Yes, Paid Childcare Can Be Part of a Parenting Plan
Everywhere you look, you can find editorials about how parenting is more work than it used to be. Even though a greater percentage of mothers are in the workforce today than was the case a generation ago, working mothers spend at least as much time directly supervising their children as stay-at-home mothers did in our childhood. One could attribute this to a variety of reasons. Perhaps the stakes have gotten higher as far as how much attention we are expected to pay our children. You could blame the breakdown of social ties; children spend time with their mothers now that their counterparts in the previous generation used to spend with their extended family or at neighbors’ houses. Parents today are expected to do it all; don’t forget that, in the old days, anyone who could afford to do so would rely on babysitters and nannies to help them take care of their children. If your ex-spouse or your ex’s mother gives you a guilt trip about sending your children to daycare when you are at work, let their criticisms go in one ear and out the other. When divorced couples co-parent, though, the court is always in their business to some degree. You have the right to send your children to daycare during your parenting time, and your ex has the right to know about it, although not necessarily the right to veto it. For help drafting a parenting plan in which the children attend daycare, contact a Boca Raton child custody lawyer.
Accounting for Daycare and Babysitters in Your Parenting Plan and Child Support Order
The goal of a parenting plan is to give each parent a complete relationship with the children. During your parenting time, you are the boss; former spouses are not supposed to micromanage each other’s parenting, or else there would be constant conflict. Most likely, both spouses rely on employment income, and only the luckiest people can build their work schedules so that they never have to work during their parenting time. How you manage childcare when you work during your parenting time is up to you. Extended family members can stay at your home with the children while you are at work; so are paid babysitters, and you can send your children to daycare. If you are paying for childcare, you should account for these expenses in your financial disclosures before the court issues a child support order.
What you should not do is ask your ex-spouse to babysit your children while you are at work. This muddles which days are which spouse’s parenting time. It is important to stick to the schedule listed in the parenting plan, because the child support amount is based on it.
Contact Schwartz | White About Co-Parenting When Both Parents Work
A South Florida family law attorney can help you draft a parenting plan that accounts for the parents’ work schedules and the childcare needs that these entail. Contact Schwartz | White in Boca Raton, Florida about 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
