Document, Document, Document

If anything I have written has resonated with you, please let me offer this little bit of advice. Document. I can't say this is something I came up with on my own, it was offered by a wise community I was a part of earlier in my life as a step parent.

If you are in a relationship with a partner with a child and there are things going on with the biological parent that make you and your partner uncomfortable documentation is going to be your biggest ally. There are both deadbeat dads and deadbeat moms out there. There are physically and emotionally abusive fathers and mothers. I am not a "bash the mom" blog, although in my situation the parent with the problems is the mom, I am aware of fathers who do these things too.

There is a spreadsheets available online for tracking visitation with areas for notations on a couple of different websites, googling "custody tracker" should help you find one. There may be other resources out there but I have found that a desk calendar (one that opens to show the month) is a good option, especially if you are able to paper clip papers on the months as they pass. Mark your visitation or custodial days or time, notate things that are said by the child or other patent, keep track of things that happen. Get and keep copies of the divorce agreement, parenting plan or custody agreement. Get copies of arrest records and police reports, get copies of reports from DCFS or social workers. Keep report cards, progress reports, emails or notes from teachers and things given at parent/teacher conferences. Keep emails and copies of texts from the other parent if they are relevant. Keep medical histories, reports from doctors and pediatricians. Take pictures of bruises with a daily newspaper in the picture or take pictures of bruising and mail them to yourself with a description of what happened and keep the envelope sealed, you can also do this with printed screenshots of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram posts, don't be afraid to do these things. You aren't working against the other parent, you are protecting the children. If nothing happens then you will have nothing to document.

I did not take my own advice over the years, I made excuses and didn't want to stir the pot and cause problems. When everything came to a head we didn't have all the evidence that was available to show what had happened over the years. Adam was ambivalent about documenting the trouble that was happening with Lilith, he didn't want to cause drama or invite trouble. The problem it caused us was during the DCFS investigation (who were called in by someone other then us) it essentially became our word versus Lilith's and worse it came down to Seth's word versus his moms, we didn't have the evidence to protect him.

Document, document, document.