Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:It is very true that relationships with kids are facilitated (or not) by their mothers to a large degree. My ex has a child with me and a child from his first marriage. The first mother does way less work facilitating their relationship than I do (I don’t blame her, just stating the fact). I had to stay in good terms with my ex exactly to help our child develop a relationship with his dad even though he left.
I was extremely surprised when my ex recently thanked me for “maintaining harmony” between us three. I was sure this labor was only visible to me.
As to gatekeeping, it usually happens when moms see - rightly or not - that the time with dad doesn’t quite benefit the kids. Some dads don’t take kids places or to activities on their watch, some dads subject them to, ahem, less than ideal conditions, and so on.
“Rightly or not” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Who cares if the dad takes kids to places or activities on their watch. That’s the very definition of gatekeeper.
The PP is being delicate here. She's talking about situations where dad's custody time involves sitting around his 1 bedroom apartment watching TV, not doing homework, not spending time with friends, eating poor quality food (sometimes that the kids must prepare themselves because dad doesn't know how and doesn't care to learn), sometimes exposing the kids to friends and women who are negative influences and may be involved in drinking to excess, drug use, and other activities that the mom does not feel comfortable having her kids around.
That's "ahem, less than ideal conditions" and it's incredibly common when the divorce occurred precisely because the mom grew up and got responsible when the kids arrived and the dad remained in a state of arrested development, complaining about the inconvenience of kids cramping his preferred way of living. Mom takes on the bulk of the childcare in the marriage because dad just wants to hang with his friends and do whatever, then they divorce, and dad descends back into bachelor life with no effort to create a home or a loving, supportive environment for kids.
So yeah, moms "gatekeep" in that situation because they don't want their kids around someone who takes so little interest in them and isn't willing to do even the minimal things to raise functional kids. "Rightly or not."
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