First right of refusal
Do any of you ladies have experience with this? I have been tossing around the idea of trying to add it to my CO. Thought I'd see what your experiences have been before I called my attorney.
The situation is this. DD goes to her bio dad's the typical EO weekend and one evening throughout the week. Although lately he has been backing out of more days than he has been taking her, but that is a whole other story. He basically gets to choose his own work schedule and chooses to work every saturday so that he can have the same day off as his live in GF. So every saturday that DD is with him, she has to go to his mother's house and she hates it. Both his mom and her live in BF chain smoke. I have had several issues with them letting DD watch very inappropriate things on tv (Ex: she had nightmares for almost a year after they let her watch the movie Birds because "she wanted to and she would have cried if they told her no".) And they are constantly badmouthing DH and me. This morning out of the blue DD said "mommy, I sometimes get in trouble at grandma's house if I forget to call daddy (my DH) my stepdad and call him dad". The thing about that one...her bio dad and I have discussed this. He doesn't have an issue with it...it is just his white trash mother. DD says she gets put in time out or gets spanked if she forgets that she isn't allowed to call DH dad at her grandma's house. I could probably write 10 more pages of mean, ignorant, or otherwise trashy behavior that she is exposed to there.
So for those of you who have first right of refusal in your court order, how does it work? I assume it goes both ways and I would extend him the same courtesy? The only time I ever "need" a babysitter is while I am at work and DD goes to her kindergarten for that, but could it be an issue if I let DD spend the night or part of the day with my mom? Any time she does this it is for a special outing my mom has planned but it seems like it could be kind of a double edged sword...
Re: First right of refusal
So for those of you who have first right of refusal in your court order, how does it work?
In our case-DH had right of 1st refusal because BM left the kids with her heroin addict friend all the time and would pile her 5 kids plus my 3 sks in a van and drag them all to the county health dept so she could get her methadone. If Bm was going to leave htem with anyone, she had to give DH 2 hours notice and he could refuse which meant he picked them up and watched them for the time they were supposed to be babysat by whomever else.
I assume it goes both ways and I would extend him the same courtesy?
Depends on your court order. BM did not have right of 1st refusal and did not want it.
The only time I ever "need" a babysitter is while I am at work and DD goes to her kindergarten for that, but could it be an issue if I let DD spend the night or part of the day with my mom?
I think if she is going to visit her grandmother its different than being babysat for convenience for you. Pre-arranged visits with family members don't count if I remember correctly.
Any time she does this it is for a special outing my mom has planned but it seems like it could be kind of a double edged sword...
DH used the first right of refusal on his ex a few years ago. We don't have NEAR the issues you have. She's just a biotch.
BM had to go on a business trip. Rather than asking DH if he wanted to have SS for that week, she was going to send him to her mother's, 2 1/2 hours away. She tried to tell us we couldn't have visitation that week and would need to go and pick him up from her mothers for the weekend visit. You can only imagine how that went over. DH consulted the CO and pointed out the FROR to her. And that was the end of it. Granted, the next couple of weeks were rather tense, but the point was made.
She now knows better than to make arrangements for E without discussing it with DH first. And we only use it for the overnight or extended things. Not the piddly "I need a babysitter" things.
Thanks for the input ladies! Do you all think the 9-10 hours she is there while BD is at work is significant enough to ask for her back for that time? It is the majority of her "waking" day, so I would think it would be, but I am her momma so of course I think that! I am also anticipating that after the baby is born it is going to be harder to explain to DD why they baby gets to stay home and she has to go to her grandma's for the day. She typically enjoys going to her dad's house, just not his mother's, so FROR would fix that.
First of all, your X's mother is lucky I don't come over there and slap the shiit out of her. How is she going to put a child in time out or spank them because they accidently called your DH daddy which they normally do and is even ok with her bio dad! Hell no!
Ok, now for your main question. DH thought for the longest time that there was a first right of refusal in his papers, mostly because BM told him there was and he never bothered to double check. Thank god I have the common sense to read thru the papers and not just take BM at her lying word because she had been saying all kinds of stuff was in there that wasn't! So previously, if DH couldn't have his time with SD for whatever reason, he would send her back to her BM's. BM never did this with us, she got babysitters all the time without checking with DH first, he got extra time when she took off with one of her boyfriends to another state or when the babysitter was busy but that was it.
Turns out, first right of refusal isn't in the papers and I'm not sure if it should be or not. I think if you just need a babysitter, then you don't need to check with the other parent if it's for a few hours or something small. But if it's overnight that you can't keep your visitation then I think it should go to the other parent first to keep the child, if they can't then it's up to the other parent to make other arrangements.
If you have this added to your papers, then yes you have to abide by it too. Sounds like it won't be an issue really with your X, he sounds 'too busy'. Letting your mom have your child isn't the same as not being able to keep your visitation, that's just letting DD spend time with members of your family and doesn't count towards the first right of refusal, IMO.
We have FROR in our CO. This goes both ways and doesn't matter if we are talking about 1 hour or ten. We have a provision to include BM's sister, meaning BM can have her sister watch her during her time before she has to call us, but NO ONE else.
We had to put this in because BM was having whatever "flavor of the month" she was dating watch SD, and usually she barely knew these guys. BM's sister lives with her so we don't consider it a "disruption" for her to watch SD.
Like I said though, we don't mind if it's for an hour or ten, our schedules are such that we are home every afternoon and on weekends, so even though we have her 70-80% of the time, we still want her with us before anyone else.
We've only needed a babysitter once, and BM was working, so her having FROR hasn't really affected our time.