to think this is enough for brother’s ex to live off?

[frimscratxh]

My brother ended things with his partner a year ago when my niece was 1. He took a job in London, several hours from my niece as he had no option to secure work. He comes back every weekend he can to see her. He’s currently paying more than cms would dictate and gives ex 900 a month, cms calculates it at 750. Last her knew she earned the same as him and after tax, with his 900, she has around 4,400 a month. She is now putting my brother under pressure to give her 30 pounds a week for a two hour babysitter on a Saturday so she can ‘keep on top of things as he’s a deadbeat.’ My brother can’t get up from London until late Saturday afternoon due to his work, so she is saying she is solo parenting all the time and needs a break to catch up. I get this but also see the huge financial strain my brother is under and she is often quite rude to him. AIBU in thinking she should be told enough is enough now? I was a single parent a long time ago so I KNOW it is hard but this seems to be taking the piss out of my brother who is trying his best. I am overseas as are our parents so can’t provide practical help.

He needs to go through the CMS for payments and let them deal with

he also needs to have a formal arrangement in place for seeing his daughter - set times, etc - what he so doing is not good enough

The Saturday arrangement sounds horrendous for her. She has to be around for when he manages to turn up to facilitate visits, but is never sure when he will an actually show to make other plans. For all you saying she has plenty to live on- so does he!!! £3500 for a single man!!! He isn’t exactly doing badly

He may have had good reason to leave her but that has bupkis to do with his daughter's needs. He left her too. Step up. Show up. He needs to own his permanent role as dad. It's not leaving him anytime soon. And welcome to the expensive world that is having kids. He just needs to keep paying what he's paying. She can't force him to pay more. £900 a month isn't bad considering the fact that he's earning around £4k a month. I'd say he's gotten off easy. He'd spend that on nursery fees and the rest anyway if he were still with his ex. So.. get used to it. Meanwhile, he has freedom to shag, party, work, do as he pleases on his watch and on his dime. His ex has lost his hands on support and is forced to outsource the care that your brother has willingly abandoned. He sounds like a deadbeat. And your enabling this? Pull the other one, OP. It's got bells on.

His £900 won't even cover nursery fees, let alone anything else she needs like food, clothing etc.

He left her, moved miles away, and rather than get up early on a Saturday to get the earlier (and cheaper!) train or coach so he gets there at a decent time, sleeps in and turns up when he fancies.

He's not a total deadbeat, but let's not pretend he's a good father.

He is a deadbeat OP

Stop defending crap parenting. 4 days a month is pathetic.

I'm a single parent and I think his ex is taking the piss here - he does not need to pay for a babysitter so that she can some time to herself.

I think he needs to move nearer to his daughter, there must be something he can get nearer to home, even if it involves a pay cut or retraining.

Sounds like the £30 for a babysitter on a Saturday is simply needed because she is never sure when your brother is actually going to turn up to see his child. So she is completely at his whim when it comes to making other plans. He should pay for the care because he is the one constantly running late m.

Say ‘sure, no problem’ Then reduce the CMS to the recommended amount.

I'm more curious about the lack of trains running until Saturday afternoons and sometimes not until the evenings.

I'm also curious as to where he lives (eats and sleeps) when he returns for the one day weekend visit. Does he have the child overnight? If it's at her house then he really is taking the proverbial.

Refuse to believe he could find no job within several hours of his daughter. Ridiculous excuse.

How does he look after his daughter? Where does he stay with her on the weekends when he can?

The mother is a full time single parent without anytime off, the money is absolutely of secondary importance to him actually being a parent.

He needs a proper regular contact schedule going forward and then stick to it. Not just when he can and feels like it.

He needs to parent.

Or if he is going to completely leave it to the mother entirely then absolutely pay significant amounts of money to make up for the fact he does no parenting.

The crab in a barrel mentality always shows up on these threads.

£900 is a good sum of money - he earns reasonably well and finds that a good salve for his ‘when he can’ conscience, so pays it.

If he had 50/50 care however, he’d be paying £600 for nursery +food, housing, energy and other child related costs. Mom would then have equal opportunity to clean, work, socialise etc, freely, and would be just fine especially given she earns as well as he does.

As it stands, he’s quids in on child expenses and has none of the time restraint from being a present parent.

She's paying for all the childcare and has the child for 90% of the time it seems. It's the least he could do.

Not sure why you're sticking your beak in, op.

Take your rose tinted glasses off re your brother OP.

They earn similar amounts, both will have mortgages/rent and bills. She has childcare costs on top of all other child related expenses. She is doing ALL of the parenting. I think he should either cough up and pay the extra but more desirably, have the child overnight one night a week, away from mum. Yes that might mean forgoing a night out or getting up early but he’s playing at parenting at the moment and still moaning.

Unfortunately it has to be between them, there's really nothing you can do about it. Time for him to stand up to her.

Is she paying for full time nursery fees?

So he sees his child 4 days or max 96 out of 720 hours a month and you think he’s doing his best.

She sounds like superwomen to be honest. She's single handedly doing everything and is still mature enough despite him fucking off to live a nice bachelor lifestyle hours away to facilitate spending her weekends waiting around for her daughter's disorganised deadbeat dad to see if he decides to finally grace her with his presence.

I'm sure she'd much prefer less maintenance and him to do some actual parenting!

So they each earn £4,400 after tax. He pays half the nursery cost of £1200 a month and then on top of that gives her £400 to house, clothe and feed his daughter. That isn't much.

He is also only there to see her for 'most Sundays' (and you haven't specified if this is 10-5 or a full 8-7 toddler day) so is pretty much an absent father. Dropping by for an hour on Saturday if he gets there early enough is not really regular visiting. He has no overnights from what you say so when does his ex get a break? But if she wants a break you think she should pay for the babysitter all by herself? Even if she could afford it that doesn't mean it's right that he makes her pay for it.

I think you and your brother are trying your best punish the ex for the mysterious reason the relationship broke down. Your niece deserves to have a mum who isn't exhausted and has time to herself. Your brother should be helping facilitate that by either being the active parent more often or paying for his ex to get a break.

It's difficult to say whether she's unreasonable because you've left our rather key information.

Does your brother work Monday - Friday? If he's a couple of hours away, why is it sometimes Saturday evening when he gets there? Why doesn't he see her until Sunday? Why doesn't he have her overnight?

If I understand, his contribution is to cover the cost of half the things the child needs (a portion of housing, heat, food, clothes, etc etc) plus the cost of taking care of the child for 3.5 days a week - as he is unable to do this in person.

£750 sounds like an absolute bargain to be honest. An alternative might be for him to look at changing his job so that he can provide childcare for 1 of the weekend days and 2.5 weekdays. Then he'll just need to pay for half the other stuff his child needs?

His ex is not a single parent (or shouldn't be), as the baby has 2 parents but your post makes it sound like he is not really contributing any childcare (just a once a week visit) and leaving her to pick up the full slack of raising their baby. Which is shitty of him, tbh.

It's more than 90% of the time. She's a completely lone parent to all intents and purposes. She's paying out a fortune for childcare. CMS doesn't allow for that. And she has 100% of the mental load and life admin associated with being a parent.

Your DB is a loser.

So he's basically paying towards the childcare and nothing else. Child's mum pays the rest of the childcare costs, and then absolutely everything else that the child needs. Doesn't sound great put like that, does it?

Actually I calculated wrong. He's only giving her £300 on top of his half of nursery fees. Not enough.