Missed deadline for parenting class in divorce- how bad is this?

[Anonymous]

Do you actually want 50/50, OP? If you're having this much trouble managing your job plus the basic logistics of divorce, can you really do 50% of all kid hassles, kid appointments, kid homework management, kid activities, etc? She won't be the lead parent anymore-- you'll have to pull your weight and not follow her lead and have her as backup so much.

It's all too common for men to claim to want 50/50 because that's socially acceptable or it minimizes their child support payment, but then they don't actually want it and don't actually do it. Really ask yourself how this is going to work with your job, and remember, she can keep track of all the times you don't use your parenting days and use that to get more child support.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The process is annoying, but having children in your care can be annoying and unpredictable and they will mess with your schedule. You have to show that you can handle this. Nothing you're saying would convince me.

I think that they will actually affect my schedule far less if I can get 50/50 and know when I need to be responsible for them and then be able to focus on work the rest of the time, and if anything I will be a better parent after divorce because I will not have my focus split all of the time between two things.

Listen to yourself:

Your children will affect your work schedule.

You think you will only be responsible for them 50/50.

You are still responsible for child during the other 50% of the time. Maybe you aren’t making a school lunch or driving them to gymnastic practice, but you are still responsible.

You must also realize that they get sick in the middle of the night sometimes and 50% of that will be on your schedule and at some of the worst possible times. Then there are summers where they are home all day everyday for weeks in end.

[Anonymous]

You are divorcing. You both need to get housing within reasonable distance to each other and space for the kids And take the class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The process is annoying, but having children in your care can be annoying and unpredictable and they will mess with your schedule. You have to show that you can handle this. Nothing you're saying would convince me.

I think that they will actually affect my schedule far less if I can get 50/50 and know when I need to be responsible for them and then be able to focus on work the rest of the time, and if anything I will be a better parent after divorce because I will not have my focus split all of the time between two things.

Listen to yourself:

Your children will affect your work schedule.

You think you will only be responsible for them 50/50.

You are still responsible for child during the other 50% of the time. Maybe you aren’t making a school lunch or driving them to gymnastic practice, but you are still responsible.

You must also realize that they get sick in the middle of the night sometimes and 50% of that will be on your schedule and at some of the worst possible times. Then there are summers where they are home all day everyday for weeks in end.

Ignoring the other digs at me in this thread, summer is easy to handle:

I can take them for ~10 days in the beginning of the summer for vacation and ~10 days at the end of August for vacation, which is what we've always done as a family. I don't see why that should have to change and it would give the kids continuity. DW has always been the one that decided what they do in the middle of that so she can be responsible for figuring out the weekdays and I can get enough weekends that with the ~20 days of vacation plus maybe Fourth of July weekend and Father's Day weekend every year it will add up to 50% of their summer break.

Re: sick days:

I don't see why our arrangements for sick days should have to change either. DW has far more personal days at her job than I do and always has, and she has handled the sick days for that reason. I think that given that the kids will be dependent on both of our incomes it is reasonable to negotiate into the settlement that as long as DW's work benefits stay the same, she should be the one to take off of work for the kids' sick days and/or handle pickup if we get a call from school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you actually want 50/50, OP? If you're having this much trouble managing your job plus the basic logistics of divorce, can you really do 50% of all kid hassles, kid appointments, kid homework management, kid activities, etc? She won't be the lead parent anymore-- you'll have to pull your weight and not follow her lead and have her as backup so much.

It's all too common for men to claim to want 50/50 because that's socially acceptable or it minimizes their child support payment, but then they don't actually want it and don't actually do it. Really ask yourself how this is going to work with your job, and remember, she can keep track of all the times you don't use your parenting days and use that to get more child support.

50% is totally doable and I don't know why everyone is convinced that I don't want it or can't make it work. If I get long weekends, most other weekends, breaks during the school year, and the beginning and end of summer break plus weekends in the summer, that is very close to 50% and might even be more. It isn't a big deal to make that fit around my job.

[Anonymous]

Troll harder, dude. You were believable at first, but you’ve taken the delusional male entitlement too far. Everyone knows that 50/50 doesn’t mean one parent gets all the most convenient, fun times and the other parent gets all the inconvenience and the lion’s share of the grunt work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For someone mandated to take a parenting class whose first instinct is to blame his attorney, I'm going to guess it won't go well for you.

The best you can do is register right now, today, with a start date as soon as possible and show the court you are working in good faith to correct YOUR error.

You may also want to look at your tendency to overlook deadlines and shift blame. You may find other things that will help you improve yourself and your co-parenting abilities.

I've been really busy with travel and work and I really don't think it should be held against me if I'm the higher earning and primary provider for the family. DW has time to do it on time because she doesn't do anything.

You're an a-hole and you're clearly one of those guys who relied on his wife to do all the scheduling and organizing and bet you never appreciated it. Plus I bet you're just trying to get out of paying child support. You travel a ton for work but want to get 50/50 or "more?" Hope it goes badly for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you actually want 50/50, OP? If you're having this much trouble managing your job plus the basic logistics of divorce, can you really do 50% of all kid hassles, kid appointments, kid homework management, kid activities, etc? She won't be the lead parent anymore-- you'll have to pull your weight and not follow her lead and have her as backup so much.

It's all too common for men to claim to want 50/50 because that's socially acceptable or it minimizes their child support payment, but then they don't actually want it and don't actually do it. Really ask yourself how this is going to work with your job, and remember, she can keep track of all the times you don't use your parenting days and use that to get more child support.

50% is totally doable and I don't know why everyone is convinced that I don't want it or can't make it work. If I get long weekends, most other weekends, breaks during the school year, and the beginning and end of summer break plus weekends in the summer, that is very close to 50% and might even be more. It isn't a big deal to make that fit around my job.

How about making your job fit around every other week or split week custody.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I saw that if domestic violence is involved I can be excused from having to attend the class. If my wife hit me and I have proof, would that give me grounds to be allowed to not attend the class?

Oh. Now I get it. You're just a troll.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Troll harder, dude. You were believable at first, but you’ve taken the delusional male entitlement too far. Everyone knows that 50/50 doesn’t mean one parent gets all the most convenient, fun times and the other parent gets all the inconvenience and the lion’s share of the grunt work.

I would argue that having weekends and breaks is way more work than if my wife got school days. She would only be doing a tiny amount of time in the morning and a couple hours after extracurriculars in the evening. Weekends would easily be 12 hours per day, so I would be giving her a longer break than what I would get and would actually be the one doing the grunt work. Not trolling, just being rational.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The process is annoying, but having children in your care can be annoying and unpredictable and they will mess with your schedule. You have to show that you can handle this. Nothing you're saying would convince me.

I think that they will actually affect my schedule far less if I can get 50/50 and know when I need to be responsible for them and then be able to focus on work the rest of the time, and if anything I will be a better parent after divorce because I will not have my focus split all of the time between two things.

What two things is your focus being split between now?

Also, did you not know the time of the parenting class? I am confused.

There were different class times to sign up for but I didn't realize how it worked until it was too late; I assumed my attorney would present me with options and make sure I took care of it.

My focus now is being split between family and work. I think that 50/50 custody would let me go all-in at work when I don't have the kids and be more present for them when I do, and I think it will be better for them than before divorce.

This is all theoretical and that's the problem. You can't choose to prioritize parenting when it's convenient. You have to prioritize it NOW and stop making excuses.

I don't think it's fair to expect that before I've had time to rearrange my life; I don't even have time to set up a place for them to visit at yet. My wife is in our family house and since she has a head start in terms of having a place for them to be where they're already comfortable, I should get time to adjust my work schedule, figure out housing, etc.

I don’t understand what you’re saying; you’re the one who filed for divorce, so this is happening on timing that YOU imposed. Didn’t you think any of through or make plans before filing?

Honestly I thought DW would want to leave the house and set up her own place once she saw that I had filed so she wouldn’t have to prolong things. And I travel enough that if she didn’t, I figured that I could stay in hotels in between work trips and see the kids in our old house and that she would go to a friend’s house or hotel during those times. My attorney said nesting was a very likely arrangement and that seemed like the best option financially but DW flat out rejected that.

Good God. You're such a tool. All your "assumptions" and proclamations of "obviously I'll figure out how to make it work." I don't think there is anything obvious here except you should have worked harder to keep your family intact.

[Anonymous]

When do you think that your wife would get full days to travel or relax or visit relatives with your kids if you get them for all long weekends, holidays, most regular weekends, and summer vacations?? 50/50 should be aiming for equal distribution of all parenting, rather than having your wife shoulder all the weekday transporting, extracurricular, sick days, homework etc while you get all the time for enjoying everything else in life with your kids. Ugh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How did the parenting class end up a requirement? Is that because of your jurisdiction, or did you wife ask for it?

In MD, if you’ve filed for divorce without having a custody agreement in place for minor children, you are required to take the parenting class.

To be clear, both parties are required to take it, not just the petitioner.

Yeah but the wife has plenty of time to take the class because, according to OP, she "does nothing."

Except, uh, take care of the kids every day. Op can’t even make the time for a 4h class, he’s not fit to take care of these kids.

Let's see a show of hands of people who think OP will do things like get his kids enrolled in school each year, and schedule annual well visits, and fill out field trip paperwork, and sign up for sports, and shop for birthday gifts, and plan birthday parties, and check homework and grades? I guarantee he has NEVER handled that sort of patenting load in his marriage but now he thinks he wants half of that. Right. This is entirely about $$ and trying to avoid paying CS, because....he's a bad father who thinks divorce will magically make him a good one. Snort.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The process is annoying, but having children in your care can be annoying and unpredictable and they will mess with your schedule. You have to show that you can handle this. Nothing you're saying would convince me.

I think that they will actually affect my schedule far less if I can get 50/50 and know when I need to be responsible for them and then be able to focus on work the rest of the time, and if anything I will be a better parent after divorce because I will not have my focus split all of the time between two things.

Listen to yourself:

Your children will affect your work schedule.

You think you will only be responsible for them 50/50.

You are still responsible for child during the other 50% of the time. Maybe you aren’t making a school lunch or driving them to gymnastic practice, but you are still responsible.

You must also realize that they get sick in the middle of the night sometimes and 50% of that will be on your schedule and at some of the worst possible times. Then there are summers where they are home all day everyday for weeks in end.

Ignoring the other digs at me in this thread, summer is easy to handle:

I can take them for ~10 days in the beginning of the summer for vacation and ~10 days at the end of August for vacation, which is what we've always done as a family. I don't see why that should have to change and it would give the kids continuity. DW has always been the one that decided what they do in the middle of that so she can be responsible for figuring out the weekdays and I can get enough weekends that with the ~20 days of vacation plus maybe Fourth of July weekend and Father's Day weekend every year it will add up to 50% of their summer break.

Re: sick days:

I don't see why our arrangements for sick days should have to change either. DW has far more personal days at her job than I do and always has, and she has handled the sick days for that reason. I think that given that the kids will be dependent on both of our incomes it is reasonable to negotiate into the settlement that as long as DW's work benefits stay the same, she should be the one to take off of work for the kids' sick days and/or handle pickup if we get a call from school.

Golly. You really have it all figured out, huh? You know precisely what days you want your kids and the ones where you want to send them away? You assume YOU are the one to get twenty days of summer vaca with them and your ex might not want those dates and times and experiences? Also, are you prepared to actually plan meaningful, fun vacations for your kids? I'm guessing your ex (who you insinuated was a stay at home mom who does nothing but later admit she works) probably did all the vaca planning and packing and shopping and meal prep. No way you're up for it. Give up now, loser

[Anonymous]

When you have custody of your children YOU are obligated to be the parent on first for sickness that happens on your watch. I'm positive that your ex is too smart to allow for some ridiculous provision in your custody agreement that she should be the default parent for any sick day needs. It's called parenting you idiot.