Dear Annie: Should Dad cough up some cash?

[cereta]

Dear Annie: My ex-wife, "Daisy," has custody of our two children. She makes several times my salary, lives in a home where the mortgage and taxes are sky-high, and has an expensive lifestyle. I live frugally, always pay child support and have visitation rights. Often, my children stand me up when I show up to get them. I'll get to a birthday party or wedding with just my son and have to tell everyone, "My daughter has a migraine." The real answer is, "She is lazy and doesn't want to miss movie night with her friend." Her mother is spineless. My son also has a fluctuating weight problem because he eats too much junk food. At a recent luncheon, he refused to eat but then demanded a piece of chocolate cake and shoved it down his throat.

Daisy isn't happy about my not paying that much support and has spoken to the kids about our financial arrangement, which we'd agreed she wouldn't do.

She wants to throw our daughter a lavish bat mitzvah for her 13th birthday. The total cost would be five figures. I've refused to pay it because she doesn't need it and it would be a financial hardship for me. Also, given her lack of effort at school and refusal to attend family functions, I don't think her behavior merits a huge reward.

Daisy says that if I refuse to pay, I won't be invited. However, that would be a problem for me, because it would look horrible if I did not attend. And she says that if I refuse to contribute financially but show up anyway, she'll have security throw me out. I don't know whether she'd really do that. My brother and his wife, who get along well with Daisy, have tried to talk some sense into her, but she won't listen. I tried talking to Daisy's father, but she won't listen to him, either.

Should I do what my wife wants and cough up the cash, or should I go to the party and get tossed out the door? I'm saving money religiously, because given Daisy's lack of control over my daughter, I'm afraid my daughter will get in trouble. If I have to pay for a lawyer, I'd better be ready financially. -- Stingy Dad and Proud of It

Dear Stingy Dad: You should do what is in the best interest of your children, and you and your ex-wife should make every effort to be as amicable to each other as possible. Yes, you should pay a customary and reasonable amount for your only daughter's bat mitzvah. It is not her fault that her parents are fighting over money and parenting philosophies. Whoever's right or wrong is beside the point. Now is the time to wave the white flag and make peace.

Your daughter will never turn 13 again. Make it special for her and leave your baggage and negative feelings at the door. As for the constant headaches from your daughter and her blowing you off, remember that you are the parent and she is the child. Ask yourself why she doesn't want to see you. It may have something to do with the fact that you are so critical about your son's weight.

Being embarrassed by your son's behavior might propel you to seek help for him. Let's hope. The human body, especially a growing boy's body, does not feel good just eating cake. But being ashamed of him and criticizing his mother don't do anyone any good. Instead, talk to your son about the importance of eating healthful foods. If that does not work, speak with your pediatrician and see what tools you could use to help him.

If indeed you are in financial hardship, tell that to your wife and daughter. Be open and honest with them about your finances, and be open and honest with what your wallet and heart can contribute to your daughter's bat mitzvah.

Comments

[cereta]

There is SO MUCH to unpack, here, so I'm just going to focus on one thing: It really sets my teeth on edge how much the LW focuses on how things will look to others. I mean, a Bat Mitzvah is a huge honking deal (if I were to guess, btw, I'd guess that the LW is not Jewish, from the way he dismisses it as something his daughter doesn't "need," and indeed seems to view it as little more than a party). And the reason he's upset about the possibility of not being invited is that it would, "look horrible if [he] did not attend"? And that's far from the only example.

It does sound like he is being screwed over at least a bit (if not more) where custody is concerned, but frankly, I question his reliability as a narrator.

[laurajv]

He might be screwed over on custody, but given the nasty things he says about his children and his daughter’s avoidance of him...maybe not. It’s pretty unusual IME for a father to end up with ONLY visitation and no physical custody — the default in most parts of the US these days is joint custody with the father getting every-other-weekend, half of all major holidays, and two weeks of summer. That’s not true everywhere, but it’s common enough that NOT having it is, imho, a major red flag about a man.

[adrian_turtle]

I read it as saying his daughter doesn't need a lavish Bat Mitzvah, which is very different from saying she doesn't need a Bat Mitzvah at all. Jews disagree (OMG, do we ever disagree) about how big and fancy a party should go with these events. And one reason to have a full catered meal in a rented hall rather than tea and cake in the synagogue social space is not wanting to look cheap next to the other families in your kid's class.

More generally: I agree with you that he's an unreliable narrator who seems pretty selfish.
It also looks like he's being dismissive of his daughter's migraines, and that makes me cringe.

[jadelennox]

Yeah, I had the same reaction about the migraines. My mum thought my migraines were just me whining and trying to get out of things, too, and that was in a happy home. In this home it sounds like a nightmare.

(Also, god, yes. My family (a) was less well off than most of the others in my school, and (b) did not believe in spending huge sums on children, and as a side note, (c) attended an orthodox shul, so having a bat mitzvah at all was faaaancy. All the other kids in my class had what felt like massive shindigs to me at the time. But when I compare those well-off kids bar and bat mitzvot to the ones you hear about modern super-rich families having, where Cardi B or Drake perform, or there's a cruise ... I mean, seriously. Even the rich kids I knew still just had a DJ spinning 45s. We thought fancy was an ice sculpture.)

[julian]

He is, as you say, an unreliable narrator, but it reads less as if she gets migraines as that he uses migraines as a "reasonable" excuse for her to miss Societally Approved Thing #3, which, as a migraineur myself, irritates me for entirely *different* reasons.

[jadelennox]

I parsed that as "she doesn't need a lavish shindig," but that might have been my own judgemental feelings about lavish bar and bat mitzvot coming through. (It could also be that the LW is from a more observant background where bat mitzvot are optional or frowned upon, but I doubt it; that doesn't come through in a single other line of the letter.)

In any case, given that some families throw bar and bat mitzvot that cost as much as weddings, I'd have written that part of that response differently, much like any good advice columnist should have a stock answer for divorced parents fighting over the cost of a wedding. It's entirely possible that Daisy is planning an unreasonable bat mitzvah, and it's unquestionably true that if Daisy makes several time the LW's salary, then Daisy planning a party out of the LW's cost bracket and saying he can't come if he doesn't pitch in 50% is, honestly, completely out of line. "Don't make your daughter a pawn in your marriage squabbles" wouldn't be a reasonable answer if Daisy had demanded that LW pitch in 50% of a SpaceX ticket for the daughter, or a first-class round-the-world ticket. Annie might be making an assumption that this bat mitzvah isn't equally ludicrous (compared to the LW's ability to pay.)

[ambyr]

I can't imagine why these people, whom LW describes as "lazy," "spineless," and "shoving [food] down his throat," don't want to spend time with him. Oh, wait, yes I can.

If LW doesn't want to pay for the bat mitzvah, LW should not pay for the bat mitzvah. If this means LW also does not attend the bat mitzvah party, that sounds like a mercy for all involved. (I suspect he could still attend the bat mizvah itself, because the religious ceremony is generally held at synagogue and open to all members of the congregation--and unlike cereta I think LW probably is Jewish, or else he wouldn't care how he looked in front of that community. Missing out on the party should be NBD for him if he doesn't approve of the party being held in the first place.)

[kiezh]

I can't imagine why these people, whom LW describes as "lazy," "spineless," and "shoving [food] down his throat," don't want to spend time with him. Oh, wait, yes I can.

Yes, this. Asshole LW has nothing good to say about any of his family, and he wonders why they don't like him. His contempt for his own kids is especially egregious. Why does he want to visit them, again? Oh, right, because it would look bad if he didn't.

[rymenhild]

The problem here is the LW's toxic attitude.

[lavendertook]

Great advice. You can tell he's being toxic and Annie gently schools him like an expert. Awesome.

[conuly]

What a surprise that his daughter would rather go to movie night with her friend than some wedding with her dad. Does she know these people whose weddings he's trying to get her to attend?

I mean, if I only saw my kids on weekends, I'd definitely prioritize doing fun things over weddings, which incidentally makes me wonder what sort of birthday parties and luncheons they're going to as well.

[the_rck]

I'm kind of puzzled by the weddings reference in the letter as, in my experience, weddings are rare. Including my own, I don't think I've been to more than a dozen in the twenty-five years I've been married. They've been slightly more common than funerals (which is likely to change in the next 5-10 years as our parents and their siblings are all over 70), but family weddings carry the same weight of obligation as things that come before anything fun because we may not see those people again for many years. Or at all.

I have less experience with weddings of friends (I can think of four in that quarter century and doubt I'm forgetting all that many) and none at all with weddings of coworkers or more tenuously connected people. Each added guest at a wedding jacks up the cost considerably, so people don't invite people unless they either really want them there or absolutely have to (or they're willing to blow a lot of money to show that they have it to blow).

At any rate, I'd consider missing a wedding to be a serious thing for the father to do. Taking the kids or not depends on who is getting married and how old the kids are (since there's no mention of the expense/lavishness of the son's bar mitzvah, I'm assuming he's the younger child). Generally speaking, in my family, children aren't an assumed part of a wedding invitation. If they're present, it's because they were explicitly asked which means providing an explanation if they don't attend.

The LW is an asshole, but weddings are potentially really important things, and a guest has a choice between attending a once in a lifetime event for someone they're connected to and not attending that event. A guest can't change the date/time or venue, and I've never been invited to a wedding that wasn't on a Saturday afternoon.

[ayebydan]

Indeed. Here, unless you are told that the wedding is an adult only event (a whole other debate) then it raises eyebrows if you turn up minus your kids here in Scotland. Especially if the wedding party has paid for that child to have food and them not showing costs another person not getting an invite at all.

[greenygal]

In addition to all the rest of this, the LW's last two sentences are really something. "I can't spend money on my thirteen-year-old daughter because she's such a delinquent that I have to save for a lawyer" does not make you sound like a worried and responsible parent; it makes you sound like a jerk. Especially for such out-of-control behavior as--by the LW's own description--"not doing well at school" and "not wanting to attend family functions with her father". If he gave this excuse to his ex-wife, I'm not surprised she's not feeling in a charitable mood.

[cereta]

Yeah, that made me roll my eyes SO HARD.

[neotoma]

... his daughter isn't even 13 and he's making noises about needing a lawyer because she doesn't want to go a wedding or birthday party (and does she actually know anyone at what sounds like fairly grown-up parties?!).

She's not running with a gang, she's being a fairly typical 12-year-old.

This dad sounds like a jerk. One of his children already doesn't want to spend time with him and has figured out how to avoid him often. I suspect it's not too long before the other does too.

Also, that's terrible advice about 'eating healthful foods', at least with the dad's attitude. I mean, sure, let's give an under-12 boy an eating disorder. That sounds like a grand idea.

[sathari]

Everyone else has pretty well nailed the broad brushstrokes of "LW, fix your OWN stuff" so I'm just going to home in on one particular piece of the awful, which, admittedly, I may be misreading.

Literally all the things LW describes doing with his children--- "birthday party" "wedding", and "luncheon"--- sound like stuffy, formal, performative events at which he will not so much be spending time bonding or even interacting with his children as showing them off to other adults in his social circle whom the children may not even know. (The whole image his description of the "luncheon" with his son called up for me was some sort of fussy affair with a fixed menu where the only food the kid knew or liked was the chocolate cake and by the time they got to that the poor kid was starving.) (And, yes, there is the whole separate discussion about whether and when kids should learn to deal with disliked food for the sake of social graces, but it sounds like the dad is totally oblivious to/disinterested in anything about what his kids would like to do in the time they have together and this was just a "fractally bad" example.)

Seriously, on top of Annie's advice, mine would be, "Spend some damn time with your kids when neither you nor they are performing to impress others--- maybe, even, *GASP* ask them about things they'd like to do with you and then DO THOSE THINGS TOGETHER for at least SOME of the time you get with them."

[mommy]

I agree with your take on the luncheon. If the son considers the food gross or weird, then of course he'll opt out of eating it. There's a reason why kid's menus are typically just lists of simple foods.

[lilysea]

There are A LOT of things the Dad is doing wrong, which I'll address in a separate comment.

But, as far as paying for the bat mitzvah goes,

1. I don't think the father should feel obligated to pay more than he can comfortably afford.

2. He should be allowed to attend regardless of how much $ he has contributed.

I am actually wondering if the $ is a fig leaf - if the father's behaviour towards the daughter has been SO unkind/contemptuous that the mother is trying to use the $ issue to keep the father from attending and potentially spoiling the daughter's special day.

If there is genuine cause to believe that the father will be abusive towards the daughter at the bat mitzvah, he should not be invited even if he pays for the whole thing!

[cereta]

That had not occurred to me, but it sounds at least plausible.

[zaracat]

Based on my experience of the effect this sort of behaviour from a father has on children (my own dad to me, and my ex-husband's to my daughter), I beg you to stop behaving like this. Whatever disagreements you have with your ex, DON'T take it out on your kids.

If money is tight and you genuinely can't afford things their mother would like for them, be honest and open about that, but also consider that some events are once in a lifetime and may be worth extending yourself for.

Don't waste the limited time you have with your children - both in terms of your scheduled visitation, and the years of their childhood overall - making it all about you and how disappointed, bitter and angry you are. Find things to do with them that you all enjoy. Keep in touch outside of the time you physically spend together. Offer to be there for them in whatever way you can, and follow through on that offer. Accept that sometimes kids won't want to hang out with their parents and would prefer to spend time with their friends - even if they love their parent to bits, but more so if a parent comes across as angry and judgemental and makes spending time with them unpleasant. Sure, if there are things they do that you consider rude or thoughtless, you can discuss that with them - if you're prepared to do it in a constructive way, and accept that regardless of their age they have their own perspective and a certain right to autonomy. Most importantly, don't make your kids feel as if your love, attention and help is conditional on them measuring up to some arbitrary standard that you determine is "good enough". That's not love.