What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Indiana
There is so much more to this story, but I will just give you a brief summary of what is being dealt with. My husband has a 4-year-old daughter with his ex. He is very active in her life, and we get her almost 50% of the time. He has never been behind on support, and does everything he can to get involved with her schooling and other activities. This is not a deadbeat dad we are talking about here.
When the support/visitation order was written, nothing was mentioned about who could and could not provide haircuts. My husband's ex has a habit of not taking good care of the kids' (he also has a son with her) hygiene and physical appearances, so we try to take of trimming their nails, getting their haircuts...all grooming issues that she does not tend to regularly.
We have regularly given his son haircuts, and nothing has been said. However, his daughter's hair needed to be trimmed, as her mother does not brush it or put it up to get it out of her way. Her hair was down to her waist, was painful for her to have it combed out because of the length and split ends, and it was starting to touch the toilet seat when it wasn't up. It was becoming an issue of no longer being sanitary, comfortable or safe for her. Her father asked me to trim her hair, and I did this for her. My stepdaughter was excited about it.
Now her mother is very angry about it, and claims that it is "short." It is not. It was a trim. The style was not changed, and the length was not drastically altered. It wasn't done out of spite. It was done to take care of a little girl who is not getting the attention she deserves.
It seems to me that her mother is making this a big deal just to be difficult, but I am wondering if she has any legal recourse at this point. As I stated, nothing was in the custody/visitation order regarding this sort of thing. It would be selfish of her at this point to take it any further, but we do want to know if there is anything we should look out for from a legal standpoint. Would she have a leg to stand on?
There is so much more to this story, but I will just give you a brief summary of what is being dealt with. My husband has a 4-year-old daughter with his ex. He is very active in her life, and we get her almost 50% of the time. He has never been behind on support, and does everything he can to get involved with her schooling and other activities. This is not a deadbeat dad we are talking about here.
When the support/visitation order was written, nothing was mentioned about who could and could not provide haircuts. My husband's ex has a habit of not taking good care of the kids' (he also has a son with her) hygiene and physical appearances, so we try to take of trimming their nails, getting their haircuts...all grooming issues that she does not tend to regularly.
We have regularly given his son haircuts, and nothing has been said. However, his daughter's hair needed to be trimmed, as her mother does not brush it or put it up to get it out of her way. Her hair was down to her waist, was painful for her to have it combed out because of the length and split ends, and it was starting to touch the toilet seat when it wasn't up. It was becoming an issue of no longer being sanitary, comfortable or safe for her. Her father asked me to trim her hair, and I did this for her. My stepdaughter was excited about it.
Now her mother is very angry about it, and claims that it is "short." It is not. It was a trim. The style was not changed, and the length was not drastically altered. It wasn't done out of spite. It was done to take care of a little girl who is not getting the attention she deserves.
It seems to me that her mother is making this a big deal just to be difficult, but I am wondering if she has any legal recourse at this point. As I stated, nothing was in the custody/visitation order regarding this sort of thing. It would be selfish of her at this point to take it any further, but we do want to know if there is anything we should look out for from a legal standpoint. Would she have a leg to stand on?