1.am I reasonable 2.childcare costs

BrassicWoman

I find it sad you wouldn't be pleased to spend as much time as possible with your kid. Money is minor detail compared to that.

Daddys.girl

Not sure where it says I don't want to spend time with my child, I think you may have miss understood my posts

justme111

BrassicWoman wrote: »

I find it sad you wouldn't be pleased to spend as much time as possible with your kid. Money is minor detail compared to that.

If you read the first post again you will see his main gripe is ex expecting him to pay for childcare during school holidays 50/50 for those weeks none of them were able to take holidays . For all we know he may try with all his might to take those holidays, but it would not be possible to cover his half even if every single day of his holidays he spends with a child as there are about 11 weeks of school holidays and normally one can not have 5 or 6 weeks holiday so the point is mute.
And even if he did not try to spend as much time as possible with a child - why do you think it is sad ? For a start if "as much as possible" is to be taken literally it would go into realms of mentally ill - no nursery , no work for a parent, no time for a parent without a child. "It is absurd "- you will say , it is not to be taken literally , apply some common sense" . So it is a matter of interpretation then and each one of us draws the balance of child/work/solo time/socialising without child/ child unfriendly hobbies in different proportions at different times of our lives. Criticising someone for not trying to shift that balance into child extreme "as much as possible" or sating it is sad is a very nasty thing in my opinion.
I personally find it sad when one's life completely revolves around a child but even I , being quite an abrupt person , would not have dreamt of derogatory comments towards them that this thread is riddled with.
Why is it that people are normally quite polite but as soon as a hint of anything but child veneration is thought to appear there is a hurl of offensive remarks?

BrassicWoman

Daddys.girl wrote: »

Not sure where it says I don't want to spend time with my child, I think you may have miss understood my posts

It's because you talk about "sitting" for your DD and seem concerned with formal obligations. Maybe changing langauge with your ex may help too?

Jagraf

There is rarely enough money on either side to go round in these situations. My opinion is that a child needs 24 hour care and this is rarely covered in any CSA calculation (either way). Basically if both parents love their child they will end up skint until the kids are adults and that's part of parenthood.

quidsy

Your arrangement is based on regular term time when your dd is in school & both of you are at work.


Think of it this way; the ex does 4 days of drop offs & pick ups during term time, covering the expenses of any travel/childcare arrangements needed.


She is therefore already carrying a heavier load in terms who does what & expense.


During school holidays you cannot expect ex to take time off or carry the cost of 4 out of 5 days during 11 weeks of holiday a year of childcare because you only have dd on a Wednesday.


If you both took time off for 3 weeks a year during school holidays there is only the cost of the remaining 5 weeks to consider.


That is 2.5 weeks each to pay for. Not unreasonable is it?


You do seem like a good dad but in this, I think you are being petty.


Would you refuse to take your child to the dentist at 11am on a Tuesday if your ex was unable for some reason to do it because you "it's not your day"?


Do you expect ex to do all of those kind of appointments if they aren't on a Wednesday? I should hope not as it should be the shared, equal responsibility of both parents as it is out of the norm of the usual custody arrangement. As is school holiday cover.

Lunar_Eclipse

Guest101 wrote: »

Im Sorry to repeat this, but the assumption is the OP is able to take all their annual leave out of term time. Which in my experience is rare.

I thought the same thing.

Then I realised that DH has taken all, if not the vast majority of his annual leave, for the past 16 years, during school holidays. (And I had the same luxury years ago.) He works in a corporate environment which in my experience means it's rare for someone without children to choose time off during school holidays.

Whilst I'm not wishing away the last few years of our children living at home full time, off season flight/hotel prices we used to enjoy before becoming a family will be welcomed back with open arms. I really miss holidays in November and June instead of the over priced and/or unbearably hot options available at Easter or in July/Aug.

suki1964

Person_one wrote: »

Ok, I'm sorry, I tried not to, but...

A child takes precedence

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/precedence

When I was typing that I knew it was wrong and my auto correct just wouldn't help me out. I tried about five times to find the right spelling

I shall now write it out five times

FBaby

Dd starts school this Sept, the ex phones to say what am I going to do to look after dd for my six weeks share of the school hols,I said I will try to take 2 weeks off work to have her, but as far as I'm aware that's what I pay maintenance for,so the ex should take care of childcare using my maintenance money.shes having none of it and told me to face up to my responsibilities,

I'm wondering whether there is some misunderstanding here. Is it really about the money? Or maybe it is about responsibility as a whole, ie. will you be looking for holiday clubs, booking days yourself etc...

Who pays for nursery at the moment? Her? If so, I'm not sure why she would expect you to suddenly pay for the holiday club. However, I can totally sympathise with her frustration if your attitude is that it will be her responsibility to sort it all out. How about you take it upon yourself to look at different holiday clubs, go and visit a few, put her daughter down on the waiting list if required, and then maybe you can discuss finances with the ex. Somehow I bet she will be much more open to a fairer financial arrangement.

Guest101

Kynthia wrote: »

I don't know why you are so intent going down this path regarding the difficulties the OP 'might' have with his employer. There's no indication from the OP that his employer dictates when staff have leave or that he'd be treated any differently from the others, including the other parents trying to get the school holidays. All he's said is that there's competition for the school holidays and he hasn't yet tried to book any.

Exactly there's already competition and his requests aren't even in the pot yet. Thanks for making my point