Thanks, Ginny. You've given me level-headed responses to a couple of other issues in this forum too.
However, for argument's sake, please allow me to respond with a query: if I am legally irrelevant (or whatever the term was), what business would I have going in front of a judge anyway?
I guess I felt like I came here for feedback on whether there may be grounds for modifying a placement schedule - a modification that would provide the child with more time with her parents - and that makes me the bad guy.
Getting YELLED AT, being dismissed as "interfering" and having my syntax nit-picked by one or two posters (
we can waste all of the mental energy that
we want and it has no bearing on anything) wasn't very helpful, but aside from that, several people did address the actual question and seemed to reach an agreement that:
- the placement schedule isn't ideal,
- a request to modify it to include a couple of weekends with Mom during the school year and some vacation time with Mom in the summer isn't unreasonable, and
- the fact that Pebbles, during her placement time with Dad, spends most of her days and nights at Grandma's house (and not Dad's house) may have some bearing on a judge's decision-making process.
With that information, let it be said that a potential petitioner would be more inclined to seek counsel from a family law attorney than if the resounding consensus was "lost cause". That is progress, as I am sure that there are countless instances of people chosing to not pursue legal remedy because they assume it would be a lost cause.
And if matters do progress to where a potential petitioner ends up hiring an attorney and seeks a modification, it would seem probable that the flesh-and-blood attorney would advise said petitioner's legally impotent, irrelevant, interfering, spouse to go fishing on the day of the hearing or to sit in the back of the courtroom with a bag of caramels.