Can a family court judge force my child into nurserh

[ShyasminW]

Please help I would be really grateful
I have a family court final hearing next week and my ex has put forward his position and wants 50/50 shared care and he wants our son to go into a nursery on his days during the week

i only work part time I do one night shift at the weekend when son is with his dad

I provide full time care all week for my son and son goes to dad for tea mid week after he finishes work

my worry is a judge will force me to take him to nursery half the week on dads time when I am available for him

the nursery he wants our son to go to is 30 minutes from my home approximately I know it’s in an area that’s at least this far from me, and I don’t drive so I would have to get a bus to take him to nursery on “dads days” I also don’t know the name of this nursery as he said it’s linked to his work and he gets discount but he hasn’t stated the name of the nursery to his solicitor (or they haven’t told me) so I won’t know this until we are in court (we do not have any communication me and dad so I can’t ask him)
do you think a judge would force my 18 month old son into nursery when I am available to care for him
can they force me to take him even though I am available to care for him

cafcass did not recommend 50/50 either

sorry this long post

But her doesn’t want to ‘have more time with his child’. He wants the child on ‘his days’ to go to nursery all day and then spend an hour before and an hour after nursery with him. So 9 hours in nursery, 2 hours with Dad. and then some days he’ll also have to spend over an hour on a bus getting to and from too. As opposed to spending the day with mum and a couple of hours in the evening with him.

And there are people on here aggressively trolling the OP, telling her that’ll be better for her son. Maybe in your world. Not in mine.

It was question. This is an anonymous forum you don't have to respond if you don't agree.

@Fluffyowl00 I'm sure he would like to have more time with his kid, but like most people, he has to work. Given that the OP seems to have been totally resistant to any option other than the status quo to date, it's not surprising he takes the view that he needs to get an order for more time with his kid, which will require the kid to go to nursery when he's at work. A more collaborative approach might avoid this, and I've suggested one.

She doesn't have to listen we are not the court we cannot coerce the op into anything. She has to work it out with the judge.

Cafcass is usually not involved without their being an extra element to this story that we haven’t heard yet.

Oh come on even the way you’ve phrased that is so biased. Somehow by using a nursery near his work he will only be able to see the child for an hour in the evening, even though they would also sleep at his but know by travelling to the OPs house after work to somehow collect the child after work he will magically be able to spend a couple of hours now?
Parents don’t get awarded less time with their children because they work, it’s as simple as that.

@EvangelicalAboutButteredToast whatever the nature of their involvement, they haven't said anything more than "would be better if the parents got on". What an insight! There clearly isn't any safeguarding concern for the child or that would have been mentioned up front.

It looks like he’s requesting 50/50 because he doesn’t want to pay child maintenance.

Untrue
CAFCASS can routinely be asked to provide an assessment or child impact report.

Yes CAFCASS can however also be the child's Guardian in care proceedings ...this is not the case here.

You seem to have a lot of knowledge about the case. I assume you know the OP in real life?

@EvangelicalAboutButteredToast no I've just read the full thread

Another person with extraordinary knowledge on the OPs individual case when she has chosen not to divulge the details. Interesting 🤔

Me too!

Well then you'll know that all the OP has said is that CAFCASS has apparently issued a "long term recommendation" that 50/50 care is not recommended because the parents don't communicate or get on well. And I'm sorry, but that is categorically not what CAFCASS's recommendation will have been. And she hasn't mentioned any other reason why the father should not have more contact with his child. If it was as easy as "parents don't get on well" then we'd have a generation of kids growing up without contact with one parent. That is not the law in this country.

Yeah. My bias obviously comes from READING what the OP actually says rather than you lovely ladies who are simply unbiasedly criticising every single thing she says.

Father works 9-4.30. Plus commute (I didn’t include this in time spent together as I don’t consider navigating heavy traffic at rush
hour with an 18 month old as quality time. Bias I guess). Working on the premise that an 18 month old is asleep for 12 hours a day…

She then says he has son ‘for tea’ which I would presume is 5-7pm?

But yes you are right. Father wants him to go to nursery for 9 hours so that he can spend 1/2 hour getting him ready in the morning, drive him through traffic for 1-2 hours a day and and then spend ‘tea time’ with him after work.

Can I ask what your calculations would
be about their quality time together? I bow to your superior knowledge

Parents don’t get awarded anything children get awarded the time

my son would not gain anymore time with his dad if he is at nursery but he would loose time with his mother

dad would still get his tea nights so is not gaining anymore time with son

I think what he is trying to do is share parental responsibility with you. Rather than you be the main parent who is responsible. He's willing to take you to court to get that.

Why would he be driving 2 hours a day to drop off to nursery? It’s 30 mins from the OP because it’s closer to the father!

I’m presuming a commute time of either half an hour or one hour each way. How long is your commute?

Totally!
All the decent nurseries near me have long waiting lists, and will not tolerate people trying to use funding (it's not allowed) for places they won't be using half the time.
Even if you pay privately ethical nurseries won't block another child being able to use that slot because of the shortage of spaces, it's just not fair.

He might also have a rude awakening that the funding won't cover all the hours he thinks it will (only term time) and he'll have to top up anyway.

Good grief, how can anyone be this naive?!

The police have deemed him enough of an abuser to not be allowed contact with the OP. CAFCASS have agreed that 50/50 will not work.

Can you really not imagine that an abuser who has no direct access to their desired victim might use other ways to abuse?! Abuse via the legal system is sadly all too common and very hard to deal with. The consequences on both the victim and their children can be traumatic and long lasting. I suggest you start by reading these to educate yourself in the realities of this type of abuse.

https://www.hague-mothers.org.uk/2023/05/05/its-post-separation-legal-abuse-not-high-conflict-divorce/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9119570/

Like many abusive men, he is using his right to parenal responsibility to continue abusing the OP via their shared child and the family court.

You are also abusing the OP. I think you know that and you're enjoying it. It is demonstrating a deeply unpleasant personal trait in you.

OP, it's good to see that you are filtering out all the nonsense about your child being better off in nursery. He really isn't.

I hope you get a decent judge who can see through your ex's pretence to be putting the child first and orders that the current, successful arrangement continues.

Very good idea.
If you establish in your mind that you would like Mon - Thurs every week giving ex Fri - Sun (for example, especially as you don't work so weekends aren't the only time off in the week)
Then book your child into a pre-school or nursery if you can find one for half days Mon-Thurs then hopefully the judge will see your dc is happy and settled into a routine and will hopefully less likely to disrupt it.

Are the moment you are very vulnerable ironically because you don't work many hours and so have no need for a set routine.
This makes it seem you would be the obvious choice to be the one having to flex to all your ex's demands.

Judges are extremely out of touch and jaded (in my experience!) so you have to make it easier for them.

If you get your Dc into YOUR choice of local pre-school/nursery attached or feeding a primary school of YOUR choice then you have a very good argument the ex should send the child their on his days (best for the child), and this will smoothly continuously into primary school (best for the child) as your DC will have made friends going to the same school and hopefully a Judge won't want to mess around with that, I don't think a child can go to 2 different primary schools when they go back and forth between parents so GET YOUR CHOICE ESTABLISHED NOW.

Sorry for the shouting, but you have to think strategically and not reply on a Judge seeing sense or even understanding that your ex is a dangerous prat.
Solicitors and barristers aren't always that great either and tend to just facilitate rather than challenge the Judges wrong assumptions and decisions.

So get a plan.

First decide what 50/50 plan works best for you.
Hopefully ex will get no way near that, but prepare for worse case scenario, but by getting the right primary school in your sights you are one step ahead

If you did get the shared access as per my suggestion above, you can always reduce the hours/days at preschool/nursery once the dust has settled and your ex has had his day in court and 'proved' what a wonderful Dad he is by fighting for 50/50

I would say I think some childcare is very good for children, good quality childcare is very enriching and has been shown to help with development and social skills.
So spend time with your DS but also allow him to try it, I expect he'll love it even if it's 2 short sessions a week

He has unsupervised visits with his son. The op said they don't get on they argue. CAFCASS made the recommendation because they don't get on she hasn't mentioned anything about abuse. Police have to refer to MASH if a child is around it's part of safeguarding if they are in conflict in front of him.