Being a 'Decent' Bio Mom

There is a very fine line to run if you want to be considered a 'decent' bio mom. Not a controlling, psychotic, delusional bitch.

Introduce yourself, being upfront and saying, "Hi, I'm so and so, it's nice to meet you." Shows that you are confident and not threatened by the new woman. Granted this might be hard if your now ex husband was cheating with this woman but still. It's important. At this point you need to put all of your nasty feelings aside and do it for the children.

For the first Mother's day, I actually DID get her a card & had the kids sign it. If she was going to be in their lives, as long as she was decent to them & didn't scream or yell at them, I was fine with her being in there.

I invited my ex husband & her both to my son's birthday party. They both came.. sans gifts for my son. This took a lot on my part because inside I really didn't want to share my son with my ex, not on his birthday. I did it for him. If the children could see that we can get along then it shows a more united front. Keep in mind that was the last birthday party they were invited to.

Pick & Choose your Battles.

I have had more than a few battles that were wisely chosen & ones that I let go.

The biggest battle I had ever had was when my at the time 5 year old daughter broke her wrist while at her dad's house. My ex's wife is a nurse. They didn't receive any medical attention for her, explaining that it was 'just sprained'. I couldn't get my daughter's coat on her because her wrist was so swollen. As soon as she was back in my arms she was taken to the ER where we found out that she had a hairline fracture in her wrist.

My next battle came almost a year later, when my oldest daughter (10 at the time), side of her face had swelled up. We had dealt with this even before we divorced so he knew it was imperative to get her to the ER so they could start pumping her full of steroids to try & combat her mystery swollen parotid  gland. He did not. It took my honey & I 6 hours to get to her since we were out of town. By the time we had gotten to her, she was taken to the ER & pumped full of Steroids & now Tylenol since she had started running a fever as well. The doctor's to this day are stumped by this. She's seen many specialists & they have all said, stick with what works. Keep in mind his wife is a nurse.

The battles had become more frequent. Anytime my children's safety is involved I can get pretty nasty. The time he took them out of state without permission, my 2 youngest children still needed their car seats & he didn't have one. Matter of fact he only had 1 seat belt available. My oldest daughter had to sit on a bucket in his truck for the whole drive there. On the way back my son who needed to be in a booster was now on the bucket. By the grace of God or their guardian angels there was no accident.

When his wife would talk nasty about me, I let that go. My children know better. It hurt their feelings, but they knew that she was lying. It was ok. I just consoled them & loved on them.

When he called me to get the kids late at night because he & his wife couldn't get along. As the children got into the car, my 7 year old said, "Mom, *Ex Husband's Wife*, said, 'If your dad would've kept his dick in his pants we wouldn't be in this mess!', what's that mean?" I decided that was it. He would sign a paper stating that he wouldn't see the kids as long as she was around & that it was in the best interest of the children. He's seen them for 2 hours, in our town in the past 4 months. Any phone calls are ones that I make to him when the kids ask if they can call him. He never calls them, he will only return phone calls.

The last battle was when his wife texted me saying that she hoped dead was out of my ex husband's life enough. I texted my ex & notified him that he might come home to a 'messy house'. His response? "She better not do it inside, I'm supposed to be moving back in!" SMH.

Another step in being a decent Bio mom is not to talk nasty about the new woman. No matter how skanky, slutty, crappy, trashy, Jerry Springery she looks. Don't do it. You will quickly turn yourself into the bad one. Be consistent in your love for your child. Be civil, even when you'd really just love to punch them in the face. The best way to do this is smile BIG, in the back of your mind repeat BITCH as loud as you can, just don't verbalize it. Also make sure that if she asks you a question, you're not so into the back of your mind, that you reply with BITCH, it could turn things nasty really quickly.

If there are special occasions or milestones that you prefer to do, let the ex husband know. Let him deal with her if it's something she wants to do. For instance, I refuse to let my girls color their hair until they go through puberty & really don't think they should do it then. It's expensive & there's a lot of upkeep involved. Piercings have to be approved through me. If one of my children come home with a new piercing we'll have serious problems. Same with Tattoo's.

Do not turn it into a battle when your ex husband does something fun and your child isn't involved. They have their lives to live just like you do. Getting permission to go to 6 flags without your child is obnoxious. There will be times where your child may or may not see pictures of the fun stuff that your ex & his new family have done. This is the time to remind your child of the fun things that s/he gets to do when s/he is with you.

More importantly, if you KNOW that your ex has special plans to go somewhere, do something, go on vacation, weddings etc, do NOT try and take that experience away from your child. With us, Cinderella will be there when we get married. Problem is, she won't know ahead of time at all because her mom will for surely mess it up. We found this out when we tried to plan Cinderella's joint birthday party with my children.

Do not discuss ANYTHING with the ex husband's new wife concerning discipline, problems with the kids, attitudes, or any other things that could piss her off. For example, "Peter, pulled my kid's hair and ripped a handful out." The bio mom's response, "Well what did Peter do to Pauline to make him do it? My child is perfect, yours is just a heathen!" It'll get you nowhere. Let the ex husband deal with it.

If your child calls upset about something, don't throw your emotional self in to it. Try to get as many details as possible, then talk to your ex husband and find out what is going on. Chances are, little Molly didn't get her piece of candy but is going to blow it up to you like she was beaten 10 ways to Sunday. Encourage her to settle her differences and move on. Chances are in an hour she'll be fine.

Don't be surprised if you get the teary, "I wanna come home" phone call too. Encourage your child to stay where they're at unless there's immediate danger (obviously). Talk about the fun stuff that they've done there. If they haven't done anything fun, then have them sit down and write you a letter, or write a letter to someone else they miss as well. Nobody said divorce & child custody was easy. It's not easy on you & it's not easy on them either. However, through encouraging them to stay will help set up a bit of a schedule and they'll get used to the idea of, "Ok if I call mom flipping out, she's not going to bail me out, so is it really worth calling for?"

As a bio mom, it's hard to stand by and know that another woman is taking care of OUR flesh and blood! Afterall we went through 9 months and excruciating hell to pop out these amazing children!! How DARE someone even THINK about talking to them or even try to mentor them! Hey Bio mom--That's borderline fucked up. Repeatedly asking if your child misses you, repeated texts that you start, repeated facebook postings about how you miss them etc, will only make your child feel guilty. Generally the ex & the new woman will never see these.

Think of it this way, you know your children. She does not. This is a new experience for her, there will be bumps in the road. Just like life, it's not the bumps in the road that define you, it's the way that you handle them. Give a little slack in the beginning. Respect her, even if it kills you. Try and support a relationship with her and your children. If she wants to pick them up after school & take them for ice cream, unless you have good reason not to (suspended license, drinking & driving, massive amounts of accidents etc) let her. As your children get older, they will thank you.

Keep in mind, all of this goes out the window the minute there is major disrespect & she starts berating you in front of your children. Children and sponges & they soak all that in, even if they know it's not true, she's hurting the relationship between her and your children.