Quick question

[TwoDots]

This is a quick question for anyone with experience of the court system

If a judge grants 50/50 custody, how would they suggest to arrange pick ups and drop offs? Would they say each parent should split them equally? Or one patent does it all?

I know it must work case by case but is there a general consensus?

Thanks

My OH has a court ordered contact order and unfortunately this isn’t stated in the order. The mother refuses to do any pick ups or drop offs (hasn’t done one in over 5 years).

My OH works full time in the city (so has to take the train into work, the mother works 3 days a week locally but won’t do a pick up or drop off. She was asked once to drop the children off a 10 min walk down the road but there was a vitriolic kick off so she hasn’t been asked again.

Personally I think a 50/50 split is fair. Contact us for the kids, not for one parent.

My advice would be to make sure this is clearly stated in the contact order who does what.

Personally I think it should be 50/50 split between parents. But in most cases I've heard about, the mother digs her heels in says she won't participate and the father has to do the pick ups and drop offs. I've always felt the divorce AND child custody courts were out-datedly in favour of those with vagina's unfortunately.

I would suggest making a point to a solicitor and seeing if they can do anything (which I think will be unlikely).

It would be reasonable to expect them to be shared but I’ve not come across many courts that will agree 50:50 custody

Thank you for your replies

I think 50/50 is more common than you think now, isn't it?

@TwoDots - if parents are reasonable then 50/50 is common.

However, from what I have heard most dads are left to it and mothers won’t entertain it. In my own example the mothers view is that contact is for the dad so why should she?

Contact is in fact for the children.

My OH will go back to court this year and ask a judge to decide. As he has to take the train into work out pick ups are difficult. He wakes up at 5:45am to drive a car an hour across town which he leaves outside a station near the Mother’s home, he then has to jump on a train into town to go to work. This takes him over 2 hours. At the end I f the working day he takes the train back to the car and then drives to the mothers house to pick the kids up. It’s a 4 hour round journey. The mother who doesn’t work on a Friday refuses to do any drop offs. She was asked once to drop them at the station (a 10 min walk for her) but refused. This personally I feel is unfair. Why should it all be left to one parent? Contact is for the children.

Please do get this clarified - who will do what.

I was advised by my solicitor that we could have it stated in the court papers (luckily it didn’t end up coming to that) that we could specify that the parents drop off alternately and neither ever collects from the other parent’s house.
They advise this to minimise confrontations as neither parent is ever left waiting to pick up the child outside the other’s home... if they are running late then no one is stood outside getting angry.
We’ve been lucky as my ExH’s parents pick up DS from school on the days he’s at work and take him back to theirs until dad collects which means we have minimal contact with each other. It helped in the early days when we were arguing a lot.

My DP however is expected to do ALL of the pick ups and drop offs because his Ex is never willing to put herself out... ever

Sorry I just read back what I wrote...
To clarify you can specify that the mother always drops back to dad’s house, and dad always drops back to mother’s so neither ever collects. Does that make sense? That way it is always equal and fair

My Ex chose to move 2 hrs away - that was 2 hrs on a good day. On a Friday round the M25 after school turned into 3-4 hrs one way and the same for me on the way back - because he picked up her DCs from their school on a Friday and could not get his own from school.

My record was leave school at 1530 and got through own front door at 2245!, I would be busting for the toilet by the time I got there, but would not even be given that courtesy. Driving to Sainsburys to pee, was demeaning and controlling.

That then changed to me taking them into London on the train, meeting him and handing over - 1hr 20 min one way - his train trip was 20 minutes. Going home and then having to do the same to pick them up.

If one person chooses to move along way from the DCs main home, then I do think the onus should be more on them

Margarita - I do not who you are but your recent appearance on the fora and posts are deeply offensive.

I've never known a judge to order who does all the pick up and drop offs, however if the NRP is doing all the pick up and drops and travelling a significant distance to do so they can ask for travel costs to be deducted from CMS payments as part as it can be argued the money for travel is necessary for maintaining the contact

Due to historic conflict at pick up/drop off times between parents, OH collects/drops off the DSC at school on a Friday evening/Monday morning.

At other times, he does all the running but as his ex is only 20 minutes away, it's not too onerous.

I also appreciate this as I don't want his ex anywhere near my house/children due to her previous behaviour (whole other thread!).

As you said, OP, if a judge is asked to rule, they will look at the specific facts of the case.

If the arrangement is 50/50, then presumably DM and DF live fairly close and there isn't a long commute for either. In this case, the question of who transports the kids could hopefully be resolved fairly without a judge. Esp if the short time travelling with the kids is seen as a positive - a time to chat, listen to music. Or changeovers could be at end of school day and neither parent would be 'commuting'. But I totally understand that resolution is often much harder in RL than on paper.

For what it's worth, I would say that in a 50/50 care situation it would be reasonable to have a starting assumption that the commuting also be shared, subject to some other relevant considerations (rough list off the top of my head below).

Some considerations for maybe departing from 50/50 share of the commute:

• is the hard work (as well as the number of nights over) shared 50/50 or does one parent do more? e.g. laundry, clothes/shoe shopping, mending broken stuff, care when ill, visits to GP, dentist, school, hair dresser. If one parent is doing more, the burden could be evened up by the other parent doing more of the commuting?
• are the children's costs shared 50/50 or is one parent chipping in more money? The parent putting in less money might even up contributions by doing more commuting. Might need to think about financial earning power here.
• is the commute as logistically easy for each parent? i.e. do they both have a car and a driving licence?
• does either parent have other caring responsibilities that makes the commuting task harder (e.g. other children elderly parents)
• what paid work hours are both parents doing that might make it difficult to manage the commute times?

A lot of the considerations above would also apply in situations where care is not 50/50. Plus you might also think about:

• how different are the physical care burdens? Is care 60/40 or 90/10?
• how different are the financial care burdens of both parents? 60/40 or 90/10?
• did one parent move?
• is the "NRP" paying child maintenance?

[these aren't meant to be exhaustive lists - just some ideas that come to mind]

If it is proving hard to share the commuting on a weekly basis, maybe could agree to take turns each month? Or one parent could agree to do X trips per month or per half-term, (so they do a percentage greater than zero but not half)? Or one parent could agree to help with the trips during school holidays but not during school term.

My Husband and ex partner share 50/50 custody. She would refuse to drive to our house unless it suited her and where she was going. We tried asking her to alternate who drops off but she wouldn't. They ended up going to mediation and she agreed on a half way meeting point. Which is about 10 minutes away for both of us. That's been working fine for us