Ljubica and her family have withheld the fact of the divorce from her mother. I don’t know why but it certainly is evidence of sickness and dysfunction in her family.

Just now Ljubica asked me for the fourth time for permission to take the kids to her home country during spring break. (She can’t take them without my consent.)

She wants them to be with her when she tells her mother about the divorce. She has said to me that having them there will make her telling her mother about the divorce easier. She has said that their presence will also make her mother hearing about the divorce easier, too.

This aberrant perspective is sufficient to justify me reasonably withholding my consent. It is certainly sick and dysfunctional to presume that a ten-year-old girl and an eight-year-old boy should be used to make anything easier for an adult. In fact, the issue is not one of use; it is rather one of abuse. Children need to be kids. They do not need to be not support crutches for their mothers or grandmothers.

I am withholding my consent to protect the children.