January 14: Non-Custodial Parents Appreciation Day
Non-custodial parents have such a difficult path to walk. They miss their children like crazy, have to send child support to the other parent monthly (or to the county!) and often the children are brainwashed into hating them. That’s what happened to me, with one of my children - my middle daughter.
My husband and his girlfriend had control of two of my children, did everything they could to shut me out of their lives, and caused me years of intense grief. Worse, they trained my daughter to hate me, and even now, many years later, she still hasn’t talked to me in any kind of loving daughter-to-mother way. She’s now 29.
So you non-custodial parents who are suffering grief because your children are with the other parent, or with foster parents, or have aged out and now hate you due to PAS (Parental Alienation Syndrome) . . . this is a special day for you. A day of appreciation and love.
Appreciation and love? You may be wondering if your child will ever be able to love and appreciate you. The problem is complex and doesn’t start with your child. If your child has been ripped from your loving embrace, and brainwashed by being given positive feedback for expressing negativity about you, the child isn’t likely to be the first one to recover from the experience. It is essential that non-custodial parents are able to love and appreciate themselves. We can also appreciate each other because we’re aware of the pain this entails.
Do something good for yourself today. Here’s a few ideas: start a journal if you don’t have one going yet. Start writing poetry about your missing child. Take walks to help work out your feelings. Leave a prayer request on my prayer request page which will signal me to pray for you for the next thirty days. Be gentle on yourself, even when others are cruel. You can get through this, and things will get better, of that I am sure.
This is the first Non-Custodial Parents Day ever. I chose it because it is my daughter’s 29th birthday. I couldn’t face writing her name on my calendar another year, knowing she doesn’t care about me one bit. PAS is heart-wrenching! So this year when I looked at my January calendar I wrote “Mother Appreciation Day” . . . and then I thought, why not make it a day for ALL non-custodial parents?
Please spread this message far and wide to other parents who are missing their children. Give them my love, and my appreciation for the strength they show in the face of extreme ignorance and traumatizing cruelty.
(Yes, you can copy and paste this post - I want everyone to know that we’ve got our own day now. I’d very much appreciate if you would give a link back to FightCPS: http://www.fightcps.com)
Have a great day.







4. Take a walk today and look at all the flowers blooming. Clear your mind from the sad thoughts and remember that life renews itself and there’s plenty to love about being alive in this world.