Email to Peter

Sent both Sharon's letter to Nancy and this set of issues/questions for him to consider before our meeting.............

July 7, 2010

Hello Peter,
There has been little movement through counseling and lots of other ideas have been thrown on the table. We’re going to need more guidance and advice from you so I have made an appointment for the end of July. When I say little movement I mean that Noah has seen Dr. Jenkins for a couple of months once a week and also on Saturdays with me. The idea was to find out what was really going on and see if we could establish a comfort level that would get him spending some time here. For whatever reason, Noah has great difficulty in sharing his true feelings. He tends to agree to spending time with us and then his mother will call at the last minute to cancel for him. That said we have had several get-togethers that have lasted an hour to several at a shot but he always wants to return to Nancy’s so we haven’t even managed one overnight yet. Not coincidentally, Noah’s mom has been pushing to be present at his therapy sessions to “translate” for him (her word). It is my opinion that this woud be counter productive since she cannot discuss these topic rationally.

Nancy’s typical mantra is this “Do you just want him to spend time out of obligation or requirement or do you want him to want to spend time with you?” It’s a good question but if I don’t spend time with him, I teach him nothing, I can’t encourage, I can’t help him develop into a healthy person who can be a functioning member of society, hold down a job or anything. Nancy’s home is a place where he doesn’t have to face anything that might help him grow and stretch. In short she wants to make him happy in the short term and Sharon and I are looking at long-term mental, emotional and physical health, self-reliance, confidence and ability to succeed once he is out of our sphere of influence. We believe that Nancy’s home is a toxic environment where he is allowed to play videogames for 30-50 hours a week or more, avoid any uncomfortable situation and hide away from the world.

We have seemingly innumerable questions. Among them: At what point do we decide that therapy is not working and move on? What are the next steps? Are we willing to take those steps? Have we already lost Noah? What are we willing to do? Can we find some way of extracting him from that environment and limiting her contact? It all comes back to that, somehow. I don’t know if it is purposeful or just a result of her illness that once he enters her house all the rules change, agreements are broke and plans are abandoned.

Since countless attempts have been made to discuss Noah’s situation reasonably have ended in impass after impass, we need to investigate other options. Here are some questions:

1. We are paying all the bills for a child who does not reside with us and Nancy is not willing to take on any of them. Is there away to apply pressure without re-opening the custody topic?
2. If we could afford boarding school (unlikely), Nancy could conceivably move to wherever Noah’s school was located so she could stay connected with him. Is there any way we could prevent this?
3. What if the relationship between Nancy and I (Park) remains at an impass. A friend mentioned something about a third party legal guardian. What does this mean? Can someone be a legal guardian to a child who does not reside with them? Have you ever seen this arrangement?
4. It may not be possible to rehabilitate Noah; he may never willingly spend time with us now that he has been allowed to opt out for so long. It may be that our efforts are unsustainable in the long term. Can you talk about examples where families did “take a break” or even given up? If Nancy wants custody and we give it to her, is that the only way to make her take on all of the fiscal responsibilities for Noah? As a side note, can Nancy declare Noah some kind of de-facto dependent on her taxes since he’ll likely spend most of the year with her?

Obviously we can’t think of every question or issue that might come up. Our goal here is to put these questions in front of you so you can see where we are a little bit but, more importantly, you can give them some consideration before we meet in person.