Expensive holiday club vs child maintenance

[notmyrealid]

Parent A has residence of 2 DC. Parent B has visitation for a couple of hours fortnightly, and pays quite good maintenance (around £1K/ month).
Parent A wants one of the children to attend a specialised Easter holiday club (STEM focused, with robotics and other fancy topics). The issue is that the club is quite posh (around £400 for a week, and not even for a full day). The child is of primary school age and there is no pressing educational need for them to attend.
Parent A asked for an additional contribution of £200 from Parent B towards the cost of the club. What is your opinion - should this be already covered by the regular maintenance payments or is Parent A reasonable in this request?

Why is it "cheeky" to ask for extra for a child? Don't most parents want to provide opportunities for their child when they can afford it? No one said Parent B has to agree to every extra opportunity button say it's cheeky t even ask is clearly batshit.

a non usual childcare which carries a large cost

But it's not childcare is it? It's educational and if the DC wants to and will benefit from it, why wouldn't you? Why would you not want your child to have that opportunity? If both parents were still together, and both agreed it was worthwhile, surely they would pull out the stops to make it happen?

Maintenance at the agreed level is for normal day to day living. Extras like school trips, sports team tournaments, uniforms etc should be worked out by both parents.

Kids don't cost £1000 a month to bring up. Parent A is recieving a hell of a lot of money

You clearly live in cloud cuckoo land or you're one of those people who think kids are the mum's responsibility and the dad deserves a medal for providing the bare minimum for his kids. The mum doesn't have the luxury of an erratic work schedule with lots of travelling because she's being a responsible parent. If the dad did half the childcare it would be fair for him to provide only half the costs of the child as mum would be able to work more as it is he does fuck all so yes if he is a decent human being (which he doesn't sound like) he should step up much more financially.

1k is nothing in London to find accommodation, food and childcare and provide activities. The dad apparent has a high flying career but is happy for his kid to have the bare minimum in terms of lifestyle. Nice.

Since parent B obviously feels so hard done by in supporting the child he barely sees. Why doesn't he give up his "pressured" job and actually look after his child more? He obviously thinks that parent A is living in the lap of luxury with his "ore than the bare minimum" contribution so he could swap places and see how easy it is to support a child on that amount?

So say if Parent B were to quit his job altogether, receive benefits and be able to have his child as much as needed but in doing so pay no maintenance... would that be okay?

you think you can find accommodation and pay for food and clothes and activities easily with 1k a month? What world do you live in
It's not £1k though, the mum should contribute too if shes working, and not all accommodation cots are due to the children, only the extra bedroom. Assuming she contributes half, it's hard to believe the kids alone cost £1500 a month.

So say if Parent B were to quit his job altogether, receive benefits and be able to have his child as much as needed but in doing so pay no maintenance... would that be okay?

Why doesn't he adapt his career to take into account the fact he has a child (much like parent A will have had to)? It doesn't have to be all or nothing. He could do a less demanding job and actually see his child. At the very least he could not complain about paying for his child to receive extra opportunities. If you have a high paying job and barely see your child at all - surely you'd want your child to actually reap some of the benefits of your career?

I also agree with PP that 1k is not a huge amount of money to live off in London. Rent is likely to be double that for a start.

we don't know the full circumstances. 1K a month is a fair bit of maintenance when some people are entitled to £7 a week. It's something they need to have a conversation about between themselves because yes. The amount of contact he has is shocking but, he is paying a contribution without complaint. The fact of the matter is that the holiday club that this thread is about, should be decided between themselves and as PP's have said, Not unreasonable for parent A to ask, not unreasonable for parent B to refuse.

t's not £1k though, the mum should contribute too if shes working, and not all accommodation cots are due to the children, only the extra bedroom. Assuming she contributes half, it's hard to believe the kids alone cost £1500 a month.

The mum is only working part time - probably because she has a child to look after. An additional bedroom in London will cost hundreds and no it's not just the cost of an additional bedroom the child will presumably also need to use the kitchen, garden, living room will need to be close to a decent school (which will make housing massively more expensive). Yes you can scrape by on 1k a month for a child but why is parent B happy for his child to scrape by?

1K a month is a fair bit of maintenance when some people are entitled to £7 a week.

I never know why people always go to the lowest common denominator. If they were only getting £7 a week the government would be supporting the child. The fact is 1k isn't a huge amount and you don't get a medal for supporting your child without complaint. That really is the bare minimum. Maintenance is for providing accommodation, food and other essentials within your means - if his work is so pressured it's also likely to be highly paid so 1k isn't an amazing amount.

The holiday club is obviously not an essential. B isn't obliged to say yes but if it's something the child will get something out of and he can afford to why wouldn't he say yes? The attitude I'm hearing is that he resents doing anything beyond the essential. That's his prerogative but it makes him a shitty dad.

Contact is without overnights due to work commitments / schedule of Parent B. This is also the reason why maintenance payments are so high - apparently only overnights count in the eyes of the government as contact.

Yeah, and rightly so. That’s a visit, not proper access.

Parent B shouldn’t refer to himself as “parent” at all.

He can say no if he wants, of course. But throwing money at the problem does seem to be how he handles things...

It is quite strange that everyone assumed that Parent B is an evil man and Parent A is a hard done by woman. In this case, it was a same sex relationship and Parent B is not the biological parent, with parent A creating a lot of drama along the lines of "they are not even your children" when it comes to access. I deliberately chose a neutral presentation, but everyone saw something different.

Thanks all anyway, a lot of food for thought.

hhhmmm I don't know, £1k maintenance seems like an awful lot however seems like Parent A is basically raising these kids single handedly so probably deserves that and Parent B should give the money if he can afford it imo.

Maybe B can use this to make a stand
I am shocked at just how much this club is costing and feel you have forced me into paying or depriving my child of other things they will need this month, so as a one off gesture, I am sending you the money, however any other events you plan, will have to be paid for totally by the maintenance I pay as I am not will to top it up.

I also thing he needs to book time to be with his child. Maybe he can look into that.

Drip drip drip...

@NoooorthonerMum If they were only getting £7 a week the government would be supporting the child.

BULLSHIT!!! My close friend receives £7 maintenance and she works full time. Doesn't even get tax credits let alone any government benefits.

Unless you know the facts, keep it to yourself

Is it down to resident parent or job that b doesn't see children?

You described it as job was the issue with contact. If A is unreasonable of course that is not ok.

It is not a drip, just not very relevant to the question I wanted to ask (which was to do with financial / child support issue, not parenting, career choices or family arrangements).

Drip drip drip...

not really, its irrelevant what sex the parents are but it just goes to show how people assume doesn't it!

If parent B has parental responsibility it really does not matter what her sex is. The way you described it, parent B is not in the country enough for any regular access and now you're saying parent A makes access difficult. Get the story straight p,ease.

Well that goes to show how one sided people are and how much they like to presume, me included. haha.

@LL83

As often happens, it is a bit of both. For parent B to have successful contact, it sometimes has to be arranged with little notice (e.g. they know that they will be working from the UK office for a week in two weeks' time, and will happily spend all their free time with the children). Parent A has to be open to the children staying overnight in a hotel / corporate flat, which they don't agree to (and I understand this to some extent too).

It is quite strange that everyone assumed that Parent B is an evil man and Parent A is a hard done by woman. In this case, it was a same sex relationship and Parent B is not the biological parent, with parent A creating a lot of drama along the lines of "they are not even your children" when it comes to access. I deliberately chose a neutral presentation, but everyone saw something different

I suggest that you read again, because everyone DIDNT assume that. However even for those who did assume that - why is it relevant ? Surely you are not trying to suggest that gay or lesbian couples are less committed to their children, because that would be pretty homophobic.

Of people might assume that A is female and B is Male. Because people on MN are good at pattern analysis. Most couples with kids are het and most loser parents are male.

And biology is irrelevant , does B have PR or have they treated the child of the relationship? Pretty shitty to imply that one of a same sex couple gets to walk away from their child because gametes.

If B were my friend or relative I would be ashamed of him / her.

You don’t think it’s relevant that the biological parent of the children was/is withholding access??

All along you’ve said it’s because of B’s work schedule. So yeah, it’s a dripfeed.

OMG, I am not homophobic, and no one here is walking away from the children - I just explained why the access is not necessarily straightforward.