The long-awaited and expected vacations have finally arrived, both for children, adolescents and young people of studying age, and for adults. Enormously awaited, since I am a separated father (I have also been a teacher and I know what vacations mean for teachers and students after a very long school year.)
The vacations are here, they finally arrived. I am finally going to be able to enjoy the company of my eight-year-old daughter, and she of her father's company for a "sufficient time." Some who read these lines will say, what is this good man talking about? Well, very simple, my daughter spends barely a week a month with me. And some will continue asking, is this gentleman such bad company that his daughter has to avoid him for some reason?
Well, look: that week a month (many parents do not spend more than four days a month with their children) I got it after a trap agreement with my ex-wife (not without coercion and various threats) and with the complacency of a judge and a family prosecutor who are supposed to be there to ensure "the best interests of the minors."
The argument that was used was that I should be satisfied, that it was enough that she granted me "so much time" (it is understood that it was my daughter's mother who granted my daughter and me "so much time together.") Those "very long" periods of my daughter's stay with me pass in a "blink of an eye," each separation is full of enormous sadness: Daddy, can't I stay a little longer? And why can't I stay tonight for dinner with you and sleep at your house? Daughter, it's just that it's "not my turn."
Every summer, for five years, I ask myself the same question: is a system fair in which mothers can decide, when they separate from their husbands, how much time their children can spend with their fathers? Why am I denied shared custody of my daughter during the school year, and it is admissible during the summer vacations? Why am I "allowed" to spend almost half of the summer with my daughter and not in spring, autumn and winter? Is it that in the other seasons of the year there is an epidemic of "fatheritis" from which my daughter must be preserved at all costs?
Why can my daughter change her address "without trauma" every fortnight in the summer and cannot, and should not, do so during the rest of the year?
Do children equally need their father and mother during the summer and, on the other hand, only need the mother during the rest of the year? Perhaps some will find what I am asking obvious, but all this is the cause of great suffering for minors who are condemned to a stupid, cruel and avoidable orphanhood and, on the other hand, a great tragedy for many fathers (also some mothers, although it is an anecdotal amount) who are deprived of contact with their children.
As I said, I am a retired teacher, I passed an exam and was considered fit, qualified to educate other people's children; however, the family judge and the juvenile prosecutor have decided that "during the school year" I am not qualified to educate my daughter.
Another day we will talk about prevarication...
Carlos Caldito Aunión.
Badajoz