and telling his Dad, who has just called you asking if he was actually wrong to allow only one chocolate chip cookie for dessert, “My mommy will save me!”

True story.

For the record, I reassured my fearless co-parent he was right not to send our already rambunctious 4 year old on a sugar rush.

I did recommend some state of the art noise cancelling headphones. Joey is a lot like me. I invented the temper tantrum.

__________

“Do you want to build Legos, chill out, or help me pick out an anime t-shirt for you at Hot Topic?” I open the sliding patio door and nearly trip over Ella again as she – again! We call her “Ella Underfoot” for very good reason – bolts past me into the yard. Rocky cocks his head and looks at me quizzically for a moment before trotting out the door behind her.

“Not anime, Manga, Mom!”

“Okay okay! Do you want to help me pick out a MANGA t-shirt for you at Hot Topic? I can FaceTime you from the mall, or we can go shopping online. Which would you prefer?”

“Let’s just chill out today. I’ll call you later.”

“Sounds like a plan. You can call me any time you want today. I’m not working.” During the work week Joey, who lives in a disabled adults group home, is allowed to call me before school, after he gets home from school, and after dinner. Autism is all about defining things, at least for my son it is. If you’ve met one Autistic person, congratulations. You’ve met one Autistic person.

His Dad hangs out with him every other weekend and school breaks. When I’m not in New Jersey, I’m on “virtual parent duty.” It’s kinda a dream come true, and again, not something I ever expected would actually occur.

“Ok, bye!” This time I don’t even get a chance to start to say goodbye before I’m left staring at my own face in the tablet’s camera.

He gets that from both of us – me and his father.

To be continued… 

cars ahead on road
Posted in Long Distance Parenting, Motherhood, Non Custodial Parent

Long Distance Parent

Posted on by cmfalato

Photo by Taras Makarenko on Pexels.com

Not all non-residential parents live near their children.

Being a parent means supporting all of your child’s needs, including their financial ones. As the workplace has changed over the years, so have the places people can actually get work.

As a result, many non-custodial parents, including yours truly, live more than an hour’s travel time from their children. Sometimes it’s just that – a different part of the same state. Sometimes, it’s a few states away: say, Boston when your child lives in New Jersey. For others it’s a plane ride.

Just like a non-custodial mom is still a Mom, a long distance parent is still a parent. We have all of the same worries and woes of our local and residential peers. We are the ones the school calls when they cannot find our fearless co-parent, because we know how to get them. We get calls from the principal’s office. We juggle school events and visitation schedules with blended family schedules and work. There is an empty room in our homes set up for the conspicuously absent child we are carrying in our hearts. We have Amazon Prime for the exact inevitable moment we find out a school project, concert uniform, sports equipment is needed on Monday.

When we cross – via plane, train, or automobile – that state line to where our children are waiting for us, our smiles get brighter and our hearts get lighter.

Non-custodial parents who live nearby and don’t take advantage of every second they could have with their children are anathemas to us. We fight for every moment. We cherish every second.

Our heart breaks when, at the end of the day, long weekend, week, summer vacation, our children return to their residential parents, but we do not stop being Mom or Dad.

You don’t stop being a parent when your child is not in your presence…

Because Autism

I cannot possibly write about my life without writing about Autism, typically referred to as a “spectrum disorder affecting 1 in XX individuals.” I’ll leave the “XX” there in place of an actual number because the number of autistic people changes constantly the more the world learns about Autism.

By the way, Autism is NOT a disorder. Not in my eyes. Not in the #actuallyautistic community’s eyes either. A “disorder” is something that might someday be curable, or that can possibly prevented. A disorder is something those affected WANT cured, and/or prevented.

My son is Autistic. I have been told I exist somewhere on that vast spectrum. Neither of us wants a cure. There is nothing that can prevent Autism. Leading Man #1 has had and continues to have his ups and downs, just like any other late teen/early 20-something. He has other currently disabling conditions to go along with his being Autistic. I say currently because my son’s future is not written yet. Don’t judge him by what his Mom says in a blog. Don’t count him out of achieving his dreams, or doing anything he sets his mind to. He can. He always has. He already does. He will.

I have never been formally diagnosed with Autism, just told I meet the DSM-V criteria for being on the spectrum by the professional support team I enlisted to help me in my earliest years as a non-custodial and long-distance Mom, when I was wracked with guilt about one, the other, or both.

Common sense, you know. You have something in your head you can’t handle yourself, you go and talk to someone. You get help. In the beginning it was extremely hard for me to handle my son not living with me full-time. I felt guilty to my bones for abandoning my son by not fighting a custody battle. I also felt like everyone in the world was judging me – badly – for being a non-custodial MOM.

No cures, no tragedies, and yes, we both get flu vaccines every year. This is life. We like it, and ourselves, as we are.

Posted in Motherhood, Non Custodial Mom

Once Upon a Time…

Posted on by cmfalato

Featured image: Crossing the inbound Gov. Mario Cuomo bridge alongside the original Tappan Zee Bridge it replaced.

Motherhood was a lot simpler when all you had to choose was whether or not to work.

Once upon a time, in the glory days of the Baby Boomers and GenExers, there were two types of custodial moms in the world:

  • WaHMs: Work Away from Home Moms
  • SaHMs: Stay at Home Moms

These groups seemed to vie for superiority over each other at PTA meetings. The SaHMs NOT thinking the WaHMs were slightly negligent for leaving their child with a caretaker all day. The WaHMs NOT scolding the SaHMs for not, by working outside the home, teaching their children independence.

…and then, with the arrival of the Millennials, a new kind of custodial Mom appeared on the playground: The Non-Custodial Mom (NCM).

It is still commonly believed, even though it is not common practice anymore, that a judge will always side with the mother when deciding which parent a child should live with. If you are a mother and your child does not live with you, it is still often automatically assumed you lost custody of your son or daughter. If a judge did not side with Mom, then Mom must have done something horribly wrong or be in some way completely unfit.

Yes, those moms exist in the world. There are unfit moms. There are moms who have made horrible mistakes and lost custody of their kids. There are even moms who just one day walked away from their children and didn’t look back. The NCMs you meet on the playground are not among them. Most NCMs:

  • Voluntarily gave up custody to give their child a better life than what, on their income, they could afford.
  • Opted not to put their child through a custody battle.
  • Lost a custody battle because often, a custody battle comes down who has the most money to fight it with.

Meet Your Typical Non-Custodial Mom

Actually, you won’t meet your typical NCM on a playground. You’ll see her on the swing next to her child, flying just as high on the swing as they are (and secretly worrying about how high that child is flying, worrying that he’ll let go, and checking the ground to make sure he won’t get injured if he does). She has just climbed up the slide stairs behind her child for the 10th time and is preparing to follow them down. 

Your typical NCM is reveling in this one, often hard to get, moment with her child.

Ending The Stigma, And The Stereotype

The other reason you won’t meet your typical NCM on the playground is that, when she finally hops off the jungle gym to catch her breath, she will be too embarrassed to come over and introduce herself. She is afraid you will assume the worst about her when you find out her daughter is going back to Dad at the end of the day.  She doesn’t want to justify why she is who she is. Even if her intentions were good, even if she is a good mom, she still feels horrible for not being residential custodian.

Your Typical NCM Just Wants You to Treat her Like a Typical Mom

Do that. Wave to that mom on the playground. Talk to your typical NCM like you would any other Mom. Commiserate about homework, lost gym uniforms, band rehearsals, and juggling soccer practices and multiple family schedules. The keyword in the phrase Non-Custodial Mom, or its sister phrase, Non-Residential Mom, is Mom. A Non-Custodial Mom has all the same parenting worries and all the same parenting woes, her custodial peer does. Your typical NCM is doing all those same things, you are. She is fighting the homework battles. She is on the emergency call list at school. She gets called to the principals’ office.  At the end of the day, her child will go back to their other parent, but your typical NCM will not stop being Mom.

You don’t stop being a parent when your child is not in your presence…