Parenting time and weather...

KTdidit

I haven't been on for a few days and just read wendi's post about Dink and the medical insurance. The one thing that caught my attention, aside from him being a douche, is that he cancelled his visit because of weather. In the past 3 months or so, BD has on multiple occasions "postponed" his visit to the next weekend because of weather that we are supposed to be having. He lives an hour away from us and neither one of us has gotten a blizzard or ice storm, or anything that would make it impossible to drive the half hour to the meeting spot. It infuriates me that just because we are supposed to get a few inches according to the news (which, come on, they are hardly ever right) that BD turns it into a freaking blizzard of mass proportions and changes weekends. AGAIN. Now he has thrown off the weekend schedule that we had and I have to refigure quite a few preplanned outings.

If you are the NCP/Step parent, how bad would the weather have to be to put off your weekend with LO? I can't imagine only seeing DS every other weekend and giving one up without doing everything I could to have him. If he pulls this garbage again can I just tell him if he doesn't want him this weekend then he can wait another 2 weeks? WWBFD?

new+tothis

I would absolutely tell him that you won't switch weekends with him unless there is a weather emergency. It snows here all the time... big whoop. The only time I think weather should interfere with visits is if it makes it physically unsafe to drive (such as a tornado warning). I feel lucky that BD has never canceled a visit on DS for weather.

SimpleJane

We share custody, so its a little different, but it would take a storm that would make it definitely dangerous to drive for me to not go get my kids for my time. If it was a serious blizzard I might say let's wait and meet up the next day instead.

If XH only had eowe visits and constantly wanted to move them around, I would probably just tell him he can either keep the scheduled visits or cancel, I wouldn't be always moving them around every time it snows.

Sweet30pea

My DH and I haven't missed any parenting time with our kids, step kids for me, in the 7 years I have been with him. Being a parent means you deal with it, from bad weather to illnesses. My SKs know when they have time with their dad. Being consistent and reliable is important to maintain a good relationship with them. Especially for the noncustodial parent because they have less time to bond with the children. Parents who don't hold up their end of a parenting plan are selfish and obviously don't have the child's best interest in mind. We live where it snows and is icy a lot from Dec thru April and it's never stopped us. We just drive slower, sometimes a lot slower, and make sure we are prepared with a car emergency kit.

socloudy99

In the 9 years DH and I have been together we have delayed pick up twice by one day and delayed drop off once by one day due to weather.

I refuse to pick them up when it is bad out and people are in accidents all over the place. To me it is silly to put them in danger.

Now we haven't changed pick up/drop off because the news is saying there will be a storm. Only once it is already here. Most times we pick up a little early if something is hitting in the evening for a pick up day.

MarSamWhitney

We split the drive with bm and its an hour and a half each way. The roads have to be icy or snow covered for us to cancel.  She has canceled, and so have we- only if its too bad.  Dont want anyone getting hurt.  If its nothing major, then thats just silly!

Ginlyn0

We've only had the weather affect visitation once in the 12 years that BD and I have had our CO. It was icy (we don't really get snow here it's mostly ice lol) and it was his weekend and he called and asked me not to try to meet him and DD could stay home with me that weekend.

We've never had to cancel a visit with my SKs for weather.

KTdidit

Good I'm glad its not just me. I'm going to tell him I won't be switching weekends anymore, if he cancels he forfeits. That will go over SO WELL considering I know my lawyer is mailing out his initial letter tomorrow stating that I retained him for BD's CS arrears.

cole2144

My husband would only postpone a visit if driving with her would be dangerous. He would reschedule, never cancel.

CurlyQ284

DH would never postpone or cancel due to weather but he has a Jeep with lots of accessories. BM has asked to postpone due to weather but only by a day and then we drop off a day later.

Most of the route for both of us involves the PA and OH turnpikes, we assume they are plowed pretty quickly.

sabrina69barnes

new+tothis:

I would absolutely tell him that you won't switch weekends with him unless there is a weather emergency. It snows here all the time... big whoop. The only time I think weather should interfere with visits is if it makes it physically unsafe to drive (such as a tornado warning). I feel lucky that BD has never canceled a visit on DS for weather.

This. 

There have been a few times we have either postponed a visit or switched weekends because of the weather. 

Once was for a tornado watch. I have to drive around an hour to meet BM. I pass one or two gas stations but but rest is all empty fields. If there were to be a tornado we wouldn't be safe.

There have also been a few other times when there has been snow or ice. Some of the roads we have to travel on never got plowed because they are in the middle of nowhere. If there is a chance that the road may be unsafe, we don't risk it. Our cell phones don't work in that area and if something happened the nearest person would be a few miles away.

AcousticSunrise

It's very rare that we would ask BM to reschedule her weekend but our situation is a little different.  DH is a plow guy and works closer to BMs home then ours.  Usually if it's going to be a big storm DH will bring SS to BMs early and go straight to work from there.  If she couldn't take him early then we would work out a different weekend with her but we've always been pretty flexible about visitation.

Jessys_Girl

kaholland4:

If you are the NCP/Step parent, how bad would the weather have to be to put off your weekend with LO? I can't imagine only seeing DS every other weekend and giving one up without doing everything I could to have him. If he pulls this garbage again can I just tell him if he doesn't want him this weekend then he can wait another 2 weeks? WWBFD?

We drive over an hour to pick up the stepkids.  And we have never cancelled a visit due to weather.

We might reconfigure the pickup time, so that we don't have to drive in the nasty weather in the middle of rush hour or something like that, but we've never outright cancelled. 

As far as making up the time or whatever, I would tell your Ex: "Ok, I understand you're cancelling this weekend's visit.  When would you like to make it up?"  If he says "Next weekend" you are fully within your rights to say "I'm sorry we have plans that weekend, I can offer you X, Y, Z dates" and let him choose from dates that you have available.  If he is not happy with any of those options, too bad for him.  He's chosen to forfeit his time, you don't HAVE to offer makeup time when it's his choice.