AIBU to think my child’s father should help with childcare ?

[CTRL]

Can anyone help give any guidance with this situation please.

Long story short my child’s father and I te separated and have been for 4 years. I live with our child full time and father sees him once a week on his day off (he picks our son up from school nd will look after him until I finish work then bring him to my home I share with my child)

Anyway over the years we have had slight disagreements with his role in parenting. Mostly that I think he could do more. He pays £180 a month for child maintenance and as I said sees our child once a week when he pick him up.

Child’s father works 50 hours a week over 5 days and gets home around 11pm everyday except Sunday and Monday.

I currently work freelancing as the industry I work and my career basically involves long hours (working until 7pm usually) and weekend work and when employed within the business and as I have our child all the time and childcare is difficult and expensive (basically I earn the same amount per day or near enough as childcare fees when employed) - so I freelance. So I can set my hours around our child and make a better wage again for us.

When it comes to expenses I’m always expected to find the money myself and del with it myself. Child’s father feels he pays £180 a month and that should cover everything (uniforms, days out, holidays etc)

Now the 6 weeks holidays has come up and we’re not going away but I’m still hoping to book something from now and pay down for next year. Anyway I’ve asked Childs father if he can take some of his annual leave so he can look after our son a few days or even finish early so I can work a few full days instead of half days and I can make abit more money as I’ll need it for the 6 weeks he will be off. Child’s father has said his used his annual leave and what’s left is already booked for his holiday. Which would be his second big one this year. And in fact since our son has been born his father has gone on holiday twice a year and can’t even help me towards his sons first holiday.

What can I do about this ?
I honestly feel like parenting should be a shared job. He sees our son one day a week and even that’s just because it’s his day off. I understand he needs to work but he lives with a new partner (whom he has been with since we separated) and they both work full time. I however live alone with our child and work the odd hours I can fit around childcare. I have the same expenses and even more.

How did the figure of £180 come about?

It's not 'help'. It's expecting him to parent his child, and it sounds like he is quite happy to be a weekend dad and do as little as possible which is childish. You're within your rights to feel let down and irritated.

However, I think you're unreasonable to ask for him to take annual leave at this stage in the year by which point people will have already booked their leave and made plans. If you wanted to split summer holiday childcare then it should have been communicated well in advance.

If you wanted to split summer holiday childcare then it should have been communicated well in advance because The ex didn’t realise there are school summer holidays or because he expected the mother just to figure it out. YANBU OP

Thank you ladies.

And this has been discussed in advanced. Many times. And at the last time we discussed which was around April he had said he has annual leave which he would tak in the summer. Obviously now the summer holidays are here which he has always known about as we had the same situation last year - I have gain asked if his booked his holidays as we discussed and can he tell me the dates he would he off work. And then it came to light that he has taken some leave and what’s left is on reserve for his holiday that he will be taking later on in the year.

He knows of school holiday dates. When I had received the year diary dates for the school I sent the same email to him. And last year when our son was in a pre school nursery within a school the term dates were the same. So again this isn’t something just just come up.

He gets 6 weeks a year annual leave. I get none. Any days I don’t work I don’t get paid for. Yes it’s shit sometimes but honestly it’s the best way I can make a decent wage and be able to have some form of flexibility as when it comes to sports days and trips and parents evenings and PTA’s - again that’s on me too and I have to be available.

YANBU at all, why doesn't he want to spend time with his son?

Go to CMS and get the correct amount of money to which your child is entitled.

Thank you @sciurus83, It’s not that he doesn’t want to see his son. They have a good relationship and my son sees him on Monday when his father picks him up.

During the week child’s father works from 12-10pm Tuesday - Saturday and doesn’t get near our hometown until 11pm. By that point our son is fast asleep in bed as he should be.

On sundays child’s father sees it as his day off and he usually wants to rest and usually I’m home so have no problem spending the day with our son and making sure he gets to bed on time and prepared for school and such. Although recently have started a job again freelancing on sundays so I can get abit of extra cash - and in that case my mum has been looking after my son as I don’t have enough time in the morning to drop him to his dads house and then get to work by 9:30 - and the one time I asked Childs father to meet me near his home (but still on my way to work) and he was in bed and didn’t show up. So to save time we go to my mums from Saturday night and I can leave from there in the morning and my son can stay in bed.

Im not asking for much but I feel this isn’t fair. I obviously expect to do the biggest part of parenting as our son lives with me and I’m fine with that. But it’s unfair his father only has to be a father once a week for a few hours and I should be happy and grateful for it. It’s just not fair

I’m dreading this summer holidays now as I’m going to have to be searching around for childcare. I even asked back in April if he can give me some money towards a summer club so he can have abit of fun and at least childcare is sorted for a few days which at the time he agreed was a great idea - again now the time has come his down to the excuse of he has no money and I can’t expect him to pay £180+ other expenses too....I mean yes it’s annoying but if he doesn’t help I’ll simply have to pay for it myself as I can’t be off work and not earning anything for 6 weeks and I also have work that needs to be done with the business I’m currently freelancing with so it would be difficult to complete being off work for 6 weeks.

CMS are the ones who came up with the figure of £180. It was originally £160 but with April increases it is now £180.

Not sure how it’s worked out as I know he earns that in about two / three days. But that’s what they say I’m entitled to.

I think tomorrow I’m going to double check all details are correct though because it seems off. And it’s not even about the money with me. I’m happy to earn my own money and look after our son but he needs to meet me halfway and at least help with childcare so I don’t have to even be hassling him for money when it comes to certain expenses

Sounds really difficult OP. He needs to step up.

OnlyFoolsnMothers
I think both parents have a responsibility to sort out school holiday arrangements with enough notice before the holidays and in the absence of a change of plan then I would expect normal set up to continue.

CTRL
He's out of order for not contributing to childcare costs and not stepping up. You're not unreasonable for feeling like the weight of childcare is unfairly one sided.
I think you need to pin him down on holiday arrangements more in future.

AUBU? Of course not.
What can you do about it? Nothing I'm afraid. If he's unwilling to take you DC for extra time over the holidays then he can't be forced too, as unfair as it is. Do you think he could negotiate reasonably if you try and make arrangements now for next year? Then he can't use the excuse his annual leave it all allocated.

All he legally has to pay you is the CMS calculation. Morally if course it's a different story. If you doubt the CMS amount there is an online calculator you can use. Although if he is in a minimum wage level job (you say it takes him 3 days to earn £180 = £60 a day) I'm afraid to say £180 for one child sounds about right.

YANBU. He should pay his fair share towards childcare. It's not very fair that he can pop off to work without a care in the world whilst you are left juggling your hours and paying the full amount. Childcare expenses are separate to child maintenance payments.

My Dh has his two kids nearly 50/50 (one day a month difference) so their dm still gets some child maintenence and that's about 230. I think you should be entitled to more than 180 if he sees him one day a week. X

YANBU but in a roundabout way neither is he.

What’s wrong here is a societal attitude.

My ex has down this since we split up. He even went as far as to say to one DC 'well tour mother wanted to leave me and take you with her, that means it's all her responsibility, she should have thought of that before she left'. I had always suspected that was how he thought but to actually verbalise it was ridiculous. He's never taken a day off to look after his kids on 6 years.

YANBU but legally speaking, there’s sadly nothing you can do. Courts usually only order every other weekend contact and possibly one week day every week too.

I know how frustrating it is. I get £20 more a month than you do for three children and my ex has them for 6/7 hours one day a week so not over night. He’s never helped with childcare or school runs, I’ve had to sort it myself. Nothing I can do, I’ve made my peace with it now.

Minimum wage at £8.21 x 50 hours he should be paying you at least £196 a month anyway.
Is he on min wage and have other kids living with him?

You can’t force him to take responsibility for his child though unfortunately. It’s shit, but the reality is the NRP can opt in and out of parenting whilst still exerting their “parental rights”.
It’s fucking ridiculous.

Does your ex have family nearby? Could they help with childcare? At the very least I can’t see why your ex can’t do every other Sunday

Very similar set up with my DS and ex. No advice I'm afraid. It's shit. Hope you can come to a better arrangement.

He is not a good dad at all.
A good dad doesn't see their child as a chore. And will go out of there way to do the best for their child. He sounds like a Disney dad and to be honest he needs to stop being lazy and start being a dad

Your CMS calculations seems to be off! Are you sure they had the right information to go by?

Hi mums
Thank you all so much for te responses.

He has no family nearby. Just him. Most of his family are in another country actually. Ironically his been in the UK for a long time but has only since having our son - been seeking leave to remain. So his here in the UK on the basis of he has a son that he plays an active role in his life. I just don’t see how seeing his son 4 days a month and even those days are just 4-5 hours before he brings him back home fair.

The CMS calculations were based on his job two or three years ago but since then he has change and has a better job working 50 hours and it’s more than minimum wage. When I checked how much he would be making on minimum wage it would be roughly £410 a week and my calculations are based on £379 a week. Just came off the phone with CMS though and they said the calculations are from his earnings his declaring to HMRC and that’s what they are working on. I said but I know that the figures are wrong and the agent basically said that’s te figures they work with and they have no reason to investigate and he isn’t legally obliged to keep them updated with pay increases. My next ‘renewal’ if you like is next June so they will recaulculate ten but nothing to do until then. I’m really annoyed by that.

Honestly I more want him to have more contact that anything. I want to have my own life aswell. I have to work. I want things to start getting easier now and it shouldn’t be so difficault when he is apparently around. I feel like if his going to be around I want him to do more or literally bugger off and have nothing to do with us. My son doesn’t even necessarily love going to his fathers house anymore now anyway. Now his getting older he finds it boring and his father picks him up from school and takes him to his house, gives him some chicken and chips they have bought on the way home and then he will let my son watch tv until he sleeps then bring him home to me where my son is usually raring with energy as his just woken from a 5-6 hour nap 🙄 I’m then left to feed my son, get him ready for bed and try and wind him down for school the next morning. Which sometimes he won’t sleep until early hours of the next morning simply because his not tired as she just woke up from his dads house.

Having said that in the last month or so that has gotten better as the last time we ended up having a disagreement. But still it’s not good enough

I tell him to take my son to the park and most times he doesn’t. Just sit in the house waiting for me to finish work then bring him home.

I’m just fed up really.

I feel if he is going to be around he needs to do more and I’m done talking now, I don’t feel like we need to keep discussing things when clearly his not understanding. So I want to know how I can go about pushing for it.

Even if the courts say he has to look after our son overnight once a fortnight that’s even better than now as currently in the whole 5 years we’ve been parents he has never done it.

I’ve had private work come up sometimes that requires me to do an overnight here and there (think London fashion week) and I’ve worked hard for years before having our son to have a career. I feel it’s unfair I should keep having to turn down work, give up opportunities, forgoe having a life while he swans in once a week and thinks that’s it his job is done and that makes him a good dad and I should be grateful because as he has said “some fathers don’t see thier children at all”.

If that’s the case he may aswell go back home and join his family and simply leave me and my son to just get on.

These issues have been ongoing since our son was born 5 years ago. It’s never been straight forward with him but I’ve always been civil and tried to be understanding and I always see it as “we have to try and get along or at least be civil as we’re going to be in each other’s lives for a while as we are parents now. Our focus always has to be our son” but it’s constantly me compromising and I’m done.

At this point I need things to change

CTRL, I really feel for you. I know you say you need things to change (and they really do!) but I don't see how they can. It is ridiculously unfair that one parent can just abdicate the vast majority of their responsibility because they know the other parent (usually the mother) will pick up the slack.

However, you can't make him do more. On a practical level, are you sure you're claiming all of the benefits you're entitled to, especially the ones that will cover a lot of the childcare?

My sympathies. My child’s father doesn’t even have him once a week. He says he’s too busy with work and can’t/won’t commit to any kind of regular arrangement. What happens is that he’ll go four or five weeks without seeing him at all then he’ll suddenly ring and say he’ll have him overnight. Like you, no family in the picture on either side to help so it’s ALWAYS my problem to figure out how I manage work and childcare. To be fair he does pay more than £180 a month in CMS but not so much that I can afford a nanny (ie pay for a substitute to do the locum-parenting he doesn’t do). The result is that I have no social life at all.
However the saving grace is that I now have a job where they are quite understanding and allow flexible working - so I can leave in time for school pick ups, and very very rarely have to work weekends. Jobs like this do exist, you just have to look quite hard for them.

The other thing is that kids aren’t stupid - they figure out who is a proper parent and who isn’t, and eventually they will vote with their feet....