Sorry for the long post. It does relate to Covid-19 but first some relevant context: My daughter (almost 13) lives with her Mum and normally is with me every other weekend. I love my daughter as much as any good dad should and have always worked hard to be a part of her life, a fact which her mum merely allows/tolerates - i.e. there is never evidence of her actively valuing and encouraging my role in my daughter’s life and certainly she does not consider me an equal in decisions pertaining to my daughter despite my having Parental Responsibility and demonstrating unwavering commitment to being part of her life. Plus she is generally encouraging my daughter to feel that it is entirely her choice whether she sees me at an age of course when a child can’t see the big picture. Add to this that my daughter has never been one to engage willingly in phone/Facetime conversations (I phone her every night but at best get about 30 seconds of laboured dialogue from her these days) and my relationship with her is feeling increasingly fragile. In this context the face-to-face time I spend with her every fortnight is my one real opportunity to sustain our bond.
Now we have this awful Coronavirus situation. My daughter’s mum is asthmatic which puts her at higher risk if infected. Moreover my wife is undergoing Chemotherapy and hence in the highest risk category. These risks considered I conceded to not see my daughter 2 weeks ago when this situation all started to surface because my daughter had a cough. But I had intended to see her this weekend which is in accordance with the official Government guidelines which state that: "Where parents do not live in the same household, children under 18 can be moved between their parents’ homes.” That guidance would allow for me to collect my daughter and have my daughter stay in our household as normal, and my wife to her immense credit was supportive of this as she considers my relationship with my daughter to be very important.
Of course any guidance needs to be considered sensibly in one’s own context - our household has been in total lockdown for the past 2 weeks and allegedly my daughter has been similarly isolated, plus the journey to collect her would be made in my car (not public transport) and all contact with the outside world would be avoided. So the risks in having her stay with us seemed very small. However, being a risk-averse type I took an even more cautious stance and suggested to my ex- that I drive over and take my daughter out for a walk for a couple of hours over there, avoiding all contact with others. i.e. not having her stay in our household. I felt this was a very reasonable and risk-conscious compromise.
HOWEVER, my daughter’s mum has however stated that she does NOT want me to see my daughter during this situation, even on the compromise basis I proposed. She suggested I Facetime my daughter (which she knows will not work very well) and eventually after much bickering (always via text as she won’t ever engage with me verbally like 2 mature parents should do) she suggested I drive over (1 hour journey), come into their back yard via the gate and talk to my daughter from a safe distance of 2+ meters. i.e. no walk, no activity respecting social distancing even though families are being told they can go our for one exercise a day. While her proposal may read as better than nothing the fact is that without an activity as a focus this would be no different to a FaceTime call and the garden conversation would largely resemble me "getting blood out of a stone” - a laboured conversation realistically lasting no more than about 10 mins after which I would make the long return journey feeling very deflated.
My question here to fellow parents is am I being unreasonable in wanting to see my daughter under these circumstances? I certainly don’t want to put anyone at undue risk and if this situation had a fixed (short-ish) duration I could probably accept not seeing my daughter for the duration. But none of us knows how long this situation will endure. And it would seem unreasonable for me to go many weeks, possibly months, without properly seeing my daughter especially when current guidance allows for that. Your thoughts please...