Possible pitfalls of being a part-time parent

mum2boys_3

Hi I've got a question to put to all those of you that currently do a shared care situation with one or more of your little ones as I may be going down this route with my son. I'm not just concerned about a possible effect on my families finances but also how it might affect my son's day to day life and so if anyone out there has an experience of this I would be grateful for advice.

The situation is that ds feels he wants see his dad more often and see what it is like to live with him. Now he has reached 11 I feel that I cannot stop him if that is what he wants to do. I haven't spoken to his dad about it yet as I'd like to be prepared to face any potential pitfalls along the way.

Having discussed it with DS we think he will stay one week with his father and then one week with me, his dad works so will have to organise after school care for him in the week he has him (which is partly why I have been against this form of shared care up till now as I am worried ds will be left to fend for himself as soon as he reaches senior school, I would pay for childcare rather than see him alone every night after school but his dad doesn't think it is necessary).

He currently stays with me most of the school holidays and his dad has him as much as he wants when they go away on holiday and suchlike. This currently has been working out at about 3/4 weeks and long weekends a year as it is limited by ex's holiday entitlement. I again pay for child care when it is the school hols if I am working.

At the moment 'm not working as I have a small child also and am getting about 300/mth csa and a small amount of income support (as the CSA monies I get disallow most of my IS). I assume CSA for ds1 will be almost zero when DS starts to stay with dad alternate weeks. I intend to go back to some form of work as soon as I can find it (last job was a 3 mth contract and haven't seen anything m uch I can apply for since)and am currently looking for weekend jobs as a filler until I get a "proper" job as my mother will be around to look after the LO's then so won't need to worry about not getting childcare help.

Any hints and tips from anyone in this situation?

galvanizersbaby

Hello
Myself and my ex husband have had a shared care arrangement right from the beginning for our 2 children (now 4 and 6).
This has worked well for us so far, I think partly because we are amicable and also live a reasonably short distance from each other at the moment.(I sometimes wonder if it would work so well if we lived further apart!)
The children are with me Tues, Wed, Fri, Saturday day and Sunday nights and with their dad the rest of the time.
I don't have the financial worries in my situ as I work full time as does their dad and neither of us pay maintenance to the other so this aspect doesn't impact me.

I would say that I think one week with you and one week with dad may not be ideal for all - a week is a long time for a child not to see mum or dad for that matter but I think as it is your son at 11 who is suggesting this arrangement then you have to let him give it a try even on a temporary basis if that's what he really wants to do (obviously dad willing) - then I guess he can make his own mind up

Savvy_Sue

It will need very clear communication between you: as they start needing to be more organised it's vital that longer term bits of work are worked on regardless of which house the child is in each week.

Not to mention vital that they have the right 'equipment' each day - PE kit mainly, but plenty more besides.

Plus good luck with finding afterschool childcare for an 11 year old. Very little of it about once they get to secondary school, although at some schools they can stay on most afternoons to do homework, or for clubs, which might be a better arrangement.

mum2boys_3

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

It will need very clear communication between you: as they start needing to be more organised it's vital that longer term bits of work are worked on regardless of which house the child is in each week.

Not to mention vital that they have the right 'equipment' each day - PE kit mainly, but plenty more besides.

Plus good luck with finding afterschool childcare for an 11 year old. Very little of it about once they get to secondary school, although at some schools they can stay on most afternoons to do homework, or for clubs, which might be a better arrangement.

Communication is going to be a problem I think as my ex and I have never agreed on anything - generally I give in for my son's sake and to avoid conflict.:rolleyes:

The after school care has never been a problem before as I've always worked around his needs (as do most mums I imagine) so would have just continued to do the same - I also have this crazy idea that I could ask the childminder I find to use for my other child to do after school care for an hour or so if needed...not sure if they are allowed to do that but I know older children aren't counted in their quota so seems possible?

One problem is ex lives about 10 miles from me although he works nearer and so sharing childcare options might not be possible - plus I can't see ex wanting to pay for it, he would expect me to do it for free- problem is if I lose the csa income I will need to work as many hours as possible and so would likely be putting ds1 into childcare for the times I would have him anyway.

I've found myself wondering though if it would be better for everyone if ds1 went to live with his father and visited me and his brother on the alternate weekends - at least he would have real consistancy then, I'm really worried that his life will just feel increasingly chaotic with this sort of arrangement.

I am not the most organised of mums and tend to get stuff done by doing it NOW as anything I put off I forget. How we will manage to organise ds1 to never leave his work books at the wrong house etc is beyond me. At the moment I often have to take things into school for him that he forgets - I won't be able to do that once he is at a home and school many miles away (I cannot afford to run a car at the mo) not to mention the added problem of things being in the wrong house.

Added to this is the problem of how we will organise the expence of buying things ds1 needs. Being on a low income I do things the cheapest way possible (car boots and hand me downs ) and it's just not practical for me to give ds1 an allowance for clothes etc as I get the cheapest of the best available when he needs it to save money. Obviously with ds1 at his dad's half the time I should not have the funds to pay for as much and would expect him to go halves but can't see him seeing it that way somehow as he is a cheapskate :rolleyes:.

newlywed

You won't necessarily lose all the CSA money.

As I understand it (OH has shared care of his two) - if you have the exactly equal nights and are still in receipt of child benefit then the CSA figure is worked out, halved (due to equal nights) and then an extra £7 a week taken off - some figure set by law.

So you might still get some money - depending on his wage - although obviously not as much as it was.

We have the kids Tue nights, Friday night, all day Sat, Sat night and all day Sunday, with an extra night on alternate weeks.

You do have to make sure your kid remembers to take everything though as its very frustrating for them to turn up and then the next morning say I've forgotten my school shoes :rolleyes:

galvanizersbaby

mum2boys wrote: »

Communication is going to be a problem I think as my ex and I have never agreed on anything - generally I give in for my son's sake and to avoid conflict.:rolleyes:

Op I think this could be a problem, also I think you will need to be better organised.
My ex husband is not that well organised (he is getting better) but I find that I am the one making sure they have the right school stuff with them at the right time etc...etc...
My children tend to have 2 sets of everything (one set at dad's and one set at mine) but this is not always possible and as you say there is a cost issue with this.
I hope you manage to sort something out that works for all of you

galvanizersbaby

newlywed wrote: »

You won't necessarily lose all the CSA money.

As I understand it (OH has shared care of his two) - if you have the exactly equal nights and are still in receipt of child benefit then the CSA figure is worked out, halved (due to equal nights) and then an extra £7 a week taken off - some figure set by law.

So you might still get some money - depending on his wage - although obviously not as much as it was.

We have the kids Tue nights, Friday night, all day Sat, Sat night and all day Sunday, with an extra night on alternate weeks.

You do have to make sure your kid remembers to take everything though as its very frustrating for them to turn up and say I've forgotten my school shoes :rolleyes:

This is interesting reading about the CSA figure - we never went down this route as we figured that we would both be paying each other around the same amount of maintenance (we are on roughly the same wage) - I recieve the child benefit and it goes in to my savings account which will be used for uni (if they wish to go when they are old enough).

I have lost count of the amount of times my 2 have turned up missing something - (I live nearer their school so they are dropped off to me and I take them each morning) - also dad struggle's with DD's hair (he tries but best he can do is a couple of very wonky bunches! )so I plait her hair for her each morning before we go to school.

newlywed

galvanizersbaby wrote: »

This is interesting reading about the CSA figure - we never went down this route as we figured that we would both be paying each other around the same amount of maintenance (we are on roughly the same wage) - I recieve the child benefit and it goes in to my savings account which will be used for uni (if they wish to go when they are old enough).

Unfortunately they don't take it as you each having to pay each other, unless you have one child living with each of you (which doesn't seem too fair on the kids). So even though we have the boys half the nights, and all weekend every weekend, we don't get any portion of child benefit, don't get any portion of child tax credits, OH has to pay CSA and in addition their mum seems to think she ought to get more money to spend on buying expensive phones and computer consoles and sends to kids round with "mum says you have to buy us ..." shoes, trousers, etc :rolleyes:

newlywed

Here's the post about equal care (for CS2 cases):

http://www.csa.gov.uk/en/about/faq/shared-care.asp

galvanizersbaby

newlywed wrote: »

Unfortunately they don't take it as you each having to pay each other, unless you have one child living with each of you (which doesn't seem too fair on the kids). So even though we have the boys half the nights, and all weekend every weekend, we don't get any portion of child benefit, don't get any portion of child tax credits, OH has to pay CSA and in addition their mum seems to think she ought to get more money to spend on buying expensive phones and computer consoles and sends to kids round with "mum says you have to buy us ..." shoes, trousers, etc :rolleyes:

That doesn't sound like a very fair arrangement for your OH
I'm glad we came to our own financial arrangements without involving CSA tbh - having read your link to CSA website I don't really get why in the case of equal shared care the parents shouldn't just divide the costs/child benefit equally.
I guess in some cases the parents may not have equal income so would make sense to a certain extent

geekgirl

Me and my ex husband had shared care for my eldest two children. Leaving all the financial stuff behind as I don't think our financial situation would match yours anyway it worked well for us.
We lived very close to each other so if something was forgotten at the others house it wasn't a problem.
The kids had one week with him and one week with me, this was a long time for the kids but we came to this conclusion as it always took time for them to 'settle' again. When we were having a turnaround of a few days the kids always seemed to be up in the air so found a week worked better for them (not for me though I hated it!).
When the kids started school I suggested changing it so that they stayed with me during the week and with my ex for majority of weekends, it actually worked out less than planned which I was pleased about. This was because I was better organised than him and he never got himself sorted so he agreed to my arrangement. As the kids got older they could come and go more as we lived so close.

My son at one point asked to live with his dad full time, I allowed him to ask as I knew his dad wouldn't let him, but I have to say if he had said yes I would not have allowed it to happen. I could not have stood to not have my children with me.

My kids are adults now with children of their own and agree that it worked out for the best. Partly because me and ex made sure we put the children first.

There were niggles here and there but we managed to get over them and me and ex are still good friends now.