And another thing...

It's a thankless job, but mothers have to do it.

After 14 years of doing without for him, the boy has decided that he wants to live with his father. I don't blame him really. He is 14 and when you are 14 it is all about the money, and his father has it.

His father has not paid child support since October, when the boy first went to live with him while I found another apartment. Since then the boy has been back and forth, but when he would be home with me, his father wouldn't pay because he had been with him and I didn't pay. Then I would run out of money and the boy would have to go back, there was no way for me to catch up. He would stay with his father for a month, so his father would not pay cs for a month after he came back, by that time we were eating pb&j and the boy didn't like that and would go back to his dad's. It was a vicious cycle. If the boys father's intention was to make his place look like the better deal, he succeeded.

I know that the only reason the father wants him is so he doesn't have to pay child support. He is under the impression that I will be obligated to pay the same amount that he has had to pay all these years. He does not take into account that he makes 3 times as much as me. He is also under the false impression that he will also get the same amount in child tax credit, which is based on your income. I really can't wait to see his face.

The thing that pisses me off though, is that the father will take credit for how the boy turned out. At 14 he is already the person that he will turn out to be, so I am not worried that the father will ruin him, but he will take credit for it.

Anyone with children will tell you that they are a selfish and ungrateful bunch. Year after year I went without to provide for him, but the second his father coughed up forty bucks for a skateboard deck, he was an instant hero.

I have to say that I feel a little guilty for not being more upset. But there is not much I can do. He is 14, he can decide where he wants to live and I know that living with his father he will want for nothing. Well except, hopefully, me. And it is not like he has left the country, I can see him when his busy 14 year old schedule permits.

He was worried that I would be upset, but I told him that if it was something he really wanted that I was ok with it. I told him I loved him and was proud of him and that I would miss him.