to say DD should be able to attend parties/activities during fathers contact time?

[alisunshine29]

DD is 5.5 years old, her father and I have been separated for over 3.5 years and he sees her once per fortnight only through his own choice. Up until now, if DD had a party to attend or dance show/gymnastics competition etc to take part in which fell on her dads contact weekend then I'd swap contact weekends so DD could attend/take part - he refuses to take her to any parties or activities but she also doesn't want him to. However, now DD is getting older I no longer attend parties with her like I used to so am missing out on time with her there. She's good at/enjoys dance, gymnastics and swimming and now she's older has competitions and shows to take part in. I have no problem in ferrying her to/from these if her dad won't but AIBU to say I will not replace contact missed due to parties/activities?
For example, next month it's her dance schools annual shows. One weekend there is a dress rehearsal (dads weekend so he'll expect me to replace the day though I won't see her all day) the next weekend (mine) there are 5 shows which I'll take her to/from but will barely see her. The following week there are 3 shows so he'll expect another day to be replaced thereby not leaving DD any weekend time with her sister and I for an entire month.

So he lives round the corner in tea popping in distance, or 25 miles away? 25 miles in my area is an hour's drive.

Don't blame him for saying no to a 2.5 hour queue for tickets - insane.

How did you get your own tickets for the show? Did you not get them at the same time as standing in the queue for his? Or is there a different rule for mothers of children attending?

I think if he had full custody and you only saw her one day a fortnight you would want to see her all day too and everyone would be saying how horrible he was to be booking all these things in just so you couldn't see her for very long

Yabu

AThingInYourLife
Why doesn't she want her Dad to take her? Does he bully her?

Why don't you just say that you think he is abusive and get it over with?

Maybe, just maybe, the DD enjoys the downtime with her dad.
Maybe she wants to have two separate lives and two separate types of relationship with her parents.

I find it so sad and bizarre that there are children growing up missing out on important parts of their childhood because their parents have split and they have a father who refuses to do anything a parent would normally do.

oh, please. he sees her one day a fortnight, and OP as said herself that DD doesn't WANT him to take her to anything. she's five. she probably loves spending a couple of sundays a month with her dad just relaxing and having fun with him. when i was a kid and my mum worked weekends, i loved spending sundays with my dad - they're some of the best memories of my childhood and they didn't involve him schlepping me to every activity under the sun.

my dad also gasp never went to parents evenings, nativities, school sports days, and gasp neither did my mum a lot of the time - i survived, got looked after by my friend's family and still had a great time. you don't have to attend every activity under the sun to have a good relationship with your child.

He works round the corner, he moved 25 miles away. He could take DD for tea or even overnight stays midweek but chooses not to. He also chooses to have no extra contact in school holidays. Precisely as someone said - I do everything for DD and he swoops in once per fortnight and upsets/disrupts her. There was one allocated ticket per child for the dance shows therefore for him to get one it needed to be queued for which I did for him a) in the hope he might actually take an interest in his daughters life and b) because he'd have been shouting from the rooftops that I was excluding him from her life if I didn't. DD doesn't want him to take her to things because she doesn't want to see him full stop. He doesn't 'have downtime and watch TV with her' she sits in the guest room watching it alone while he has friends round etc. Yes activities only take up 6 weekends per year but parties take up many more.

You need to sort this.

It is not fair on your daughter.

Is the current arrangement a legal one?

It might be worth formalising contact and mediation might help you to come to an arrangement with him that isn't just about him exercising his ownership of her once a fortnight.

No it isn't a legal arrangement. We attended mediation a couple of years ago and he had the chance to get a contact order but chose not to as he knew he'd breach it himself - he demands she be available for midweek/holiday contact because that's 'his right' but when it comes to it he doesn't want her. He didn't want it formalised in case he ended up liable for childcare costs during the time he said he'd have her. While the current situation frustrates me I feel going to court/mediation wouldn't be very productive as he already has the bare minimum contact. It just makes me sad for DD as she said seeing him is a 'waste of her life' and that she wants to stay home and have a normal one.

However while you might think 'well it'll end up that she'll choose not to see him when older' - she may well do, but whichever way you look at it that isn't best for her. If he just gave her a little of his time she'd actually appreciate him. Or if she gets older and doesn't see him but in the meantime has missed so many activities that she's too old to get into them properly. All I can see ahead is resentment.

i think you need to make a formalised contact order, honestly. if he doesn't stick to it, then that's his loss as a parent. he should be liable financially for 50% of her care - that includes childcare, parties, competitions and whatever else she participates in.

does she actually want to go to his house? because if she's saying "no, i don't want to see daddy because i don't like it" then that needs to be considerered and brought up with the people who sort out official contact times.

No she doesn't want to go but contact would never be stopped because of this - children don't have a voice til they're at least 10/11.

does he know that she doesn't want to go? i know she's only young but could she maybe tell him how she feels? would he listen to her or just say "i want my time with my daughter i don't care"?

Yes he knows, hence why he arrives armed with his iPad an chocolate to bribe her. He promises her trips out etc then she returns and he's told her they didn't have time for whatever he promised and they'll do it next time. Next time never comes. He continues with contact to keep up appearances with his family and friends.

ah, that sucks, and it's really unfair on your DD. what would happen if he turned up and she refused to go?

She has done numerous times - he physically carries her kicking and screaming to his car.

i don't think it's fair to make her go when she clearly doesn't want to, but i also don't know what else to suggest! she's only 5yo which obviously means she doesn't (legally) have much say :/ that's not helpful i know, but it must be so frustrating!

Jesus, that is fucking horrible :(

Poor kid.

He carries her kicking and screaming to something that is none essential?

And you let him do that?

Ya gotta love a drip feed.

To be concerned about missing gym or dance, and not the kicking and screaming is a tad odd, tbh. Priorities, and all that jazz.

Jesus, is there anything that can't somehow be blamed on the woman?

Contact with her father isn't considered 'non-essential' in Court. She and I have no say in the matter.

I think YABU to not allow him extra contact time (even if he is an arse) if he wants it so long as he isn't going over a reasonable amount (50% or whatever).

Wel, in all honesty, you both need to sit down like adults and work out how you can make things better for your child. The animosity you feel towards him and his actions are likely to be playing a large part in her negativity to going.

I see the fact she doesn't want to spend time with her father as a much bigger problem than any 5yo birthday party tbh (they might seem über important now, but really, in the grand scheme of things, children do survive without attending them, ever).

So, I think you need to faking it, losing the negativity, and bigging up the time she is spending with her dad with her, and the two of you adults need to sit down and discuss dance and gymnastics, and whether it is possible, with a joint custody situation, for her to attend them. At 5, this stuff is easy peasy - when she is 11, it's going to be a whole lot worse - way more training, and way more competitions, more travelling, and a lot more time spent. I would also add it is going to be impossible for her to continue with dance, gym and swimming at a comptetitive level. Completely impossible. All three eat time, and conflict with each other and other real life.

You both need to be on the same page with this. And you need to be on the same page from now. What did he say when you first discussed her weekend hobbies with him that would impact on his time with her? I only ask, because I have several friends in similar situations who made sure to discuss their daughters dance classes with the their ex prior to registration - one family now has a daughter in dance (and in fact, her father sends an additional monthly cheque to pay for it), and the other family do not have a daughter in dance, because the child spends two full weekends a month with her father - she is a little older, and the school attends five competitions a year, with additional practice every Sunday lunchtime from 12-5 in the four months leading up to comp season.

At 5, your priority really shouldn't be maintaining your daughter's schedule. It should be how you are going to rebuild her relationship with her father. Worry about the hobbies later, once this is fixed.

Sure, it may not be possible. She may already believe that dance and parties are more important. But you do need to try.

alwayslate, I totally and utterly agree.