Any legal professionals around? How likely is the court to grant this?

[questionaboutson]

Ex husband has been fighting for a week on and week off arrangement with our children.

I am strongly opposed to this for 2 main reasons:

1. The youngest has just turned 5 and cries every time she has to go to her dad’s and has to be pulled off me by him when I drop her off. Even the eldest struggles sometimes. I feel a week is a long time.
2. I am self employed and it will massively affect my ability to financially support myself and the children, especially during school holidays.

Ex husband is now saying if I don’t agree by a certain date we are going to court.

How likely is it that a court will agree with him?

Week on week off childcare is not easy to find. They may expect a full time place to be held and paid for

Thank you, this is very much how I feel.

This exactly. I also live alone but he had someone move in with him very quickly after I left and so has reliable childcare. He also has a job that he can do from home while the children are around. I work from home but I can’t have the children in the house while I do it.

If I were you I would let him take it to court. I'd do my utmost to appear super reasonable to the judge. Do not mention religion. Keep it very practical. You have limited financial resources and you are self employed. You absolutely support the children having time with their father, but the proposed arrangements would cause great financial difficulty to you and therefore be detrimental to the children.

Gather as much evidence as you can to support this. E.g. months of records as to the days and times you work. Information supporting why you can't do that one week on one week off. Eg. If you are a personal trainer find studies supporting the important of regular weekly sessions. If you have any particularly loyal and friendly clients would they write letters explaining they'd sadly have to go elsewhere if you could only do evey other week? Email local childcare providers to ask about week on/week off childcare and keep the responses. Gather everything you possibly can to demonstrate that you are not being unreasonable, but that it is the practical reality of your financial situation.

Unfortunately work commitments are never going to be the primary consideration when it comes to shared care arrangements. If OP doesn't support week on week off then she should consider 4:3 3:4.
Neither parent's views on religion are more important than the other's.

I've known people to do something like:

Parent 1: Monday school/nursery pickup to school/nursery drop off Wednesday morning
Parent 2: Wednesday school/nursery pickup Friday drop-off
Alternating: Friday pick up to Monday drop off

That gives 50-50 with a consistent pattern of days so you'd know which days of the week you'd have clear to work and avoids any full weeks (except for holidays) away from either parent. It also has relatively few transitions and (in term time), always at school/nursery, so not a direct transition from one parent to the other. Could you argue for something like that?

This is essentially what we do now.

I think that could help your case, as I think courts usually want a good reason to vary the status quo if the status quo is working reasonably well. If the main problem is the five year old struggling with transitions and/or missing you, then longer apart isn't going to help with the missing, and there are other things you can do to work on the transitions. Not a legal professional, however.

Nothing is going to be more off putting to children than pushy religious dad. Ultimately, that’s going to work in your favour because they will lean towards you as they get older.

From a childcare perspective, working with children around all week, even if he thinks he can do it, is far from ideal. I assume he is self-employed? Because no employer is going to be happy about that.

But the reality is that most people who work have to sort out childcare and most people who work have to work consistent hours week after week. You need to build that into your business plan and now is a good time to start doing it because it will work to your advantage in the longer term.

Thank you everyone

What kind of childcare would be available?

Could you do 5/5/2/2?

Is it a concern? Passing religion onto you children is an age old tradition and I’d imagine is how the vast majority of religion is passed on.

Do you get equally concerned when children are baptised or sent to faith schools?

I think the religion argument is a no go unless he is coercively controlling or using religion to abuse the children. For wrong or for right, people can indoctrinate their kids as they see fit.

It sounds a bit like he might be trying to change contact patterns to cause maximum inconvenience to you. Either that or he genuinely believes fewer transitions are best for the kids. Or he wants uninterrupted weeks wotu the new partner to eg go on holidays.

I think I’d just say “no”. Let him take you to courts the worst that will happen is the court will order WOWO and that won’t happen quickly.

Is he Muslim

With my work I need regularity so clients can have the same time every week if necessary

yes, it does feel like there is some kind of vindictiveness involved, because his wanting this so strongly doesn’t seem to make much sense. He is very angry

No, it’s not Islam

So he is Muslim

Nope, not Muslim

Ok so if you suspect the motive is sheer spite, then I definitely would not agree to this. Let him persuade the court that it is in the best interests of the children. That is the legal test.