Daycare Is for Divorced Co-Parents, Too

Even before social media ramped up the ugliness surrounding virtually every subject of discussion, the so-called “mommy wars” raged in print journalism and on text-only online message boards accessed from desktop computers. Women who did not work outside the home shamed mothers who relied on employment income for sending their children to daycare while they were at work. Their arguments missed an important part of the equation. No mother cares for a child single-handedly. Even before the widespread participation of women in professional jobs, mothers raised their children with the help of their neighbors and extended family members and, if they could afford it, with the help of paid household employees. When the family court issues a parenting plan for divorced co-parents, it does not assume or require that each parent will always be alone with the children during his or her parenting time. In most cases, both parents have work obligations. For help working out details of co-parenting involving paid childcare, such as paying for daycare or transporting children to and from daycare, contact a Mississauga family lawyer.

Don’t Let Your Ex-Spouse Guilt Trip You About Sending Your Children to Daycare

During your parenting time, you are the boss, and your ex-spouse cannot micromanage everything you do. Your ex does not get to decide your work schedule; you work when your employer needs you to work. It is not your spouse’s decision whether, when you are at work, your children are at your mother’s house, at your home with a babysitter, or at a group daycare with other children and paid caregivers.

Where your ex gets involved in your childcare decisions is that you must report the childcare expenses in your financial disclosures; they are a relevant expense when the court calculates the child support order. Likewise, you and your ex can decide mutually whether your children should always attend the same daycare, regardless of whose parenting time it is, or whether you send them to one daycare and your ex sends them to another. For example, it might make sense for you to send the children to a daycare near your home or work during your parenting time, but during your ex’s parenting time, he leaves the children at home with his parents, since your ex lives with his parents.

What does not make sense is if, during your parenting time, you leave your children with your ex and his parents. To do so crosses financial boundaries as well as emotional ones. If your children are eating the food in your ex’s family home during your parenting time, does this mean that you are not exercising all your parenting time? It is generally a recipe for conflict when ex-spouses watch their children during each other’s parenting time.

Contact Zagazeta Garcia LLP About Co-Parenting Peacefully

A family lawyer can help you and your ex-spouse support each other’s parenting efforts without interfering in each other’s business.  Contact Zagazeta Garcia LLP in Mississauga, Ontario to discuss your case.

Source:

msn.com/en-us/tv/celebrity/woman-s-ex-puts-daughter-in-daycare-during-days-when-he-has-custody-she-s-upset-when-he-asks-her-to-split-the-cost/ar-AA1Ri08x?ocid=msedgntp&pc=ACTS&cvid=a5fa1f8429a9445cac5c262b347be3e9&ei=53