My kid's mom is going on vacation to Tennessee and going to a megachurch televangelist who's been in the news for not allowing face masks to be worn in the church. My son is 12 and diabetic, and she won't allow him to get vaccinated because she believes they put fetuses in the vaccine, and that it changes your dna. She's pressuring him super hard and saying how much it hurts that he doesn't want to go, and they're leaving tomorrow morning.

He lives with me, but I don't have custody. But he has stated pretty firmly that he doesn't want to go. I have to tell her tomorrow that he doesn't want to go, and that I'm not comfortable with him going there without being vaccinated (and a host of other reasons). I'm not sure at all how this will go down, but I'm not looking forward to her accusing me of brainwashing him and then threatening to take him.

I needed to vent about this fucked up situation, but if you have any input or advice, I'm all ears.

  • Koa_lala [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    She won’t allow him to get vaccinated

    I don’t have custody

    America is a silly place.

    • star_wraith [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      "Men's rights activists" and incels are able to get a following because they take a kernel of truth and then really twist it around. The kernel of truth here is that family courts in the US are pretty screwed up and can often default to giving more custody to a mom than a dad for no real reason other than "moms are more nurturing than dads"

        • star_wraith [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Yeah, egg on my face a bit. I guess I was going with the popular narrative here as opposed to actual data. That could actually be the case, idk.

        • SerLava [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Supposedly that's only actual legal disputes, and if you can't afford a lot of representation to dispute it, it doesn't count towards that stat or something

        • GreenTeaRedFlag [any]
          ·
          3 years ago

          lots of people don't really get that far. For people who can't afford lawyers, it just ends with the court saying "she gets the kids" when they split.

        • 420blazeit69 [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          I think it's changing for the better, but varies a lot state to state (and even judge to judge). I know in some areas stuff will fly in family court that you probably wouldn't see in other cases, and that in some parts of the country (Maine, for example) there's a major shortage of family law lawyers.