Podcast Episode 41 Tile
41

How Far Would You Go To Be Your Child’s Dad? – Part 2

Interview with Marvin Avilez who Spent 7 Years Securing Fatherhood Rights

Hosted by Paul Sullivan

Marvin Avilez’s story to be a father to his daughter continues. The former counter-intel Marine turned technologist became a father in 2015 in New York City – when the mother of his child was in the United Kingdom. After talking his way into the country in 2020, he was fortunate to have an attorney who worked at a capped rate to get him residency. He had no such luck with the legal bills to secure fatherhood rights, racking up substantial debt in his battle to secure parenting rights to see his daughter. Earlier this year, his case came before the judge who had been presiding over it for years. Listen to hear how the case was resolved and where Marvin is today.

Transcript

00;00;04;29 – 00;00;23;12

Paul Sullivan

I’m Paul Sullivan, your host on the Company of Dads podcast, where we explore the sweet, sublime, strange and silly aspects of being a dad in a world where men were the go to parent, often feel they have to hide, or at least not talk about their roles. One thing I know from personal experience is being a dad is not a traditional role for men.

 

00;00;23;15 – 00;00;41;05

Paul Sullivan

Whether you work full time, part time or devote all your time to your family, parenting is so often left to mothers or paid caregivers. But here at the Company of Dads, our goal is to shake all that off and create a community for fathers or indeed dads, and to welcome other dads. And want to learn more from that.

 

00;00;41;08 – 00;01;08;19

Paul Sullivan

Today we have a first. It’s going to be our first two part podcast. And as you listen, you’ll know exactly why. My guest is Marvin Avilez, who has one of the most captivating stories about becoming a lead dad I’ve ever heard. Marvin and I met at a poker table in New York City, probably 20 years ago, when neither of us were kids, and playing poker until midnight on a weekday seemed like a perfectly good use of our time.

 

00;01;08;21 – 00;01;28;23

Paul Sullivan

We then lost touch for well over a decade until I started seeing him posting photos of him and his seven year old daughter a few months ago on Facebook. After watching for a while, I started to read what was going on, but it was like starting a mystery novel on page 200. I was following, but it didn’t all add up.

 

00;01;28;26 – 00;01;46;26

Paul Sullivan

So I reached out to Marvin, who now lives in London, and what was supposed to be a 15 minute call stretched for well over an hour, and I knew I wanted Marvin to tell his story on this podcast. Marvin, thank you for being here. And welcome to the Company Dad’s podcast.

 

00;01;46;28 – 00;01;49;29

Marvin Avilez

Paul, thank you for the invitation. I’m glad to be here.

 

00;01;50;01 – 00;02;09;09

Paul Sullivan

Did you have any any groups in the UK? You know, you mentioned, you know, FNaF, but any groups that were sort of helping you or giving you guidance. Yeah. Through this, I mean, you you’re not, an attorney in the US. You’re not an attorney in the UK. How are you navigating that? That part of this is not just the legality of immigrating, but the legal.

 

00;02;09;10 – 00;02;47;00

Marvin Avilez

So so on the legality. What I did was I actually did a Google search and I found an immigration, lawyer who again, this is he’s like, all you got to do is pay 1,000 pounds and that’s it one time fee. And I will stay with you the entire time. I’m like, what? And and traditionally, yeah, of course he’s you know, he’s getting he’s doing the paperwork for people who are here because of a job or because of, you know, the company is going to bring them in.

 

00;02;47;02 – 00;02;52;27

Marvin Avilez

And I think he regretted it way for me to deal with me.

 

00;02;52;29 – 00;02;59;16

Paul Sullivan

Then normally I take an hour and a half of his time, you know, signs, a couple of papers, calls his buddy at the departed. Yeah.

 

00;02;59;16 – 00;03;03;27

Marvin Avilez

Yes. Yeah, yeah. This was, almost two years.

 

00;03;04;00 – 00;03;08;06

Paul Sullivan

Wow. But you were allowed to stay during that time.

 

00;03;08;14 – 00;03;11;06

Marvin Avilez

Well. What happened? Okay, that’s. Well, I wasn’t allowed to stay.

 

00;03;11;08 – 00;03;12;14

Paul Sullivan

Okay?

 

00;03;12;16 – 00;03;36;07

Marvin Avilez

What I did was as soon as I got through, I called him up and said, look, I’m here. And he goes, okay? And we started talking about it, and he said, look what I think I could do is you have an extreme case. You clearly want to be in your daughter’s life. Yeah, yeah. You have a you have a contact agreement.

 

00;03;36;09 – 00;04;06;03

Marvin Avilez

You’re proving that you want to maintain contact. That’s, you know, look, yeah, I’m doing whatever I can to spend time with my daughter. Yeah. And he goes, I think that this will fall under the extreme clause and will be able to bypass the. You have to go back to the US to apply, and we can use Covid as the hardship case.

 

00;04;06;06 – 00;04;08;29

Marvin Avilez

That you’re that you’re I’m I paid you so you told.

 

00;04;08;29 – 00;04;11;17

Paul Sullivan

Me I earned this thousand pounds right there, right?

 

00;04;11;24 – 00;04;27;27

Marvin Avilez

No, listen, I got I in fact, I still I got to still take him out to dinner because I still I, you know, he put the package together and, and and again, you know, I could never have done this the, the, the it’s, you know, of course they say, well, you can apply you on your own and there’s a process.

 

00;04;27;29 – 00;04;48;18

Marvin Avilez

Yeah, but it’s never about that, right. It’s always about the nuances. It’s always about knowing how to word and phrase and position and the package was the package was amazing. I was like, wow, he really went right into the law and said, look, this individual has this, this, this work, blah, blah, blah. And and he put the packaging.

 

00;04;48;18 – 00;04;54;10

Marvin Avilez

And the really scary part is when you put a package in, they take your passport.

 

00;04;54;12 – 00;05;01;24

Paul Sullivan

You that was good that they, they’re not going to kick you out. Like, you know, you go home like you’re there, you’re stuck. Yeah. Well I think we’re still.

 

00;05;01;26 – 00;05;22;29

Marvin Avilez

The world is shut down, right? The world shut down. Yeah. But I’ve never I’ve, I have fear it’s like oh my gosh. What I’m, I’m it’s this weird feeling, right? You’re you’re in Covid. I’m in a flat that’s not furnished. I’m alone. God, I’m not going. I can’t go anywhere. Right? I don’t know anyone. And I don’t have a passport.

 

00;05;23;02 – 00;05;26;23

Marvin Avilez

No.

 

00;05;26;25 – 00;05;28;13

Marvin Avilez

Wow. So?

 

00;05;28;16 – 00;05;50;23

Paul Sullivan

So. All right, so you get there. You’re in the flat. How does this change this sort of negotiation, the relationship, you know, that you’re having with your daughter now that you’re actually that you’re not flying back and forth your present. Does this make things better? Or are there still challenges, you know, through the legal system with the mother of your daughter?

 

00;05;50;29 – 00;06;05;23

Marvin Avilez

Well, we we had we have an agreement in place and we executed on that agreement and, and that agreement had contact. And so, it was very little it was very, very little.

 

00;06;05;25 – 00;06;06;19

Paul Sullivan

How little?

 

00;06;06;19 – 00;06;09;05

Marvin Avilez

As little. It was 12 hours a month.

 

00;06;09;08 – 00;06;10;16

Paul Sullivan

Wow.

 

00;06;10;18 – 00;06;15;05

Marvin Avilez

Yeah. And.

 

00;06;15;07 – 00;06;38;18

Marvin Avilez

The, You know, one of the strangest realities that that surfaced for me was that I’m so glad that I called and zoomed and did all those years of even though they were hours.

 

00;06;38;21 – 00;06;41;03

Paul Sullivan

Yeah.

 

00;06;41;05 – 00;06;55;24

Marvin Avilez

They were. I can’t tell you how foundational they are in those first five years. Sure. And my daughter would come over and she would just play. It was like, look, oh yeah, this is what this is what? This is where we live.

 

00;06;55;24 – 00;06;58;27

Paul Sullivan

Yeah, yeah. She come back to the flat. Yeah.

 

00;06;58;29 – 00;07;29;07

Marvin Avilez

Yeah. And we couldn’t go out. We couldn’t meet outside. We could go. Right. So everything was at the flat. And so it gave me a chance to establish that father daughter bond. In a very focused, in a world of chaos and and turbulence and fear. Right. And, it was amazing. It’s just just like, whoa, this is really happening.

 

00;07;29;09 – 00;07;37;16

Marvin Avilez

It’s like we’re we’re really, you know, and one of the things was what we would start to make coffee.

 

00;07;37;18 – 00;07;45;23

Marvin Avilez

So when you take a, you know, a three year old and a four year old, that was just like, oh, yeah, I’m gonna, you know, push and push. And then. Yeah.

 

00;07;45;26 – 00;07;51;15

Paul Sullivan

Yeah, I mean, in the world was upside down. So why not be awake all night? Because you’ve had 17 comes a day.

 

00;07;51;17 – 00;07;58;15

Marvin Avilez

Right? And I think I obviously became, you know, a coffee expert. It was quite, quite interesting.

 

00;07;58;18 – 00;08;19;08

Paul Sullivan

But now, as I understand you, you’ve, you’ve I don’t want to fast forward story too much, but I know that you have come to an agreement. You have parenting rights. Talk about that. Talk to how you got to where you are now, which seems like, you know, a pretty good place. And certainly, you know, much better than it’s than it’s ever been.

 

00;08;19;10 – 00;08;47;09

Marvin Avilez

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, again, I want to I want to I want to highlight mindset. Right? It’s like, oh, okay, mom and I don’t agree, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t I don’t I don’t mean to be angry. I don’t mean to be upset. I, you know. Yeah, I’ll be honest with you. Almost two years of being alone in a foreign country during Covid is not the healthiest place to be.

 

00;08;47;12 – 00;09;18;04

Marvin Avilez

No. Right. And not not, you know, kind of not going out and, you know, not not being able to be normal, but yet I’m an extrovert. So the isolation for me was was definitely one of the tallest mountains I’ve ever climbed. You know, and unfortunately, as a, as a, as an interrogator, I understood what isolation does. And so I had a lot of, I had a lot of tools to navigate that.

 

00;09;18;06 – 00;09;19;04

Marvin Avilez

And, and in.

 

00;09;19;04 – 00;09;27;29

Paul Sullivan

The sense of having been on the other side of it, you knew sort of how. Yes, work it through mentally yourself to sort of stave off the sort of worst effects. Right. The isolation. Yeah.

 

00;09;28;01 – 00;10;01;11

Marvin Avilez

Right. Right. Yeah. The isolation was was deafening. It was so loud that I, it it was challenging and, and, you know, I was one of the tricks that I did was I reached back into my childhood, Marvin. And and just really did the things that for me as a child, you know, I watched every science fiction movie, and these, I call them guilty pleasures.

 

00;10;01;11 – 00;10;16;29

Marvin Avilez

Right? And somebody would be like, oh, you just enjoy that. So, yeah, I enjoy it. But no, it’s really who I am. You know, I started getting really back into like programing and really like, oh, I’m going to use this and all these things I did that were, that were child cooking was again, you know, cooking, programing, science fiction.

 

00;10;16;29 – 00;10;41;13

Marvin Avilez

Those are the things that that I did as a kid. And, and so, that part was really, really hard still really hard. And the good news is that during that period of time, it was about a year later that I did get I did get, residency and permission to stay in the UK.

 

00;10;41;16 – 00;10;46;14

Paul Sullivan

So that’s a 2021 I’m talking now, right? Yeah. Right.

 

00;10;46;17 – 00;11;13;01

Marvin Avilez

And so that gave me a this amazing amount of relief and, and I think it took an edge off. Right. And that edge was, was extremely helpful. And I sold, you know, and I felt bags that made me realize how it feels to be an immigrant. You know, in, you know, your family, you’re you’re what do you live work well, all these different things that you’re like, wow.

 

00;11;13;04 – 00;11;14;21

Marvin Avilez

Yeah. You know.

 

00;11;14;23 – 00;11;38;06

Paul Sullivan

It’s just but you also like, it was, you know, you’re fortunate that you had the means to pay for the, attorney and the means to get there. But at the other end, a more traditional immigrant would have gone into, a community of some sort, an immigrant community, and, had some sort of job and built some sort of friends that you were literally in your flat because it was Covid and like, who’s the American guy?

 

00;11;38;06 – 00;11;43;03

Paul Sullivan

You know, sitting in the flat? I mean, you didn’t have that ability to build that community.

 

00;11;43;05 – 00;12;05;23

Marvin Avilez

Right? Yeah. Right. And it’s interesting back because I did a lot of zooming in, but I it didn’t satisfy that deafening isolation. Like, you know, me, I’m talking to you over zoom right now. It’s great. Right. And I get a lot of that. And I’m very fortunate. A lot of my friends, you know, everybody’s kind of on it.

 

00;12;05;25 – 00;12;14;01

Marvin Avilez

But it wasn’t that wasn’t the, That that deafening sound of isolation. Sure.

 

00;12;14;03 – 00;12;29;28

Paul Sullivan

You didn’t have any physical contact. You weren’t. You know, there was taking some of these hang giving somebody a hug. You, you know, your daughter, of course. But she would only come so often. But you weren’t going and shooting the breeze at the coffee shop. You were getting the beans and coming home and doing it, you know. That’s right.

 

00;12;30;01 – 00;12;30;10

Paul Sullivan

Yeah.

 

00;12;30;10 – 00;13;13;09

Marvin Avilez

That’s right, that’s right. And so, you know, while navigating that was, was was a big challenge. And then, you know, at very recently with 2022, very recently, you know, the world started to open up in 2021. I, I, we, we again tried different ways to figure out what we’re going to do. One thing led to another, and then we we we we ended up going back to court and, finally here we are in was October about two, I think was about two months ago, where we finally.

 

00;13;13;11 – 00;13;18;21

Marvin Avilez

Finished our court proceedings and, the new arrangements had been established.

 

00;13;18;23 – 00;13;21;06

Paul Sullivan

Yeah. And that’s when I think I started seeing a lot more stuff that year.

 

00;13;21;11 – 00;13;23;17

Marvin Avilez

Yeah.

 

00;13;23;20 – 00;13;27;23

Paul Sullivan

And so tell us if you can. I mean, what what what is the new arrangement? What is.

 

00;13;27;23 – 00;13;49;14

Marvin Avilez

Yeah. So, so the new arrangements, are are very much what, what is kind of considered the standard package. But I think I got, I think I got the standard package, plus Summer Premier or VIP. And so I, I, I see my daughter from a from Thursday. I have it from Thursday to Monday morning school.

 

00;13;49;14 – 00;14;18;15

Marvin Avilez

So Thursday after school to Monday morning school. Weekend. One during week two, I have a one on Wednesday night. And then we can three Saturday midday till Monday morning school and then week four on a Wednesday night. And then it just rolls over. Okay. So and then half holidays, half birthdays. You know, I think the half the summer, that kind of thing.

 

00;14;18;18 – 00;14;25;02

Paul Sullivan

Yeah. So it hasn’t, it hasn’t been that long, but I have to.

 

00;14;25;02 – 00;14;27;02

Marvin Avilez

Ask, like.

 

00;14;27;04 – 00;14;41;03

Paul Sullivan

What’s it like not to have to worry, or not to have to be in in court two and a half something out and to just be a dad. Just be a dad to your your daughter.

 

00;14;41;06 – 00;15;30;04

Marvin Avilez

I think I’m still navigating that. I think I think that’s still, It’s it’s, obviously it’s it’s it’s it’s very surreal. It’s very distant. And and what I mean by that is not that she’s distant or not that our love isn’t. That’s become incredibly close. But the concept of being that lead dad and then being that only person while she’s under my care, without having family, without having friends, without having other people who I can say, oh, you know, here’s Jake, and I’ve known Jake for 20 years and we, you know, that doesn’t exist.

 

00;15;30;06 – 00;15;50;19

Marvin Avilez

Right? And, and there’s I’ve been very blessed though this last summer, I had a friend come with his three kids and his wife and, they were here in England for the whole summer. And so we were able to visit and I could tell stories, and that was fun. And. Yeah, you know, it’s strange when you.

 

00;15;50;21 – 00;16;00;13

Marvin Avilez

I can tell you a bunch of stuff, but when there’s a third person who validates it, it’s like, wow. And it’s true. Not that that’s not true. It’s just there’s something about that third, you know, set of eyes.

 

00;16;00;15 – 00;16;09;24

Paul Sullivan

But it’s also an event. So it touches a kid’s brain in a different way. And, you know, a kid will remember, oh, yeah, was your buddy and you know, and. Yeah. Friend. Yeah.

 

00;16;09;27 – 00;16;32;22

Marvin Avilez

Yeah. I mean, so there’s somebody there was another part that happened, which is fascinating, is that I had, a really good friend and she was visiting, coming through the UK, and she started she, she took photos of my daughter and I, and I was like, whoa, wait a minute. I’ve never had someone else take a photo of us because it was either a selfie or that was it, right?

 

00;16;32;24 – 00;16;34;07

Marvin Avilez

There was no third person.

 

00;16;34;09 – 00;16;35;03

Paul Sullivan

Yeah.

 

00;16;35;05 – 00;16;39;19

Marvin Avilez

And and when I started seeing those photos like, oh my gosh, that’s me holding my daughter.

 

00;16;39;26 – 00;16;46;10

Paul Sullivan

Yeah, not like this. You don’t have a right arm like that. And. Yeah. Correct. That’s amazing.

 

00;16;46;13 – 00;17;10;14

Marvin Avilez

Yeah. That was, that was I was a big kind of like. Wow. So, what’s been really nice is. She knows me as her dad because I am her dad. But. The kind of dynamics that apply to her mother clearly transfer over.

 

00;17;10;17 – 00;17;11;20

Paul Sullivan

Like, what do you mean, like.

 

00;17;11;23 – 00;17;15;04

Marvin Avilez

Like a like. It’s like.

 

00;17;15;07 – 00;17;41;01

Marvin Avilez

I had fears that. She wouldn’t see me as her father. Cause I don’t spend that much time with her. That, you know, you as a single dad who’s the, who’s not the main carer. You have fear that. Oh, I’m not, I’m not, I’m not good enough. I don’t have not authority, but I don’t, you know, she won’t recognize me as a as a parent.

 

00;17;41;04 – 00;17;49;26

Marvin Avilez

You know, I don’t fit the bill. There’s all these insecurities because of time. It’s like, look. But what I realized was that wasn’t true.

 

00;17;49;28 – 00;17;54;03

Paul Sullivan

Right? So, yeah, it’s. And now you’re establishing a routine and kids and.

 

00;17;54;10 – 00;17;55;15

Marvin Avilez

And now we have a routine.

 

00;17;55;18 – 00;18;07;18

Paul Sullivan

At remembering better than adults because their brains are not as cluttered in them. Remember? Oh, this is the Wednesday I go see dad or this is the Saturday, you know, and so be excited and.

 

00;18;07;20 – 00;18;25;19

Marvin Avilez

All we’re also what’s been what’s been incredible was the things that she remembers. So so one of the things I did during cope was I didn’t shave and I’d made myself a promise that I wouldn’t shave until I saw her. Right. And she would shave. She would shave with me. And every now and then she’d be like, oh, remember when you came back and your beard?

 

00;18;25;22 – 00;18;41;29

Marvin Avilez

Because my, I had a, like a really big growth, right. And I’m like, oh, you remember that? She’s like, yeah. I was like, oh, you’re you really like the little things that I can’t believe that she remembers is like, wow. Yeah, yeah. She knew that and think, you know.

 

00;18;42;02 – 00;19;04;09

Paul Sullivan

What’s been like going around in a you’ve always been her dad, but what’s it been like going around London, you know, with her the past couple months where, you know, you don’t have this, you know, any, you know, pressure from the court hanging over your head. You don’t have it. You have an agreement and you know, she you can see her and you can be her parent.

 

00;19;04;09 – 00;19;12;25

Paul Sullivan

And and what does that feel like going to be? You know, as you you walk around together.

 

00;19;12;27 – 00;19;26;26

Marvin Avilez

That’s a great question. And one of the things that has surfaced for me is I and I hope I say this in the humble way.

 

00;19;26;29 – 00;19;45;16

Marvin Avilez

The past, you know, seven years no one can ever take away from me. And no one can ever say. You didn’t do what you should have done right.

 

00;19;45;19 – 00;19;46;07

Paul Sullivan

Yeah. I mean.

 

00;19;46;10 – 00;19;46;28

Marvin Avilez

And so.

 

00;19;46;28 – 00;19;51;14

Paul Sullivan

You were trying you were is trying as much as anybody could try and you weren’t giving up.

 

00;19;51;16 – 00;20;11;05

Marvin Avilez

And I wasn’t giving up. And so I think in my family, what I share with my family is I, I’m able to say to them, you know, I feel very proud. And I usually don’t say that like, like I wish I, you know, I, my ego says, hey, you should be proud of that software thing you built or you should be proud of that money you made.

 

00;20;11;11 – 00;20;57;11

Marvin Avilez

Or look at your girlfriend. She’s attractive or smart or whatever, right? Those are the things that you want to feel like. Hey, look at me. No, it’s it’s not about that. Like, I feel proud about this. Yeah. And so for the past two months, I have felt like if there ever was a checklist or if there ever was a pretest or if there ever was an examination that I passed that, like I, I took the course, I, I took the test and I passed and that’s kind of what it’s felt like, like, okay, I am I get to be an authorized dad, you know, whatever that means.

 

00;20;57;13 – 00;21;00;04

Paul Sullivan

Like when you take a little kid on the plane and they give them the wings and.

 

00;21;00;04 – 00;21;18;14

Marvin Avilez

Yeah, right. Exactly. That’s exactly right. And I think that, you know, as a military person, you feel like, oh, yeah, you know, I went to the course and I had my rank and, or my ribbon or whatever, you know, I feel like and it’s strange because the way that things have panned out, there are these clear demarcation, these events that have occurred that are like, okay, now you get this, and now you get that.

 

00;21;18;14 – 00;21;51;14

Marvin Avilez

Is it? It’s very strange. Like, what do you mean? I get this now. I should have gotten this from the very beginning, right? Right. But neither here nor there. Right? I can stay positive. Look at what you have. And so, I am extremely grateful. And I think that that has fueled the mindset again, is that being in a positive place of, of trying to, just, you know, enjoy every minute because, you know, during Covid and you get older and you realize, wow, this is yeah, very fragile.

 

00;21;51;14 – 00;21;55;03

Marvin Avilez

It’s very, very you never know.

 

00;21;55;05 – 00;22;21;29

Paul Sullivan

You know, one last question. I mean, as your attorney said, you are obviously an extraordinary case and extraordinary circumstances. But, you know, there are plenty of dads out there who want to be the dads, and they’re divorced, and, you know, you’re they’re divorced and, and they struggle to, to see their kids and they struggle. They get custody. When you think of, you know, how you and they get angry and you know the anger doesn’t the natural reaction doesn’t help.

 

00;22;21;29 – 00;22;53;14

Paul Sullivan

But when you think about, you know, what you went through, how you did it and how you came out the other end. Also during the pandemic, what, you know, are there any bits of advice that you can give to, you know, a dad out there who’s struggling to, you know, see his son or daughter and is is is up against a mom who doesn’t want to give give him his right.

 

00;22;53;17 – 00;23;20;12

Marvin Avilez

Yeah, yeah. And and I think that this is something it’s strange that not only did I train in that field. Right. With the interrogation and the counterintelligence, but I also had people around me who loved me, who gave me the real human, side of things. And I think that that’s what it is, is that there’s it’s like, through friends and and, you know, your friends, right?

 

00;23;20;12 – 00;23;36;00

Marvin Avilez

Because what what do they give you? Yeah, they’ll give you time, or maybe they’ll help you out with money or whatever. But what they really give you is they give you a lot. And that’s where you can tell when your friend who your friend. And that’s why friends that you don’t see, you know, over years, but they still love you.

 

00;23;36;00 – 00;24;12;17

Marvin Avilez

You’re like, oh, they’re, you know, they’re your friends and then your family. Same thing. Right? Yeah. Your family loves you and and that’s helpful. And so what I try to emphasize is you have to look at the emotion of what’s going on, and you have to step back and be objective and not subjective. If you can manage the emotional roller coaster.

 

00;24;12;20 – 00;24;41;22

Marvin Avilez

You have probably already achieved 80% of the success of whatever it is you’re going to do. That’s great. And once you can get into that proper mindset space, having a buddy, having a friend whoever to to kind of talk you down when because listen I, I call a lot of people that I had to be talked down to like look and they’re like okay, you know you have to you cannot do it alone.

 

00;24;41;25 – 00;25;07;01

Marvin Avilez

That in isolation. Right. Isolation does a lot of amazing things to you. And most of them are not what you want. But, you know, I look at four factors emotion, time, time and value. And so. Never, ever, ever.

 

00;25;07;04 – 00;25;19;19

Marvin Avilez

Removing the what I perceive to be the negative things about the mother and only seen the fact that, hey, it doesn’t matter. She’s the mother of your daughter.

 

00;25;19;21 – 00;25;22;00

Paul Sullivan

Right? And you’re and your father.

 

00;25;22;02 – 00;25;48;18

Marvin Avilez

And I’m the father. And to me, great. Whatever I do, I’m not going to criticize. And in fact, I don’t care at this point what she thinks or how she feels or whatever. It’s my job to create solutions and to kind of, in a sense, a if you need something, I’m here. It’s not about me, mom. It’s about our child.

 

00;25;48;21 – 00;26;15;01

Paul Sullivan

Yeah. Marvin, I truly, a remarkable story. Thank you so much for being my guest on a Company of Dads podcast. If ever there was a man who earned, the title dad, it’s you. And I mean that. Seriously, this is, the congratulations. And your perseverance is is a motto. It’s just absolutely remarkable. So thank you for sharing.

 

00;26;15;04 – 00;26;18;12

Marvin Avilez

Yeah. And, Paul, thanks for having me on the show. Appreciate it.