To stop contact and seek mediation / court order?

[Anon778833]

My ex dp and I have a 21 month old dd. He has been having her Saturday to Sundays every week.

He is a covid denier / anti vaxxer.

Lately he has started telling me that he wants to take our dd to measles and chicken pox parties so she can catch the diseases naturally. He also thinks that car seats are unnecessary and ‘in the 70s’ children used to just sit in the boot of a car and would be happy.

I’ve had her vaccines done without his knowledge. Our practice nurse said that as long as I consent it didn’t matter what he thinks.

So anyway. I’m not happy for her to be alone with him at weekends until this is sorted out. I am happy to facilitate contact if I’m there but I do not want her exposed to illness. He told me last weekend that dd had been exposed to a lot of children but that if she gets ill it will do her immune system good.

I do think he has gone mad.

Will he fight if you stop contact? Will he use car seats if you give him one? That would be my big worry.

I have suggested we go to mediation. I don’t want to go to court at all but he’s crazy.

Be careful him having her every week end doesn't become a long standing arrangement.. When dd starts nursery you should have a week end also!

Is contact court ordered at the moment?

I would want to stop contact.

Do you have evidence of his views? Screenshots/messages etc?

My experience of the court system is that they sadly set a dangerously low bar for what they consider acceptable parenting in child arrangements disputes.

That said,.I withheld contact knowing how shit the courts are, and it was hard.and gruelling but I can know I did my best to keep my child safe

Thank you for your replies. These are good points. I have actually said to him that it would be better for him to have dd every other weekend when she's a bit older, perhaps for 2 nights instead of one.

My experience of the court system is that they sadly set a dangerously low bar for what they consider acceptable parenting in child arrangements disputes.

Yes, this is what I'm so concerned about. I have heard that this is the case.

I am not trying to be controlling, I'm honestly worried about his intentions. The last few weeks, dd has been quite poorly due to a bad reaction to antibiotics. I even had to take her into hospital over it. Her father was arguing with me and saying that he didn't want her to have a covid swab done before she was admitted into the ward.

Now, how this situation came about is that I asked him, nicely if he would please not take our daughter into crowds of people at the moment because she's been so poorly. His immediate (within 2 seconds) response was to send me an article about the 'wisdom' of infectious disease parties. Which to me shows that he has been thinking about doing this.

He then sent me a picture of some children, sat in the back of a truck with no seatbelts on and said that in the 70s nobody lived in a 'climate of fear' like we do now.

My oldest children, who are now nearly grown up are my ex husbands children. I never ever felt that I had to deny him contact with them and we never had to go to court.

The whole situation is upsetting for me because, of course it's a shame for dd to have to stop contact with her dad. It also stops me from having any time to myself.

Yes, I've kept all these types of messages that he has sent.

Can you start switching from every Saturday to Sunday to alternate Saturdays and Fridays?

You really don't want a long-standing arrangement whereby he gets every Saturday - when will you go to the zoo, have a day out etc with her?

The car seat issue is the biggest priority given that she's had her vaccines. I would go to mediation because you want his views, and your objections to them, noted down, but it won't meet a threshold for supervised contact yet I doubt. The bar is ridiculously low.

Keep a diary as well as your messages - just in case anything happens to your phone or email.

She won't drink when she's at his house so that's why we definitely can't do 2 nights at the moment. Every other weekend would be better though.

If you think he has her in the car without a car seat report it to the police? it is against the law as well as being dangerous.

The illness parties? no flipping way. I was born before MMR was a thing and we had a boy in my class who went deaf due to measels.

@Itsnotover

She won't drink when she's at his house so that's why we definitely can't do 2 nights at the moment. Every other weekend would be better though.

I meant Saturday Sunday then Friday Saturday.

Ideally you’d change it to EOW and a week night so you get alternate weekends as well.

Good on you for having her vaccinated. As for the "infectious diseses parties" pretty much every nursery and play centre is one - anywhere small children are together is basically 1 big germ bath. So she either lives in isolation or she is going to get a whole string of coughs/colds/tummy bugs. So, as youve had her vaccinated against the very nasty ones I wouldnt worry too much about that.

The seatbelt thing would worry me as would his attitude generally but I cant see any court banning him from seeing her unless he really is refusing to use a seatbelt or administer medication.

She won't drink at his house? At all? This is very disturbing. Does he drive her without a car seat, giving his batshit opinion and actually doing it are different, does he have one and use it? Why does he get every weekend? You do not want this arrangement in the long term or you will have no leisure time with her, do you work weekends? I would suggest if you do you change. Not drinking would be enough for me to stop overnights, you definitely need to sort this out.

You need to document every single incident and conversation and give copies to your health visitor.

Good on you for having her vaccinated. As for the "infectious diseses parties" pretty much every nursery and play centre is one - anywhere small children are together is basically 1 big germ bath. So she either lives in isolation or she is going to get a whole string of coughs/colds/tummy bugs.

Well firstly she hasn't started nursery yet. Secondly I completely disagree with what you are saying. Going to nursery every day with children who get sent home if they are sick is entirely, entirely different to going on social media to actively find idiots who think it's a great idea to actively try to infect their child with a disease like measles by having get togethers with people who have it to make it happen.

Vaccinated children can still catch measles. And chicken pox isn't mild in all cases and isn't vaccinated for. Some children get encephalitis from it.

Sorry OP but him sending you articles about parties and kids not wearing seatbelts is not evidence that that's what he intends to do.

If he takes you to court, he will say that he sent these to show that you are being over cautious about illnesses.

To be fair, if my ex had insisted that I didn't take my kids in crowded places just because they had a sniffle, I would have been annoyed to.

Stopping contact on this basis is unlikely to go in your favour in court. If he had emailed you to tell you about a measles party due to take place locally that he intended to take your daughter to, that would be different.

Sorry OP but him sending you articles about parties and kids not wearing seatbelts is not evidence that that's what he intends to do.

How do you know this?^^ do you work in family court?

She doesn't have a 'sniffle' - she was in hospital because of a bad reaction to antibiotics which led to her losing a lot of weight.

Why don't you read the thread before commenting?

Also yesterday wasn’t the first time that he’s mentioned to me that he wants our daughter to catch wild measles.

I'm a family lawyer and I agree alternate weekends better otherwise you don't get any 'dork' time with them.
On the welfare issues I personally think from my experience the Court would take the car seat seriously and that father would have to 'undertake' (promise to the Court) to use the correct type for every car trip.
As far as chicken pox parties etc are concerned, I don't think the courts would be so interested.
The drinking thing is unusual though - I haven't had time to read in detail but that could be a valid welfare concern.

I hope you are communicating all of this by email. If not, it's all hearsay.

OP you can get her the chickenpox vaccine through boots etc if you're very concerned about this, but you do have to pay for it so depends on whether this is prohibitive.

@KatieKat88

OP you can get her the chickenpox vaccine through boots etc if you're very concerned about this, but you do have to pay for it so depends on whether this is prohibitive.

Yes I do intend to get it privately because it also stops you getting shingles in later life.

I am hoping that mediation would be enough to convince him that his attitude about illnesses and car seats is unreasonable.

Our daughter won’t drink at his house at all. She won’t even have bedtime milk so often he has to bring her back before 24 hours. She will only drink at my house. It’s possible that she’s on the autistic spectrum because we have a lot of autism in our family and she already can recite the alphabet which is a bit odd / unusual . She’s too young to know this yet.

@KeyboardWorriers sorry I meant to say that no, there is currently no court order.

I’m not keen on going to court really because I’ve heard that it can end up with a judge making a decision that makes life difficult for both parents. I should be able to get legal aid because I have evidence of domestic abuse against me when I was pregnant and it was highlighted in my maternity notes.