Access being changed by residential parent

[SteppingOnToes]

Before I get a bad reputation for asking the question can I please say that I would be happy with 50:50 residency.

DSC currently stay every Weds and every other weekend from Fri to Sunday evening. DP pays £50pcm more than the amount that has been deemed appropriate. Over the years DP has asked for more access but has been refused as his ex has said that it would result in payments falling and as she doesn't work she would struggle financially. He has accepted this.

Recently his ex has said that she now wants him to have the children for half of the school holidays. DP is of course delighted about this but hasn't thought through the childcare arrangements. We both work full time and if he were to use all of his holidays now for covering the holidays he would still come short on time. The school does not offer a holiday club and his parents have health issues so cannot help with childcare.

Does anyone have any ideas on how we can do this? We cannot afford for him to reduce working hours or take unpaid holiday, to be honest we can't even afford childcare and doubt we would qualify for assistance.

sounds to me as though your DP needs to do some thinking about what kind of a father he wants to be – does he see his role essentially as the breadwinner, working as much as he can to maximise the income of his ex, so she can be the main carer of the children and be a SAHM

That’s a really good point. But it needs to be made clear that the breadwinner isn’t usually in a positon to do reduced hours or take unpaid leave to accommodate childcare (my earlier comment about ‘cake and eating it’ refers).

My DH came across this; when he was married to his first wife, everyone said what a good Dad he was, as he successfully undertook the breadwinner role, and provided a comfortable life for his (then) wife and their two children. However once they’d divorced (and despite the fact he was now paying towards two houses rather than one) he was slated for being a bad father, as he spent more time working than looking after his children. Sometimes you really can’t win.

I'm confused, so he's paying for the house AND paying child maintenance, and she's claiming child benefit and tax credits, not working and not claiming any benefits- if she's on ESA as she's not ABLE to work, that would be different, but in no other scenario can I see this as being fair.

Are you in the U.K? The legal minimum number of holidays is 28 days including bank holidays so why does he only get two weeks?

You say "the school does not run holiday clubs" but normal plenty of other places do - try leisure centres and other sports clubs, drama and music groups, ymca and PGL etc.

Tough shit she doesn't want 'strangers bringing her kids up'!

How old are the kids?
She needs to either find a job or some other way of funding her SAHM career.
She can't carry on as though she's still your dp's 'significant other', and your dp needs to sort out better access/payment arrangements.

I would reduce the maintenance to the minimum, the extra you put away to finance things like childcare/holidays clubs.
Your dp needs to get over this 'they will go without' guilt trip he's on......he's in their lives and he can carry on providing for them - just means changing the dynamic.

i definitely wouldn't be using my holidays to provide childcare for DSC in this situation.

Could the grandparents maybe help?

If not, he might have to think about paying for childcare during the holidays. Childcare vouchers from work are useful. Does his ex work too? If so, it might be reasonable to expect her ex to cover some of the holiday childcare costs.

Sorry, just saw she is not working. In that case, given her ex is working full time, her request is definitely not reasonable.

Whatever happens, you should not be forced to take holiday to cover childcare.

My dp has over 50% of the holidays except the summer as it's his works busy time.

His ex doesn't work. At one point she demanded he take his 4 young kids through the summer (she had just acquired a new boyfriend). The kids really suffered unnecessarily. It was put on him at the last minute, he had no plans to sort childcare (not that he would have known where to start) and the kids were dragged around his work from 5am everyday.

I don't know why anyone thinks it's a good idea for a stay at home mum to decide that he/she simply doesn't want the kids anymore and hands them to someone who is working and therefore paying for them. Nobody can do everything.

The sensible thing would be for your dp to take the kids after work each day but his ex won't want that because she'll get the daycare but he can reduce his maintenance because of the overnights. Could he not compromise with her and agree to not reduce the payments in return for her looking after the kids during the day? Surely that has to be better for the kids too.

I don’t know why anyone thinks it’s a good idea for a stay at home mum to decide that he/she simply doesn’t want the kids anymore and hands them to someone who is working – nobody can do everything

Very good point!

Well, to be fair, many single parents work full-time with DC and nobody really gives a shit about that.

I can't dispute that Coco, but that's not the situation on this particular thread.

I don't think the OP is very clear on why the ex has asked her DP to have the DC half the holidays (maybe she doesn't know). It's possible that if she's not working and claiming benefits she's under pressure from the job centre to find work and realises this will be easier if her ex has the kids more. Or maybe she wants a job, or wants to do some sort of training. Or maybe he's been asking for ages to have the DC more, and she's finally relented. Without knowing her reasons it's hard to say whether it's a reasonable request. But what is reasonable is that if the OP's DP is to meet it, he will have to consider the financial implications for himself and the money he pays his ex (and her rent-free home).

if the reason is purely financial for him. i.e he can't afford to pay for the childcare in those weeks that he can't take annual leave, then it might be worth doing a recalculation taking into account the increased number of nights that he will have them.

He can then go to her and say, he would love to have the children for the extra days and nights and looking forward to the increased contact of an evening after work, however since he will need to pay childcare, he has looked at the new figures for the suggested payments and its now £??? instead of £????, im sure that's ok xw as you will have them less anyway so her costs are decreased.

I think if shes a sahm unless she has to go back to work then shes been very cheeky asking him to have them for half of the holidays, knowing that the x is already paying well above the legal requirement if you take into account the housing costs and he pays above the minimum.

Could he not suggest that he will collect them on the way home from work each evening for the extra nights? Highlighting that he is more than happy to have the children more often but it doesn't make financial sense for either of them to pay for childcare, when she will be at home.

Janice makes a good point, he shouldn't only have two weeks leave if he's in the UK. The minimum excluding bank holidays would be 20 days plus the 8 bank holidays (some of which would fall in in the weeks he had the kids) so he'd need to cover around 3 weeks of childcare if you included all the inset days in his 'half'.

I read from the OP that the father had been asking for more contact over the years and that she had only just agreed - in this case I don't think it's fair to bash her for giving him more contact if he's asked for it and he really should of given more thought to how he was going to manage having them.

I totally get that the OP shouldn't be 'forced' to give up her holiday but it sounds like she does enjoy the company of the kids and in my situation I willingly give up a week partly b ecause I love doing stuff with DSD and partly because I would gladly do anything that facilitated my DH to have more contact with his DD. Even if he is working in the day those evenings together as a family are lovely when he gets home from work.

Some companies have schemes where you can buy extra holiday and spread it over the year (salary sacrifice) - might be worth looking into for your DH OP?

Could he also perhaps talk to the kids Mum and find out if they had any friends that could organise play dates for some of the holiday days? We do this with DSD's friends and then 'pay back' in the form of taking their DC for a day when one of us is off. Might be worth exploring.

I have to say that I don't think the Mum will be that impressed with maintenance being dropped (50 a month on top of the minimum won't go far with two kids) and her costs won't be that reduced by him having them half the holidays. If she has been difficult about contact and just agreed to this extra holiday time then she may well withdraw the offer if maintenance is cut which doesn't seem to be what the OP or her partner want.

It depends on the age of the child - if they are coming up to an age where they could be left half a day, then it might be feasible to pay for holiday clubs in the interim. Your DP could potentially juggle some leave or work a flexible week during that time?

But no don't offer to be the childcare person. It's about his access time and isn't fair on the boy either. And ultimately, if you DP can't manage it, he can't manage it. The worst thing is accepting more access but not really being there.

Even if in the UK it depends what type of work he does, if shift work it can work out that you don't end up with the full 28 days as it's worked out on shift pattern, my dbil ends up with 11 days of annual leave to take a year due to shifts plus bank holidays if they fall on his on shift.

Anyway I would get your dp to speak to her, explain he can't take the holiday etc. As say about the finicial implications and how they will affect her. He seems to be paying a lot by covering her mortgage and paying above csa, maybe she will reconsider. If not say it's not doable except the 2 weeks he can get off

I think 4 weeks is the minimum in the UK, but they don't have to give you bank holidays on top of that. Wouldn't be normal to only get 2 weeks though.

Many self employed people don't get the "statutory minimum" holiday entitlement. Don't assume the father is employed rather than self employed.

If your DP is in employment, rather than self-employed or Forces, and assuming you are in the UK, then the legal minimum Holiday in the UK is 5.6 x whatever his normal working week is.

Assuming you mean 'a week' equals 5 days leave, to only be getting a total of 18 days per year, he can only be working around 3 days in every seven (It's 3.2 days, to be pendantic.) That's not an impossible figure to still be classed as full time, if he's doing, say a 12 hour per day rolling shift pattern.

What it does mean, though, is that he is free the other four days and does not need childcare for those days (or to take Annual Leave to have those off)

It also means that he could, in fact, have half of every holiday without having to take time off, because he could have them the half of every week that he is not in work. Split the weeks, not the holidays.

If he's not working that pattern, then either he is working lots of very short days or part days to make up the approx 36 hours per week he is accruing Holiday for, or he's being screwed on Holidays.