AIBU to not give consent to a trip to the US for my DS with his dad?

[arewenearlythereyet]

I have not posted for a very long time, but I could do with some other views. My ex wants to take my DS (aged 10) to the US and return on the day that I am booked to go camping with DS. He has not booked the holiday yet, the camping holiday in Wales has been booked for months for 29th August, with other mums from school. My ds is going on the Monday with my friends, I am joining them on Tuesday as I have a wedding, my bf daughter. Ds is very excited about the holiday, chose to go on the Monday rather than come to the wedding. My ex says that this is the cheapest week to go to the US, financially we are worlds apart, the camping trip is as much as I can afford, but I offered to pay the difference in flights for his trip if he went the week before as I really do not want DS to be jet lagged on our camping trip. On top of this DS has said that he does not actually want to go to the US, they went last year and he's not bothered about going again. We have reached an impasse, where I finally said I do not give my consent for him to go. AIBU?

YANBU.

Your DS is really looking forward to the camping trip. It is more than likely to be ruined by being tired if he comes back from the US either the same day or the day before etc

His Dad has the rest of the holidays to take him away - if the difference in flights is unaffordable, he shouldn't be going in the first place. Of DS diesnt want to go, what's the point anyway?

I think the suggestion of a court order is ridiculous. The OP has stated that she has an amicable set up with her ex, and apart from this particular issue, they have cooperated brilliantly - Dad taking out a court order could seriously damage this, and I'm pretty sure the court would be interested in the child's opinion anyway.

NNchange

I have seen the comment from the op saying court is not likely.

This is just fyi, if a parent refuses to give consent to leave the UK unless one of two court orders is already held that gives a blanket consent then it's not only possible but it's incredibly simple to refuse consent to travel abroad as all parties with PR have to give active permision to do so.
Given the circumstamces the op has outlined
Pre planned agreed holiday regardless of whose going, agreement with any other date, offer to pay the price difference.the child not wishing to because he already has a preplanned holiday (not meaning to suggest he just does not wish to go but that he obviously wants to go on the trip he has been excited about for months), on the off chance that it did get like that I would be very confident that her lack of consent would not be considered to be unreasonably withheld

Is that post to the dad, passive? 

How could it possible be to the mum who has booked a holiday she can afford?

meedasock. My comment about court related to the fact that if the OPs DS goes camping with friends, without his mum present for a night, then his father could legally turn up on the campsite and take his DS home with him.

In reality, this is a "right of first refusal" issue rather than a holiday/removal from the country issue. The OP is placing her DS in someone else's care for a night while she attends a wedding. The DCs father would prefer the DS to be in his care - while travelling back from the USA.

If money's no object, surely he's just being awkward with the dates he's come up with?

I don't know op, but you seem like a great mum

Having done the night flight back from US and Canada with DS a few time, I'd not be happy with him heading off to camp on the day he returned. Most folk sleep badly on planes, I certainly feel disoriented when I return.
Equally camping, particularly with a pal is tiring and it would be a shame to totally compromise DS enjoyment of a trip he has been looking forward to for a while plus hard for the other adults if he gets weepy or angry due to overtiredness.
As op has booked trip already then surely the sensible thing is for the df to either come back the night before or pick a different week. Too late to be putting spanners in the works for something his ds has looked forward to for a long time.

WTF are you on about, passive?
Read the thread properly, why don't you?

My DSD decided aged 8 that she didn't want to go on a 6 week holiday to the US with her mum and stepdad. She chose to stay with us (non-resident parent and stepmom) for the holidays and we went to France for 2 weeks.
Her mum wasn't happy about it but accepted her point of view that she didn't want to be away for the whole of the summer holidays. We spent ages telling her what a lovely holiday it would be and how lucky she was but she was adamant that she didn't want to go so she didn't.
Did the parents argue about it? Yes, we did. Did she get to do what she wanted? Yes, she did. She was able to verbalise her reasons for not wanting to go and we all listened to her.

"if the difference in flights is unaffordable, he shouldn't be going in the first place."

Oh leave it out. Whatever one may think of the rights and wrongs of the rest of it, the fact that a person can only afford the off-peak/cheaper option isn't a reason to say they shouldn't have a holiday full stop.

99% of us "shouldn't" be having a holiday if that was the case.

It seems the OP has a cooperative relationship with the father at the moment. It would be a shame if her unreasonable attitude spoiled this.

I don't think you can be certain that a court will accept her reasoning that the child would be too tired, especially as he's not having a restful night at home but a 10 year olds sleepover which is likely to include the usual staying up late, midnight feasts etc so he's going to be likely to be sleep deprived anyway and arguably more affected than by jet lag. If it was a straight choice between one Ho.iday or the other it might be different (although the fact it's the father's days might be a consideration) but with a day between the holidays a court may very well consider the mothers refusal as unreasonable.

Courts aren't predictable. I once had to arrange to fly a six year old home from Florida . Dad a recovering alcoholic had got court permission to take his son on holiday and on the first night went on a bender and was sectioned. Had the holiday reps not given up their own time to stay with the child in the hotel room (no pool or park time for insurance reasons) until Mum could be flown out the child would have been taken into the care of child services. If a court will give permission to a recovering alcoholic then a problem free shared care Dad wouldn't encounter problems especially as both holidays are doable and the mother may be perceived as unreasonable.

I don't think the OP is reasonable , kids are resilient and he'll be no more sleep deprived from the flight than a sleepover with a friend.

Does he just not want to go to US?

Is there somewhere he would prefer to go with his Dad?

Not everyone jumps screaming at a trip to US!

Kids may be resilient trafalgargal and I do take your point that legally the OP doesn't have a leg to stand on, but I know that my DS age 10 would not be able to cope with an overnight flight, followed by a camping sleepover, followed by another 3 nights of camping. He would be exhausted and unable to enjoy the night with his pal that he had been looking forward to.

DF could have enjoyed a cheaper fare on dates that suited his own DS , simply by doing what the majority of parents with school age DCs do - which is plan his holiday some time in advance rather than waiting until the very last minute to book something which sounds more like it's about him, rather than a trip his DS will particularly enjoy as he has been to SF before.

At 10 I would have picked going out with my friends rather than my parents every time no matter what they were doing.

I think Yabu because a ten yr old generally don't want to be with their parents, they always want to be with their friends playing but sometime they don't get to choose and have to do what their told. This is one of those times unfortunately. It's only 1 night he is going to be without his friend so ite not s big deal in the scheme of things.

1 weeks with his father is more important than 1 night with his friend.

The issue I have is that one night/day in a 5 days holidays is actually taking away 20% of the holiday.
Yes it's just one day but a hell of a lot in proportion iyswim?
This hols have been booked for months and he knows.

On the other side, dad hasn't booked anything yet and can change the dates instead of putting the OP (and her ds!!) in a hard situation where thuings are stressfull and/or need to be reorganised. Wo talking about the fact, it's likely that her ds will miss out on something he really wants to do (being away wo mum or dad).

From far away it nearly looks like the dad is trying to be as ackward as possible and to make things hard for the OP.
I mean if he really wnated to go away to the US with his ds and money was a real big issue, he would have booked said hols a long time ago??

So my question really is, how cooperative is that parenting? Really a co-operation or the OP bending over backwards to accomodate the dad, convince her ds to go and see him etc etc so that things go as smoothly as possible?

WannaBe re "The OP is refusing consent on the basis of jetlag, never heard anything so ridiculous in my life. Given the ex is presumably due to have the DS at that point anyway OP is completely unreasonable to dictate where he can and cannot take his own child, and if I were the ex I would be seriously considering taking out a court order to allow the holiday. The OP would be laughed out of court for her reasons."

You've clearly not read the OP, the jet lag is just one feature, IMHO the main one being this trip with mum, and the initial day without mum, was agreed with dad - months ago. So dad is not due to be seeing the child at this exact time. Indeed, he was offered the chance to take the child to camp and was happy not to.

mixety I am glad you are having a fun time with your DSS in the USA. You said "... however it would seem a shame for your DS to miss out on a holiday with his dad..." But that is not the issue, holiday or no holiday with dad, it is holiday with dad that negatively impacts an existing holiday already booked with mum or go with dad at another time.

OP there really is no competition, get dad on side to see son's night away IS vital to the camping trip.

blueistheonlycolourwefeel sounds like your dd is very wise. What adults consider a fun time is often what kids do not! Despite having bags of energy thy don't always adapt well to chnaging locations and doing lots of stuff, or being away from friends. It's a great example that it is not mum or dad who is taking them (all things being equal) but where, when and what they are doing!

SaucyJack re " Whatever one may think of the rights and wrongs of the rest of it, the fact that a person can only afford the off-peak/cheaper option isn't a reason to say they shouldn't have a holiday full stop."

I don't think people are suggesting dad and son do not have a holiday just that if the dad has to compromise an existing holiday in order to afford what dad wants that it would be better to have a re-think about what he can actually afford to do with his son.

As the parent with less money it seems totally unfair to me that the mum should be expected to subsidize the dad's holiday in order to stop him jeopardizing the son's long await trip! OP can your ex not see how unfair that would be?

clam off comment, think you need to read the thread!

trafalgargal re "It seems the OP has a cooperative relationship with the father at the moment. It would be a shame if her unreasonable attitude spoiled this." Think you mean his unreasonable attitude!!! The OP is being more than reasonable.

Re "If a court will give permission to a recovering alcoholic then a problem free shared care Dad wouldn't encounter problems especially as both holidays are doable and the mother may be perceived as unreasonable." In other words because some dads are utter fuckwitts, just be careful mum's that anything you organise and get permission for might be over turned! IF the relationship between the OP and her ex is so good she will be able to convince him he is being unreasonable.

Rook re " I do take your point that legally the OP doesn't have a leg to stand on..." do you mean dad can come along and compromise anything that is planned even when son has said he does not want to go on holiday with dad? That would be pretty fucked up! Do you have experience of this type of thing? It sounds awful! I totally agree with you that dad could find something the son actually wants to do, that does not compromise whatever is already planned and the son and dad might actually enjoy it!

If Mum doesn't consider attendance on the first night of the holiday important for herself .....then why is it so important for her son?

I suspect if this was a Dad he'd be told if you can't be there yourself you are unreasonable to stop a week of family holiday with Mum and that time with a friend is less important than a family holiday.

peggyundercrackers re "... a ten yr old generally don't want to be with their parents, they always want to be with their friends playing but sometime they don't get to choose and have to do what their told. This is one of those times unfortunately. It's only 1 night he is going to be without his friend so ite not s big deal in the scheme of things."

Not a big deal to you (peggyundercrackers) but a big deal to the child. Who may resent dad and mum if his plans (which were agreed with dad) are changed or negatively impacted. AND how sad for dad having a son on a trip, showing him the sights of San Francisco and having him talk non-stop about the start of a camping trip and how he can't wait to get back for it!

dad has not thought this through at all.

peggyundercrackers re "1 weeks with his father is more important than 1 night with his friend."

No one is saying he can't have a week with dad, the question is that it should not alter the existing plans.

I don't think everyone is reading everything fully before commenting. The first night is important because the ds is looking forward to a night without parents and camping with his friend - I'm sure he's talked and planned and is looking forward to being allowed to do this.

Italiangreyhound - thankfully I have no experience of this at all, but from previous posts I could see that on a legal basis the OP, if the DF digs in the OP - or more correctly the DS - would just have to suck it up. I totally agree with you though, the whole thing stinks of the DF just thinking of himself rather than a chance to have a great holiday with his DS.

Spending a night away with a pal without parents is a big thing to a 10 year old. Probably much more so than flying for 13 hrs to go to a city in the US for a week. DCs are people same as us and they don't have some sort of super human endurance which means they can cope without sleep for a sustained period, no matter how resilient they allegedly are.

If say for example the DF had chosen to fly to one of the many holiday destinations in Europe then they could enjoy a holiday together and as there is no jetlag, it would be more than reasonable for DS to go off on his camping trip the same day, or as the flights are a lot shorter they could come back the previous day.

And yes the "cooperative" attitude that people are talking about seems to be just another example where the DM has to put up with utter rubbish, just to keep things smooth.

Jet lag going in that direction really isn't a thing unless you are looking for it to be tbh

Says who?? I find coming home from the Us to the UK much worse than going.

Morning. Just to clarify, the refuse consent comment was about consent between us as parents, not about a court order. We have previously given a letter of consent to each other when travelling abroad with DS, and apart from this, if the other parent is not happy about travel arrangements we have changed them so we both feel comfortable with it. It has well worked so far. The issue for me is the dates, he would be returning on the day he is going away. A separate issue is DS not wanting to go at all which is an ongoing discussion between me, DS and his dad. How much choice a 10yo should have is situation dependent and as has been pointed out on here they don't always make good choices (I'm not sure any of us can claim that we do even as adults). There never has been any question of refusing contact. Discussions are ongoing, ex is looking at flights that return the day before now.

If Mum really wanted this to work and the missing the camping with pal element is key, could another nights camping for the two of them not be arranged for another time in the holidays or even tagged onto the end of this holiday rather than the beginning.

Ultimately though the Mum doesn't have the legal right to give or refuse permission to the father to take their son away anymore than he has to refuse her. Possession is not nine tenth of the law when it co Es to children. Parents have equal rights regardless of who the child lives with.

I think NOT giving consent is too combative, when you have a good relationship with your ex.

Could you, he and ds have an honest and open discussion?

Your ds really wants to go up on the Monday, and yes, he'll be absolutely hanging after a us flight home. Jet lag from the EAST coast hurts like hell, and I've done NYC to Cairo, and that's 7 hours difference. Both me and my then toddler had our day and night turned upside down!

Give your ds the support to tell his dad how important the camping trip is and that if he had free choice he'd do this over the us trip every time. Could your ex consider going somewhere else instead? If he went closer to home, the week before, the cost of the trip might be the same but they'd have a great time together and have a holiday?

Or could he consider booking the half term for the SF trip?

And thanks to posters who have addressed points more fully and probably more reasonably that I have!