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?

Stem club for p1 at that money is a total waste. I could see it if the child was secondary but not that age.

Parent B needs to step up mind you and do some actual parenting.

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)

What do you mean by “ successful”? Because it seems to mean “convenient to B and costing them nothing “.

I’d love to know who cares for the child in the hotel / corporate flat when B is working ?

Some parents see their children when they have some “free time”
Others give up 20 years of their life for them.

You don’t think it’s relevant that the biological parent of the children was/is withholding access??*
Quite irrelevant in the context of discussing maintenance / holiday club fees, no?

If you think something will benefit your child, and you can afford it, why wouldn't you pay for it or pay a contribution?

Personally if I was earning a lot more than my partner I would offer to pay for the whole thing. I see no relevance in the fact the parents are separated.

Oh I see there's a drip feed. RTFT, namechange.

No, I don’t think it’s irrelvent.

And I think it’s rather telling that you only brought it up when people were criticizing B.

Some of the comments on this thread are fucking ludicrous. Judgement of parent A for only working part time and then this cracker:

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

A full time nursery place for the two year old, to enable parent A (who is more then likely the mother!) to work full time would cost £1k. Then wraparound care for the primary age kid on top. Mortgage, bills, clothes. Oh and maybe a little fun for the kids, as it's not their fault parents have split up and (probably their) Dad can't be arsed to see them because he's too busy and important is it?

just explained why the access is not necessarily straightforward ... Except in your first posts you said it was down to parent B's frequent overseas trips, lack of UK base and high pressure job. Doesn't matter what sex you are, you don't just get to parent when you feel like it, that's not how it works. Doesn't matter if B is a man or a woman, they're still a flaky parent based on your first posts. And the drip feed re access sounds like an excuse.

Stem club for p1 at that money is a total waste. I could see it if the child was secondary but not that age

And therein lies why we're so piss poor at STEM subjects in the UK. By that same reasoning, baby gym, singalongs, story times would be "a total waste" .

I'd guess at that cost, the holiday club is age appropriate with children being introduced to very basic physics/chemistry/biology concepts. My Primary 1 niece would have absolutely loved that opportunity and got so much out of it. Go along to any science centre and watch pre schoolers play with water, or pump air to make a ball jump out of a cylinder, or grow a plant from a seed.

but access and maintenance are not linked, so really access and withholding it wasn't relevant here.

the question was that RP wants to send kid to expensive club. NRP pays x amount of maintenance, would RP be U to ask NRP for more cash

access has nothing to do with this IMO.

parent A wants more cash for child. U or not U?

baby gym, singalongs, story times would be "a total waste"

tbh I think they are are a bit of a waste and totally overhyped for what small children actually get out of them.

baby groups are for the adults, we all know that.

I do think a £400pw stem club for a 4yo is silly tbh.

£400 for a week at a “stem” club is a rip off.

Let them plant seeds, dig in the dirt and play. They’re 4.

Let them plant seeds, dig in the dirt and play. They’re 4.

I'm sure they do that too.

but would you want to pay £400 a week for that?

that's double what I pay for FT nursery for my 2yo which is 8am-6pm and guess what he plants seeds and digs In dirt too.

No way would I pay £400 for that!

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.

This needs sorting

If B does have PR they need to sort their work out. Go to courts and get arranged access.

I dint believe there is a job out there that has no annual leave and demand they constantly have no idea where they will be next week. All year round.

Sounds like both parents know this set up isnt best for the kids. But some d all their time blaming everything and everyone else.

Parent A just wants parent Bs money and them to keep out, but open their bank account whenever they wish.

Parent B is happy providing maintenance a couple of hours care here and there but fuck all else.

Shamr they cant put their kids first.

Parent B needs to see their child more. Parent B pays maintenance for the day to day stuff a child requires I.e school things, clothes, food etc. I think this club is a nice extra and if parent B can afford it, they should help out.

"nice extra" its £400 not small change!

Parent A is reasonable to ask, but parent B is under no obligation.
It would be nice for parent B to contribute extra if able.
Is 1k a month enough for both children, it sounds quite a decent amount.

It is quite strange that everyone assumed that Parent B is an evil man and Parent A is a hard done by woman.

What planet do you live on OP?

The mother to have primary care and for fathers to pay maintenance is the overwhelming “normal” for split families.

A completely reasonably assumption

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

What an idiotic comment READ THE THREAD! Parent A works part time in a non pressured job. There is no way in hell she would be earning enough to support her child. If she received £7 maintenance a month the tax payer would be supporting the child with benefits.

I don't see why it matters that parent B isn't the biological parent (sounds like they're not any kind of parent to be honest).

Sounds like they want access all their own way at their own convenience. They want the kid to wait around in a hotel room when they happen to be in the country on business. They pay above the minimum maintenance - the minimum being very low indeed and that's their only contribution. Like PP said £1k isn't enough to live on to a very high standard in London. When I lived in London almost 10 years ago our rent was double that (and this was before we had to worry about catchment areas).

I would have sympathy if parent B had researched the course and decided it wouldn't be of benefit to their child but their main objection seems to be "I pay maintenance so why should I" and "it's not educationally essential".

Whether the course is of value depends on the child - I'm assuming it's an SMP course? My nephew did one last year and loved it - he's very into maths and programming and the course was amazing for him he came home with all kinds of electronic robot stuff and it really helped fuel the fire of his interest in STEM and maths. I wouldn't put mine in it because they're not that into STEM so probably wouldn't get the full benefit.

In surprised that people haven't pointed out that as the RP only works 16 hours a week she'll also be recieving working tax credit, child benefit, child tax credit, help towards child care fees (I believe up to 75%) and housing benefit if she rents. This 1k a month won't be counted as it's for the child. So she's on quite a bit of money herself also.

Reading people’s comments about the contact is a little frustrating, my DH’s situation was that he got his then girlfriend pregnant many years ago. She split with him when pregnant and had their daughter. She would not allow overnights, only 2/3 hours a week in his parents house . They agreed on maintenance. Nothing ever went through court, DH was terrified to rock the boat. After 2 years of this he moved to a city 4 hours away so he could have some career progression. Still travelled down every weekend to see her. We got together when daughter was about 3. As things progressed and we got married and had children, his traveling down every weekend was just not feasible. She still would not allow overnights. We even booked a trip to Disney when she was 8 with agreement, and she pulled out at the last minute. But we persisted and she eventually was allowed overnight when she was 9/10. And since then we get to take her on holidays , visit us etc. DH and myself always wanted the best for her, would pay similar maintenance to above and split any additional costs.

Just because someone only sees their small children for a few hours every fortnight it’s not always that parents fault.

Anyway she is at university now and we have come through it, she is a lovely girl and we are close

It's irrelevant that Parent A receives tax credits. Parent A is doing all the hard work with childcare.

I work PT and receive tax credits and my ex appreciates that I do the majority of childcare (although my ex does way more childcare than Parent B here) so he doesn't begrudge the financial help he gives me.

It's irrelevant that Parent A receives tax credits. Parent A is doing all the hard work with childcare.

I agree with this. Parent B wants to see his/her child "in their free time" while in the area anyway on a business trip. Parent A probably doesn't have much free time at all. If child is sick in the night she's exhausted the next day whether or not she has to work. If child throws up at school she has to leave work to get them - no matter what she has on that day. She has to pay for wrap around care (if it's even available) or make sure she only works around 4 hours in the middle of the day term time (and then has to find holiday childcare which will be at least a hundred a week). She doesn't have the option to have a high pressured, unpredictable career as parent B does. When the child grows up and she stops receiving child tax credits and maintenance she'll find it's very difficult to build up a career and she may well be stuck in lower wage jobs and won't have a huge pension.