Cell phones

[KimK]

I would like some opinions on this scenerio.  Custodial mother has blocked all efforts for 13 years for dad and siblings to speak to child.  Dad and I have always allowed this child access to a phone to speak to his mother, and have allowed him to speak to mom while he is with us during the summer.  Mom gets upset when she does not get to speak to the child several times in a 2 week period, however always speaks to him while he is with us.  Meidiator has ordered mom to set a time when dad can speak to the child but she refuses.  This last 2 week period mom called and left a message and we promptly had the child return her call, she fillled his head full of BS that she had called multiple times and got a recordsing that we told her he was not availalbe on the recording.  (not true) and now has told the child she will supply him wiht a cell phone of his own to bring to our home to speak to him.  This mother has been found in contempt for various violations, and has been stalking us for years (yes documented) and most recently was caught over at our home video taping our vehicles and around the property.  She also has a restraining order on her for not being on the property.

My question, is that givin the above, am I wrong to feel as if the cell phone and its capabilities are an invasion of our privacy given that it can record voice memos and take pictures and video?  My gut instinct tells me it is another way to stalk us, and attach the child to be at her beck and call every second of the day every day of the year.  Just a note, mom has no other friends or family and has made the child her "date" for dinners outtings and telling him he is man of hte house..........and even went for a week of Boy Scout camp with him.  (he is almost 14)

Thanks in advance........

[hagatha]

Well you have a couple of options here.

First, you can send her a letter explaining your feelings regarding the cell phone. Namely, you don't feel it is appropriate.  You should also give her times and dates you will have the child available for contact.

Second, you can do nothing until the phone is actually in your home and remove it from the child explaining your feelings about children with phones.

Third, you can allow the phone but encourage the child to call all his friends and talk for hours. (this runs her bill up and if he is talking to his friends, he can't talk to her)

This is really just her way to control your home and piss you off. However, if she does give him a cell phone, it is not Your responsibility to charge it, or remember when he put it last. So if it gets "lost" it's not your problem.

Do you guys have caller ID. This comes in handy when mommy dearest complains she had been calling and you Know she's lying. You act suprised when the child confronts you and show him there were no calls. Suggest she may have been calling the wrong number.

The Witch
Remember . . . KARMA is a Wonderful Thing!!!!!

[KimK]

I had thought that we (if this actually happens) would send a letter back to her and send the phone via certified mail, and tell her that given the capabilities of the phone, we will not allow her to control or spy on us in our home considering we were not caught stalking us and videotaping the property adn that he has never been disallowed to speak to her, as a matter of fact we asked him last week if he wanted to call his mom to go get his bike and he did not want to.  According to her testimony in court and the mediators office - the child does not "like to talk on the phone" so talking to his friends are out seeing as she disallows him to have any friends except her and her parents.

Yes we have caller ID and the weird thing is that if she is complaining on gettinh ahold of the child, why she did not email us at home/work or call either of our cell phones and leave a message or even fax, must not have been too important to speak to him I suppose.  

But bottom line is that I feel like I should not have to watch waht I say / do /dress/ etc on MY home as the child has been taught to spy on us from his mother.

[stressedstepmom]

Wow!! I made a post here last summer that was so similar to yours it is creepy! OSS just turned 14 and last summer when the boys came here for visitation, he brought a new cell phone. She had even written down times for him to turn it on in the morning (6 am or as soon as he woke up)  and when to turn it off at night (11pm). Now I don't know about everyone else, but even if we are awake at 11 pm,  we don't appreciate phone calls wether it is on cells or home phones after 9 or 10, unless it is an emergency.  And noone was ever up at 6am, but please!! if bill collectors can't call my house before 8 neither can she!! She of course looked at it like since it was his phone everything was cool. She wasn't calling our phone after 9pm. Although once she did call my cell phone at 4:30 am because she was worried about the boys because they hadn't called her in almost 2 days. DH was on the overnight shift at the time and she thought that he would have the cell phone with him (even though she knows his job and that he isn't allowed to take cell phones among other things in with him).

We somehow survived the summer, but we were extremely upset at the beginning. We too talked about sending it back to her house with a note saying it wasn't acceptable. But we decided to try it out first because she had made such a big deal with OSS about him getting his very own cell phone, that we knew he would take it personally. The only real problem we had with it was that he would take it everywhere with him at first. If all the boys went outside to play, he took his phone and he would call his mom, because she told him to do that. Or if he got mad at any of his brothers (4 boys all together, we are guaranteed at least one dramatic fight a day!) he would call her then.  Finally,  we sat down with him and set some ground rules. We said the phone could be turned on, but it was to be left in a certain place at all times. When we did things, like sight seeing or even the boys just going outside to play, he turned it off. When we went places, he left it at the house, unless we were going to be gone all day. Then he was allowed to bring it, but it stayed off.  He had a problem with these rules at first, but it ended up that he was afraid of what she would say. DH told him that those were the rules, and that if she questioned him about them or he got in trouble that DH would talk to her. (DH never had to talk to her as it turned out, but she did leave messages for OSS saying things like "I hope your father hasn't taken your phone away, you are so proud of that phone, I hope he wouldn't do that to you")

OSS forgot to turn his phone off one night. She called at 1:30 am. We wondered what was up with that, so we started turning his phone back on after he went to bed. It happened EVERY night, some nights several times.
DH was taking the boys to a counselor here and we also have a lawyer. We talked to both and they confirmed that since the phones are in our house that we could legally listen to and tape the messages she left. It may not stand up in court, but it could be listened to by the counselor and would be in his notes if we ever went to court.  No matter what people's opinions are on this, and I am sure some will say how dare we invade his privacy, we were shocked by what we heard. There were so many messages already saved on there and then several new ones added every night. She was bawling her eyes out, "baby it's me, I love you, I miss you, I am so sorry that you are there. I have to let you go or your dad will have me thrown in jail." and on and on and on. She would recite childrens poems that she read to them when they were 2 and 3 and of course be crying her eyes out. Every single time she would be crying, she would always give a count down on when they were coming home, she would always make it a point to tell them what they were "missing out on" at home. We have this all on tape and both the counselor and lawyer have copies.

PAS by her has been a problem DH has faced since the beginning. Because of how bad it is in our case, we haven't done anything with those tapes, such as take her to court. She took DH to court last year before summer visitation to try and stop it for no reason. The judge threw it out, told her she had no case and not to waste his time. Yet she still somehow turned it around and had both boys hating us, because she said we were taking her to court and suing her for custody. These reasons are just a few of why we have never taken her to court.

 14 yr old SS is "the man of the house" he has always been pressured by her saying that, that he missed out on most of his childhood (because he has to be the man of the house and act grown up since his dad left them..that is her take on things). From the messages we heard last year and from some of her other behaviors, it is like he is her "boyfriend". We don't think there is any sexual abuse going on there (couselor breeched this subject with both boys because he felt the same, that something wasn't "right"), but there is definitely other forms of abuse. CPS doesn't help at all, DH called them last year over other issues. They were gung-ho at first then nothing.

She has always tried to have them spy here and report to her. We really can't keep them from doing that, so we try and make sure they have nothing to say except good things. We have a rule here. She is not "allowed" in our house when they are here. We don't discuss her or her actions here or around any of the children. If she is busy trying to make us miserable, we go outside and talk about it.  That is her # 1 thing, she wants to hear from the kids how we reacted to something she did or said or in other cases like this year things she didn't say or do. We can at least control what goes back to her from that area. We are lucky that she is 7 hours away. I know if we all lived in the same town that she would always be lurking about.

Now both boys have cell phones. Both boys go to school and home and maybe down the street to a friends house,and they live with BM's parents, so why they even need phones is a mystery to us. YSS loses his all the time. We allow him to bring it, but he has to follow the same rules. It stays off most of the time and put up where we say. Also because of problems with YSS now we say that if either phone is lost or stolen or broken that we are in no way responsible.  She allows them to have the phones, then the phones are her responsibility. The boys also abuse their phones big time as far as minutes go, especially OSS. We have never encouraged him to call everyone, he does that on his own, or they are calling him. He will talk and talk and talk, until mom calls (usually on our phone) and tells him to knock it off.

I say let him bring his phone, and let her spend more money on a camera phone with all the add-ons. Then set limits for him and put the phone up. Find one place in the house that is pretty much visible from where he spends most of his time. Ours is on the very top of the entertainment center. That way no matter if you are in the living room, kitchen, dining room or computer area you can see the phones. They can "check" on them and make sure they are there, and we know that she isn't controlling them like she thinks she is. And if he abuses your decision or throws a fit, then send the phone back and say it is causing a problem. For us it took maybe 3 days of this to get things back to normal. They started to realize that yeah, they had a cell phone, but that didn't mean they had to take it every single place they went or the world would end.  

Sorry this ended up being so long. I tend to get long winded, especially on the subject of PBFH. You would think that after 12 years of DH and I being married that she would be easier to deal with!! Plus it is almost summer visitation time so in about a week I have to go outside to talk about her lol.