Surprises, guilt and the single mom

Not long after posting yesterday's blog about my ex's relative absence from his son's life of late, I got a surprising email from him.

Our son starts school in a few short weeks a private school where uniforms are required. I had mentioned this to my ex sometime back but hadn't thought much more about that conversation since then. His email today was just to ask if our son needed anything to start school and to offer to help get his uniforms or other things he may need.

To be clear, my ex has not been in the habit over the years since our divorce of offering to pay for things in excess of his regular child support, so this communication came as a genuine surprise.

And, of course, it made me feel bad about my rant. In all fairness, sending money for school uniforms and staying in touch with your son are completely unrelated issues, and he's still lacking in the latter. But I got pretty close to accusing him in the blog of not being interested in his son and what's going on in his life, and, particularly in the light of his email today, that was an unfair thing to say.

I still think he needs to work harder at staying in touch with his son, at connecting with him on his level, but perhaps I need to give my son's father more credit for the doing the best he can in the best way he knows how.