DD's dad furious because I don't want to homeschool her!

[cocoloco77]

I have been a teacher for 5 years and share a daughter with a man who is a (insert very rude word here)! I would find it so much easier to parent without him, but I put up with him for DD's sake. Over the years, he hasn't been very forthcoming with maintenance and is generally quite useless tbh.

DD is due to start school next year and apparently, he has "always wanted a child that's homeschooled". He feels that because I am a teacher, I should give up my job and stay at home and homeschool her. I asked how exactly he would expect me to pay my bills if I'm at home all day, and he claims that he would pay me to do this (which I totally don't believe as he's very inconsistent with maintenance payments and I would never put myself in a position where I'm relying on him for money). Furthermore, I don't actually want to homeschool dd and would much rather her be at school. This has resulted in a huge argument with him calling me "toxic" and claiming I don't let him make decisions in our daughters life.

I'm interested to see what other people's views are on this and if I really am being unreasonable?

He may well want her homeschooled - however he doesn’t get a say in your life and your career.

Hes being ridiculous!

I want to be in court when your ex tries to ask them to order you to agree to this. It should be the best comedy in town.

The reality is OP that if he disagrees with your choice to send her to school then he will have to go to court to force a change. I cannot see that any judge is likely to insist that a resident parent gives up their job, career and income stream to home educate when they don't want to because the other parent wants them to.

There might be more of an argument about WHICH school she attends but again, if you are the resident parent then unless he has very good reasons for it that are in your DD's best interests, a judge is unlikely to be keen to force a change in school.

Is he likely to offer to hone educate her himself? If so he could make an application for an order to insist on this but that seems unlikely from what you've said.

I assume you receive the CB etc? If so I would put in the application, inform him you've done so and you believe the application to be in the best interests of DD and then disengage from it.

You can simply state if challenged "it is not possible for me to home school. I believe the application made to be the best interests of DD."

I do think limiting contact with him would be beneficial. I'd be directing all correspondence to be through email or one of the contact apps available so that you have a record of everything.

He's clearly very unreasonable and that's unlikely to change. This isn't about anything you are doing or not doing it's all him and his need to control you by the sounds of it.

Why are you even speaking to him, lovey? You really don't have to, you know. If he do

Sorry- hit Post too soon!

If he can't even be bothered to pay maintenance, he obviously doesn't get a say in her education. If I were you, I would just stop speaking to him about anything that 8sn5 "when are you collecting/ returning DD", and go through CMS for maintenance.

No normal, decent man would refuse to pay for his kid, so he is basically pondscum.

I had an Ex like this.

It’s time to withdraw contact and never, ever get into conversations. Make it short, to the point.

Greystone or someothing they call it? Basically be very boring. Your Ex is trying to get a rise out of you and succeeding. All out of nothing. He shouldn’t be able to ‘access’ you enough to call you toxic, and if he does, don’t reply.

Cut down any transitions you have to do with him. Be polite. But short. Put him to the background and don’t feed his energy.

You need to stop talking to him. Change your number if need be and set up an email address you check every 3-4 days for visitation logistics.

I would probably try to avoid him having contact in which he is responsible for getting her to school. He may not bother and then you are in trouble for her low attendance.

Tell him that if he wants DD homeschooled, then he can facilitate it 100%. And that means hiring a currently licensed/certified teacher who is NOT you, paying for supplies and learning programs, and providing an appropriately equipped 'learning space' that is NOT in your home. That should shut him up.

But in the real world, as someone said just go grey rock. Remember JADE, never Justify, Apologize, Defend or Explain your decisions. If he brings it up either change the subject or simply repeat 'No'.

I’m very sceptical of him saying he’s always wanted a child who’s homeschooled. It sounds very similar to Dsis ex who wanted dniece homeschooled by Dsis. He was very pushy about it (Dsis admitted she’d been emotionally abused for years when they split up) and it came out that he just didn’t want dniece to have friends and live a life outside the home which he couldn’t control.

He sounds a bully like my Dsis ex was.

Home educator here (he can't even get the concept right!) and he's hilarious!

But because you're doubting yourself:
Apart from all the other screamingly obvious reasons why not, including why any specific arrangement in the best interests of your DD's 'efficient education', (read the actual education act) many teachers face big challenges home educating.

Those hard trained for skills in educating 30 children of differing ability in a specific time frame in an environment where much time is spent on things other than actual targeted subject learning, are entirely different to the skills involved in facilitating independent learning by one of one or two children across multiple subjects in a usually massively more relaxed atmosphere, using methods that mean that multiple subject learning is taking place almost all of the time, cross curricularlised, and lead by the child's interests not a timetable bound teacher.

All the teachers I know who've become home educators (quite a few) have had a baptism of fire as they've had to throw out so much of their own understanding of how to educate in order to become good home educators. He's actually priceless!

Don't tell him any of the above thats the powder up your sleeve if he tried to go anywhere with this. Start moving communication to text and email so the paper trail is there, and the mind twisting arguments aren't.

It's so outrageous it's making me question if he might just actually be being smarter than you realize if he's able to manipulate your thought processes, and heading for getting you to let him do this to avoid maintenance through becoming the available home schooling parent, thus 50/50, but hours of his choosing, having got you to refuse even thinking about it, but he still should get laughed out of court.

He sounds like my ex who is also controlling and wants me to homeschool our dd who is 2 at the moment.

Out of interest, is he also a conspiracy theorist? H/E has become popular among the CTs. Not that I would knock home Ed when MS isn’t working for the child but let’s face it, there are lots of fun, community things that you learn and experience from traditional school.

No maintenance = no opinion. Go to cms and get that shit sorted, OR stop him seeing dc

You don’t need to discuss this with him any further.

He's a dick and why have the conversation let alone the argument. Don't waste your energy on this idiot.

Definitely a conspiracy theorist - thinks DD will become "brainwashed" from going to school!

If you want to be 'nice' about it, laugh at him and say, "bloody likely I am going to rely on you when you don't even keep up maintenance payments, are you mad?!" What kind of job does he have anyway, if he can afford to cover your salary, pension, moving up the payscale, missed opportunities for promotion??

Alternatively you can do what I would do which would be to utter two words, second one, "off" - choose your own verb!

Avoid as many discussions as you can - this 'man' is a first class 'see you next Tuesday! Thank god you escaped from his clutches xx

100 percent.

I have a similar ex and I promise you, life is so much better when you just stop engaging with the bullshit.

First of all, no phone calls. If he rings, let it go and message back that you can't talk right now, what is it? They are a lot more careful about what they put in writing.

The majority of his messages can be responded to with one word or an emoji.

'I want you to home school her'
'Nope'
'You are selfish blah blah blah I'm taking you to court'
-Thumbs up-

Then mute him for the rest of the day.

”you need to have another baby and plan to give up work then” would be your response

He can't force you to - imagine the court case! The judge would laugh at him.
It's such a ludicrous suggestion.

He's only discovered up with this "lifelong" desire 5 minutes ago because it didn't exist before now.

Try not to give it too much headspace.

The unfortunate thing is that once he moves on from this ridiculous idea, he'll likely come up with some other ridiculous idea in an attempt to get inside your head.

Look up “covert narcissist” - he’s a controlling creep. Do what’s best for you and your child.

Get in touch with this twat and tell him you will no longer be taking his phone calls.

If he has any more to say to you as a coparent of DD he is send an email.

That way you'll have a paper trail.

It's best to set up a separate email for him.

Send him an email every time he fails to pay child support on time. Establish an accounting of what he owes to date and add the current arrears to it.

OK I take back my conspiracy theory about a possible long game for reducing maintenance!
Proper conspiracy theorists make crap home educators, don't let him anywhere nearer her education than you have to.
She will only be brainwashed by going to school if she isn't taught to think for herself generally, as will be a poorly home educated child.

@MondaysChild7 TBF there are reasons beside school not working out for HE'ding, which I only really discovered after having no choice, and meeting some very sorted out families who showed me how it could be opportunity for a very different life. But imo those reasons should be positive wonderful ones, not negative fear driven, and even with the great ones, still only if it truly meets that specific child's best interests.

If there's a court order wrt contact, you can't stop it.

If there isn't, then you can.

But child support isn't a pay to play proposition.

Get CMS on his case regardless.

This is your problem (well, obviously, the fact he’s a massive cunt is the problem, but in terms of what you can do about this…), you engage with him.

He’s abusive and this is a way he is continuing to abuse you (and by extension, your DD) so you need to remove his ability to abuse you as much as possible. And that means, basically, stopping communicating with him except where you have to. As Slipslops said, you need to communicate by email and grey rock him. Don’t agree to do anything for him that makes your life harder and his life easier unless you are legally obliged to, just ignore such requests or give a noncommittal answer. Also, if you can get maintenance more smoothly and with less communication via CMS then go that route, even if it costs you a small amount, it will almost certainly be worth it to have something you can rely on.