Is the mother who refuses access a bad mother

[martinisandcake]

I may have had one too many martinis but my partner is the father of an 20month old daughter who his is seeing fortnightly for one hour at an interrelate centre because him mother is angry about their separation.

She believes he should be punished for leaving her.

He left because of her Mh problems and her $200000 debt which he eventually refused to pay.

Her punishment is to withhold contact with his daughter.

Am I wrong in thinking this makes her a bad mother?

You'll likely get a flurry of posts telling you that you don't know the full story but I agree. If contact is stopped for a reason other than to protect the child, that's bad parenting.

Anyone who uses a child as a pawn is a bad parent IMO.

Is your DP contesting this?

God knows. But why did he leave a baby with a mentally unstable person, why has he only been granted limited supervised access, why doesn't he go to court to try and get more access.

The court would only order contact centre visitation if they felt that it was appropriate. Services are very stretched and they wouldn't approve it purely because mum said so, there would have to be a reason to justify it.

So no, that alone doesn't make her a bad mother.

I agree.

Unless the child is at risk of being physically or emotionally abused of course.

All what Rebecca said.
And bear in mind you might not have all the story.

Oh your dp doesn't sound wonderful either, forgot to add that in.

You only have his side of the story.
No parent should restrict access to children unless it is in the best interests of the child.
I'm guessing this was court ordered. So there must be reasons.

I do have the full story, it has been in the court system for -18 months now and a hearing date is now set for march

He left her as she was emotionally and physically abusive.

This came to ahead when the extent of her debts came to light and he refused to continue paying her bills.

Sorry but courts do order the use of contact centres even when there is no good reason to. Magistrates in particular are very risk averse so it only takes one false allegation from a resident parent for the non resident parent to find themselves using a contact centre.

Ah right. Interrelate is an Australian organisation.

In defence of the DP the Ex could have made allegations, and usually contact centre is the only form of contact until these have been investigated. A family member of mine had weekend contact with his son. His EW made an allegation after nearly every weekend, resulting in a contact centre for nearly a year. All allegations (a lot of them for sexual abuse) were disproved and he now has full custody.

The contact centre is set as they are still at the stage of interim orders

He left a 20 month old with a physically and emotionally abusive woman?
She's abusive but he only gets to see his child infrequently, for short periods and supervised. Sorry. Doesn't add up.

If he took her to court when the baby was 8 weeks old I'm not suprised if she became defensive. What contact was he asking for at that point? If after 18 months in court he hasn't progressed beyond a contact centre there must be more to it. And once it went to court the orders made were out of her hands so not sure why she is being blamed.

I was ordered to take my child to a contact centre to hand him over to his emotionally and physically abusive father. Because he wasn't convicted, in the eyes of the law it never happened.
But if a parent witholds access to the other parent without a very good reason (genuine fears for their child's welfare) then yes, they are a shit parent.

Yes Wolfiefan, until The hearing is done he has limited contact. The post is not about how this is progressing but more to do with women or parents who use their children as a punishment for their own issues.

YABU

What do you want here ? For everyone to agree with you , even though you are hardly a disinterested party ? Will it make you feel better if we say she's a bad mother ?

Do you honestly believe that the courts order supervised contact just because one parent is angry ? EVERY parent in a divorce is angry .

You are not going to get the answer you want here , most Mumsnetters are not as naive and gullible as you think .

Stitch the courts here are very much overworked and there are huge delays which is the reason it has been going on for such a long time

So what contact was he asking the court for when the baby was 2 months old?

Given this has been in the court system for 18 months, that means he left her when the baby was 2 months old.

So he left a 2 month old with a physically and emotionally abusive woman, with MH problems (pound to a penny one of her MH problems was PND?).

I'm sure she's not an angel but he's not exactly coming out of this smelling of roses either.

Why did the courts not award him more contact? That doesn't seem right.

He was asking initially for every Sunday, half a day, the agreement is increasing contact as she gets older.

The hearing hasn't happened yet so they will put interim orders in place until then which are weekly visits of 1 hour at a contact centre.