Six years ago my sons 30 year old father packed his bags and never looked back. He left us without money, resources or hope. It was only a few months after that when he and his next conquest decided that his call to pay child support was unjust and cruel when he wanted nothing to do with my child. “I didn’t want him so why should I pay for him?” is a direct quote from a more than abusive conversation. Not only had he ravaged my life and any hope of achieving a decent future, but he now wanted to pour salt in the wound.

He petitioned the court to have my son removed from my care and placed into the foster system. This was a ploy to evade child support and the judge saw right through it. I was awarded an ironclad custody agreement and $111.00 a week in child support. I asked the court to remove the child support out of fear that my son’s father and his family would continue to harass and attack me if the money was to be paid. The judge refused on the grounds that it is a non-custodial parent’s obligation to pay support to their child This pill was hard to swallow for my son’s father and his parents. Though it seems strange and pathetic that a 30 year old man would run to his parents to have them try and bully the mother of his infant son, yet it did happen.

The years followed with no contact from my son’s father and of course no child support. Yet I was blessed with weekly updates on how happy he was from his mother and father now  that he wasn’t with me. That he was so desperately in love that there just wasn’t room for my son and to quote my son’s paternal grandmother, “You are on your own.” I am not sure if the words were meant to hurt or if pure ignorance to others feelings allowed such aloof bragging. Aside from the occasional chastising for being a single mother who collected food stamps while they hid their 30 year old sons money so he wouldn’t have to pay support, it remained quiet for some time. I was happy, poor, but happy.

Just recently a little over a year ago my son’s father now 36, decided to start calling my home again with the pretense of wanting to speak to my son. I was uneasy and suspicious. As would most thinking people be. He swore that he just wanted to know his son and that he had made a grave error. He wanted to make up for it. Still I was unsure what to think. A week or two went by and he was still calling, but I did find out in conversation with him that the woman of ill repute that he abandoned my son and I for had decided to leave him. The light then went off and I knew why he was calling and needed to prepare myself for the next attack once the girlfriend returned or a new one was found at the local gas station or dive bar.