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Would you find phone calls invasive or normal?

georgina29's picture

Birth mom calls every night to say goodnight to her kids at bad time. Invasive or normal? The oldest is plenty old enough to use the phone himself and call her and I’ve encouraged him to do so. However neither child seems interested. Even when she calls they don’t seem interested. Should I allow it to keep happening and not make a big deal? My husband has the kids full time because bio mom has issues and she only sees them once a week for a few hours. It’s not like she’s the full time parent or even a weekend parent.

notsobad's picture

What exactly do you mean by bad times? Is it always during dinner? Have you given her a specific time to call? 

I don’t think phone calls are intrusive, BM is attempting to stay in contact with her kids and that’s a good thing. 

Maybe all you need is to ask her to call at 7pm, instead of 6pm when you’re eating. If she refuses and keeps calling during dinner, then it’s intrusive and a problem. However, imho it’s a small problem and not one worth getting upset over.

Thumper's picture

It may be time to change things up a little. 

BM you can call the kids at 4pm. IF we are here they will answer. 

OP it is not uncommon to have 2 or 3 day a week call days. 

It is reasonable to say you BM knows what time most families have dinner. SET a new boundary if she continues to disrupt after you have asked her to be considerate...take it back to court next time.

She will end up looking like she is doing this to upset dh and you.

 

 

ndc's picture

Are you saying she calls at bed time or at a bad time?  Is there a time you think the kids would be more receptive to her calls?  In general, I think it's good that a mom with limited visitation tries to keep in touch with the kids.

My SO and his ex have 50/50 custody (5/5/2/2 schedule).  BM will call once or twice during SO's 5 days, but not during the 2 days, because she'll see them so soon. Your case is different because the BM sees the kids so little. If her calls are not damaging the kids or seriously disrupting your household, I'd just try to find a consistent, convenient time for the calls.

ProbablyAlreadyInsane's picture

Depnds on how they're going... I agree with above, set a time she can call, if you're busy, don't go out of your way to answer it either. Just accept you're busy and she can leave a message.

If the calls are damaging to the Skids then ABSOLUTELY put some kind of hold on them, they don't need that at all. If she's using them to disrupt then it's a no go too. But if she just wants to maintain contact then I see that as okay. I know it hurts my skids sometimes to the fact BM has literally gone MONTHS with ZERO contact at all. They don't say it, but you can tell, they'll start trying to convince themselves that she does love them, it's heartbreaking. But any contact she does have hurts them too, so it's a hard situation and less contact is really better for them.

Rags's picture

More than that could be considered interference.

That is the schedule we set for talking to SS when he was on SpermLand visitation.  Even that pissed of the SpermClan but... oh well.

Interference is one of those things that you know when you see it.   Since the SpermClan never called to speak to SS, not once in 16+ years that we lived under a CO I suppose our once a week call while he was on visitation was irritating.. .though it had nothing to do with them and had everything to do with us and our son.