I know how you feel, to the bottom of my toes. My son is 5 now, so not nearly as helpless as a baby...and if you'd asked me back then, age 5 would have seemed more than ready...but he's still a vulnerable little person, easily impressionable, and his father is a dolt who thinks all you need to do is "tell" a kid something (like not to touch fire or whatever), and then they'll remember it forever. I swear he thinks of and treats our son more like teenager than a little kid. His father is the type who would sneer at me, literally, as I bundled our son up in the winter, even as a baby. It was partly to harrass me, party because he just doesn't get that babies/kids are more delicate than adults and A PARENT NEEDS TO TAKE <span style="text-decoration:underline;">CARE</span> OF THEM. And once when our son was two, he didn't hold our son's hand crossing the street and a truck was coming! and ex actually said that our son knew enough to stop walking into the street!!! things that have made my heart nearly stop. And aside from all of that is the emotional factor...what if my son just doesn't WANT to be away from home, etc. And his father plays really loud music in the car all the time...inappropriate and jarring. So for those reasons and so many more, I know your anxiety through and through.<br><br>
Here's one thing, though, that made me feel a few hairs better. I know your ex is not the same person as mine, so I can't guarantee he'd do the same, but judging from the descriptions, they often have a very similar mind-set! Well, last Saturday, my son was with his father for the day. I got a call mid-day from ex that our son has cut his knee on a rock (tripped on the sidewalk and fell on gravel) and had bled badly but the bleeding stopped. I was <b>so</b> surprised he called to tell me at ALL, for starters - but since I want to encourage him keeping me in the loop, I listened calmly and spoke a minute to our son. Then ex said he wanted to take him to the emergency clinic to make sure nothing was wrong with his knee, just in case. THAT threw me for a loop; ex will <i>never</i> go out of his way to do something that's not fun (and he literally hasn't been to ONE of our son's Dr. appointments since he was two months old!) or interrupt his day. I asked if I could meet them there and he agreed; our son did need stitches although to me it didn't even look that bad, so ex was indeed actually being cautious.<br><br>
I guess my point is...what we often do (and what I continue to do, I confess) is we picture the WORST case scenario when our kids are with our exes. After all, these men are our exes for good reasons, and have likely been untrustworty, irresponsible, have often exhibited poor behavior around our kids...none of them would ever be hired as anyone's babysitter, yet we're forced to send our hearts & souls off with these guys and hope for the best.<br><br>
But what I'm striving valiantly to focus on (and not always succeeding) is that usually, the worst case scenario is not what's happening. Even when my son was hurt badly enough to warrant stitches (nothing like that's ever happened on my watch) when he was with his father, his father actually to my amazement acted responsible about it. Very unlike him, I can't say it enough! but my hard-won advice is, I think most of our exes act perhaps just a few shades better with the kids than they do in our presence, and your <i>worst</i>-case scenario fear rarely if ever will happen. I know that's not really too soothing, but don't forget too that your kids are getting older all the time and you won't have this worry consume you on such a level. I say that, and yet my son's with his father again today and I'm not exactly relaxed!<br><br>
I guess I just wanted to commiserate and to let you know that once in a great while, the exes might surprise us. So hang in there.
