The "unbiased" mediator? Yeah right.

[AmandaI1021]

So my husband and I have been separated for 9 months. We have two children. The mediation was to set up custody and child support.
The mediator asked me why I wasn't working. Well at the moment I live in Maryland. Here there is a high cost of living. Child care is very expensive. I have no real work experience and no training or education beyond high school. I have been a stay at home mom since I had our first child in July 2006. Our second child turned two this past October. (They are 15 months apart)
I am now in a new relationship and 25 weeks pregnant.
So if I tried to get a job right after I left my husband, I would have to come up with the money to get transportation. That's a vehicle and car insurance and gas money. Can't go look for a job without any transportation or money to pay for child care while I look for a job. I may could have found a minimum wage job at a retail store or a restaurant and could attempt to pay for child care.
If I worked 40 hours a week and managed to bring home 7$ an hour, that $ 280 a week which amounts to about $1120 a month.
The cheapest rent I have been able to find for a two bedroom apartment was the one I am in now which is $1150 utilities included in the rent. So where does that leave money for child care, gas, groceries, diapers, car insurance, car payment, or a winter coat for the kids or a new pair of shoes when theirs runs ragged?
I had a job for a short period of time before I left my husband and was forced to quit because I was having allergic reactions to perfumes in the store. The doctor said Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. I was told when I asked to be moved to the warehouse that I had no choice but to quit. I did. I found out a few months later that I could have filed a complaint with the People with Disablility Act. I had already passed the deadline on that.
My husband gave me 400$ a month for 6 months per the protective order that was in place. No money since October from him.
So I was supposed to have miraculously gotten a job that didn't make me terribly sick and find a way to pay for all that came with working outside of the home?
Now this mediator tells me I don't get to decide to not work. I have children to take care of. No shit sherlock. I have been the primary caregiver their whole lives and had attempted to get a job at one point.
I am almost 7 months pregnant but I should be looking for a job so that their crappy excuse for a father can pay less?
I don't care how much he pays as long as he helps take care of the kids he helped create.
He is in the Air Force and is separating in two months. So he is allowed to stop working but I can't not work?

How fair all this seems to me.
She also mentioned something about me not having any kids under the age of two to prohibit me from working. Well, like I said, my son has been two for less than three months. Also in 3 months, I'll have a newborn. So what the hell is her point?
Also I am moving out of state in a few days permanently. So even if I managed to have a job up here, I'd have to quit for the move and then spend a few weeks looking for a new job just to quit two months later?
Who is going to hire a very pregnant woman who will have to quit two months later?

I choose to be a stay at home mom. I was one before, I am one now, and I will stay one.
I don't see a point in letting someone else raise my children when I won't be breaking even with the income.
It's not right for my family. My SO has been taking care of myself and my two children all along, when their dad wasn't. He will continue to take care of me and my children and our child together. When our baby is old enough, I plan on going to college. Couldn't have attempted to go to college here and work to support the kids and myself.

Man am I annoyed. You should get to choose if you want to work outside of the home or not as long as your children are taken care of. In this situation, I believe more harm than good would have come out of me trying to work.

Vent over.

[AmandaI1021]

Jan. 13, 2010 at 3:49 PM

Oh and I forgot to add that in July I had a miscarriage at 4 weeks pregnant. Then min-August I fell in the shower and broke my ankle and hurt my knee really badly. (I didn't know it at the time but I was pregnant again)
Then I had to wait a while for a cast for the swelling to go down and I couldn't walk on it at all without excrutiating pain. I couldn't even use crutches without it hurting. Then I developed debilitating nausea so I got off of the Vicodin and switched to Tramidol. Still severely nauseated and couldn't eat anything. And then I realize I'm pregnant. I am just now getting over the ankle and the knee still hurts sometimes.

(Original Poster)

[MSugarKane]

Jan. 13, 2010 at 8:18 PM

Wow.

I have not one idea in my head right now. I can not believe that a mediator would say those things or expect those things from you. 

[Imamom4sure]

Mar. 18, 2010 at 12:19 AM

that mediator certainly wasn't unbaised! and I totally agree with you!

And I find it annoying too that mom's are being pressured to leave their children!