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Halloween & other custody items...for other 50/50 parents of school-age

youngmama1b1g's picture

This all came up with Halloween custody... And it kind of has two seperate items to it.

Currently the custody order, a 50/50, states that all holidays will be alternated, including Halloween and the child's birthday. It also states a schedule for Christmas, noting times for switch on Christmas Eve to Christmas and even-odd years. My H's issue is and has always been BM doesnt celebrate Halloween or Chirstmas.

I'm wondering if H would be better off asking for a change in custody based on the fact weve had SS for Halloween and Christmas Eve to Christmas every year and we've never had SS for his birthday (fell during part of week we don't have physical custody). However, we've already agreed he will go back for a custody rewrite once SS enters school, hopefully next year he'll start K (tho its not mandatory in my state).

My husband and I have already agreed it should be a school/vacation schedule and no more of this partial week stuff. So if SS is in school with us, which were hoping for, BM can get weekends and all vacations. Since we'd hopefully be changing to a vacation schedule, holidays should be blocked, but can we write it in for a change based on the past physical custody? So if we are in fact the 'school' parent, every year he comes here for Christmas Eve to Christmas though the rest of the holiday time he spends with her. Can you write in expections for 'vacation' based on actual holidays?

There are a couple other items that my H would like to put in place as well, including a provision for SS to have his own bed at his moms. Is it unheard of for a father to ask for provisions in a custody order?

Comments

cant win for losin's picture

Where does SS sleep now at BM? Do you and DH live in a different school district from BM?
i have 50/50 custody, week on and week off. We tried for a very short while half weeks. I was mon-wed. Ex was thurs-sat, and we shared sunday. The problem was, most importantly, too much movin back n forth for the kids. The other problem was i never had weekends to enjoy the kids, and he had them every weekend and no "adult" time. So we went to EOW. The kids were able to "settle in" before switching. Surprisnly, we were able to just go with the flow on holidays. Not really mattering whose week it was. Ex: easter. His holiday, my week. If he wasnt doing anything, then i kept them.
We dont fuss about birthday's. We just celebrate it on our respective weeks.
I get what you mean about a holiday they get to have if they dont even celebrate. But i can tell you what the mediator told us. 50/50 custody means that when the kids are with you, the other parent cant tell you what to do on "your time" aside from abuse n neglect, you know what i mean.
We just learned to make our own "celebrating" times up for holidays and such, and on some to just forget about.
The school thing. In our divorce ex had the provision of the school district they HAD to go to. (lol burned him later) but if one of us move from that district, then we have to find a way to get them to and from. For him, that meant dropping them off to me in the mornings so i could get them to school. Kinda sucked cuz i was "helping" ex, but i did get to see my kids everyday. Smile
The bed thing, i dunno. I guess it depends on why he doesnt have one.
Im not sure how helpful my "advice" was, but in short i learned to pick n choose my battles.

sonja's picture

I dont know from experience but dont see why there cant be special provision in a custody order.

FDH's divorce papers say hell return her beanie babies.. come'on apparently you can write whatever you want.. LOL. He used to say that the papers said that SD had to have her own room at his residence but Ive read them 50x and they dont say that. I would be prepared for her to write in whatever she wants if you plan to do the same. Get too nit picky and it just might fire back at you?

Be careful with changing up the custody if you arent paying CS currently, as that would be a major backfire, or worth it if youre looking for all weekends off?

youngmama1b1g's picture

We do live in a different district. Its only an hour traffic considering from where BM lives and our place. I'm sure thats going to be a whole other battle if we go for school role-just because BM would no longer have every weekend free.

As of now, SS sleeps in the bed with BM when he's with her. My husband brought this up before by basically cursing her for spending his money (CS) on her while his son didnt even have a bed to sleep in of his own. She said she was getting him a toddler bed (which he has at our house), but I guess she never followed through or just allows him to sleep in the bed with her anyways.

And we're the Thursday through Sunday parents. I don't really mind having him every weekend instead of EOW just because child-care is expensive and I'm in school right now. This way I know when hes coming over and I make my schedule fit those needs.

Thanks for your responses guys! I'll just keep documenting, documenting, documenting and hopefully when it comes to court time we won't get screwed.

cant win for losin's picture

You can write anything you want if both parties agree. But if thats not the case be careful with the small stuff. The courts try to keep it as simple as possible. The bed issue, the courts arent gonna force her to stop cosleeping at this age.
I dunno, unless both parties can agtee on stuff, the courts may keep it status quo which means your driving, or award someone full custody.

Nick's picture

My ex and I always try to solve this kind of issues as fair as possible, just because we didn't get along it doesn't mean that our kid has to go through an unbalanced childhood. Last Halloween was spent at my ex, while the next will be spent at my home. We both try to offer him a better holiday than the other, so I'm planning to get him one of those totally costumes, my ex will have a tough time beating it!