He pays support, but that doesn't make him a father.

by Kristine Grunst
(Windom, MN)

I left my son's father before my son turned 1, (he is now 4) because he was violent and abusive (verbally, physically, and sexually) towards me, and neglectful of our son. I would work overnight (the only job I could find) from 10pm to 7am, come home and have to stay up with our son until 4:30pm when he finally got home from work, because he "didn't want to get up so early" in the morning. I finally found a job that went from 7:30am to 3:30pm, and would come home to find that he had only fed our child a small handful of Cheerios all day and had left him in dirty clothes and a dirty diaper. He would drink heavily and hit me, throw things at me, and choke me...among other things. I filed a police report on one occasion. When I finally left him, he got drunk, came and kicked in two of my car windows, and broke through the door of my new residence and proceeded to stab himself THROUGH his hand 4 times with a pair of kitchen scissors in front of myself and my son before police finally arrived.

Afterwards, he filed with the courts to have custody of our son. While he didn't get custody, he DID receive visitation rights. He gets him unsupervised for 3 hours every week, and from 4pm Friday to 4pm Sunday every other weekend. In order to get visitation, he was to complete an anger management course (which doesn't work, but he didn't complete anyway) and is to remain drug and alcohol free (which he doesn't). I'm both hurt and appalled that the judge would be so cruel as to require my son to be sent there...and there's nothing I can do about it because he pays his child support. My son's father's home is NOT a healthy environment for him and is NOT a safe environment for him. I'm absolutely disgusted with the justice system at this point.