Thursday, August 18, 2011

Picking your battles

I got some useful comments from "MIT Marine" and others in response to Battle not over yet, below. He says to pick your battles. He agreed to counseling, but not to admitted false charges of domestic violence.

In my experience, it never pays to admit to a false accusation in family court. I once admitted to having some unorthodox parenting approaches, thinking that it was a harmless admission. Dr. Gay used it as an excuse to reduce my custody, and to send me to a re-education camp. The family court repeatedly accused me of being "unorthodox", as if that meant something.

Since then, I took a simpler approach. I say that I am always willing to improve my parenting practices, if some expert can show me how I can do anything better than what I have done. So far, none of the court experts could say how I could do anything better than what I did.

For example, I had a visitation supervisor who was supposed to be a therapeutic supervisor. She would write some really kooky criticisms in her reports. She always tried to have at least one criticism in each report. One time after a 4-hour visit, her criticism was that I wanted to play the Monopoly board game for 2 hours and do something else for 2 hours. She insisted on playing Monopoly for 4 hours. I told her that if she is going to criticize me for this, then she ought to actually explain to me why it is better to play Monopoly for 4 hours. I tried to ask her, but she was unable or unwilling to explain it.

As my reader said, I have to pick my battles. There was no use arguing with a high-priced babysitter about the merits of playing Monopoly. We played for 4 hours. Maybe I should have just admitted that I was wrong to want to only play Monopoly for 2 hours. Then maybe the supervisor would have said that I learned something. I don't know what I would have learned, but she probably would have preferred that.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

George,

Not just to pick your battle, but also to make your allies or at least turning potential foes into neutral parties.

We scientists think in absolute right/wrong, correct/incorrect, black/white manner, because the pure truth represents absolute power itself. But in this war, you are like a lone Marine thrown to the beach facing overwhelming enemy force. You have to survice their first strike and win your allies, no matter how much you despite, dislike, resent them. They are the arbitrators in your parenthood, and possess absolute power in your fate.

Does it violate the principles I believe in? Yes. Do I like to fake or pretend? No. But I cannot choose to be an upright martyr because my daughter needs her father. That's the sole cause of this senseless war.

My suggestion for you is to take down your true feelings towards that "one happy family". Never show your hostility or question them. Wear a smile and cooperate with them, make them feel they are doing something meaningful, not the BS, corrupted, biased, indecent, unethical jobs they know deep inside themselves. That's especially important if you are considered as an "elite intellectual bigot" because of your education and IQ.

This is the only way a father can have a chance to survive the war and remain a father.

MIT Marine

Anonymous said...

Valuable contributions, again.

Which principles are you to stand for ?

Lose the battle of fairness to win the war for more or some time with your daughter ? Will they throw you a bone if you sort of grin and bear some of the b.s. ? Maybe ? Maybe not not ?

I survived an unneeded anger management course, agreeing with everything said there, just to have it turned against me later, because I had been ordered to attend it in the first place.

Anonymous said...

Remember 2 things:

1.The court system believes in two things: penitence, or punishment

2. The court/CPS/psych/etc needs to do something for any allegation, or they have no meanings to exist.

So picking the lessor allegations and volunteering to seek help shows good deeds and penitence. Arguing and denial shows indocility that needs to be punished.

Sounds fascist? Yes, but fathers do not have the liberty to choose to live in a civil, democratic society only.