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Easy Joint Custody Schedule Question

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Nicola

Junior Member
What is the name of your state? MO

My ex and I have recently modified our joint custody agreement and now for the first time ever we have alternating weekends which begin Friday morning and end Monday morning. We have never done alternating weekends before and it never occured to me to clarify it enough to avoid the question that has now come up. The order reads exactly: Each parent shall have residential custody on alternating weekends beginning on Friday morning and ending on Monday morning."

My question is what happens when a holiday (which takes precedence over normal time) occurs on the parents opposite weekend? Does that parent who gets the holiday end up with three weekends in a row or does the alternation switch after the holiday?

Example: Child's birthday (we get day before to day after for a total of 3 days, alternating years) falls on Dad's weekend, but it is my holiday this year. So do I get (a) my weekend, then my holiday weekend, then my next weekend or would it be (b) my weekend, my holiday weekend, dad's weekend- which would then shift the alternation for the rest of the year...

I don't think a situation like this should happen again for a while so I don't want to go back to court to have the order clarified but at the same time I don't want to lose any time I am entitled to. Obviously I think I should just get the 3 weekends in a row, but dad thinks it should be two. Dad has agreed to my posting the question here and taking any answers into consideration before a decision is made.

Thanks for any help or suggestions.
 


haiku

Senior Member
why don't you take your weekend, and the birthday weekend. Then give dad your weekend for a 'makeup weekend', then you both get the kid two weekends in a row, and still stick to the same original schedule.

Why make things more complicated than they have to be?....
 

fairisfair

Senior Member
why don't you take your weekend, and the birthday weekend. Then give dad your weekend for a 'makeup weekend', then you both get the kid two weekends in a row, and still stick to the same original schedule.

Why make things more complicated than they have to be?....
IMHO that is a wonderful solution!!
 

Ohiogal

Queen Bee
And legally unless the court order requires that it does not have to happen. What happens is mom would get all three weekends (her weekend, the holiday weekend that is hers due to the holiday falling on that time, and then her next weekend). My question is WHO GETS THE CHILD DURING THE WEEK? Or is this child only with the parents on weekends?
 

haiku

Senior Member
And legally unless the court order requires that it does not have to happen. What happens is mom would get all three weekends (her weekend, the holiday weekend that is hers due to the holiday falling on that time, and then her next weekend). My question is WHO GETS THE CHILD DURING THE WEEK? Or is this child only with the parents on weekends?
yep I agree, as usually a "holiday" takes precedence, and if there is no makeup time spelled out in the order you are out of luck.

But I am all for giving a "little" to get a "little" in the long run. Which was my only point in posting......

Legally OP, unless otherwise stated, you can take all the weekends and dad will have to deal.
 

Ohiogal

Queen Bee
My question is still -- WHO GETS THE CHILD DURING THE WEEK????? There is Monday through Friday of every week.
 

Nicola

Junior Member
My question is WHO GETS THE CHILD DURING THE WEEK? Or is this child only with the parents on weekends?
The parents have the child during the week too. I didn't include it because is very clear in the order: Mom has every Monday and Tuesday, Dad has every Wednesday and Thursday.

Since the divorce we have shared custody in two week blocks and have just changed the schedule this year so that she is not away from either one of us for too long at a time. I am finding the alternating weekends to be very confusing.

I have no problem offering him the "make up time" so that is okay, but does an alternating weekend mean that the "ownership" (for lack of a better word) of each weekend will never change officially so that whoever has the first weekend the order is in effect -you could just count from there to see whose weekend it is even years later after perhaps trading weekends or giving up weekends?

And as long as I am here one more quick question. I know holidays take priority over normal time, but what happens in the (admittedly rare) event that 2 different holidays fall over the same time period? We have birthdays as holidays in our agreement (his, mine, and hers) and most other holidays are split by odd/even years. What if his birthday (again we get day before, and day after too) falls over spring break of my year or if my birthday falls over the Thanksgiving holiday of his year? I would hope we could work it out amongst ourselves, but it would be good to have something to fall back on in case we can't. After all if we agreed on everything we wouldn't be divorced in the first place!

Up until this school year we just had our two week blocks throughout the year and whoever's week fell on that holiday got it- which is another reason we changed to an alternating plan.

Thank you all for your responses!
 
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stealth2

Under the Radar Member
ANd I'm trying to figure out why an adult neeeeeeeeds the child for the days before/after their (the parent's) birthday... Do y'all also take three days off from work?

Honestly? The *best* solution is to put yourself in the shoes of the one on the "losing time" end - how would you feel if you were there? And then accomodate to make it even.
 

Nicola

Junior Member
ANd I'm trying to figure out why an adult neeeeeeeeds the child for the days before/after their (the parent's) birthday... Do y'all also take three days off from work?

Honestly? The *best* solution is to put yourself in the shoes of the one on the "losing time" end - how would you feel if you were there? And then accomodate to make it even.
Honestly no one "neeeeeeeeds" the child on any particular days. We have provisions for 3 day holidays on birthdays but none for a lot of holidays other people would consider normal. We do not have holdiday schedules for Labor Day, Memorial Day, etc. That it is a parent's birthday is wholly irrelevent; it is about time with child.

I know what the best solution would be. As you can see from above I am more than willing to be flexible and I am not complaining about losing time with my daughter or trying to start some kind of pi**ing match with her father. I was just curious what the legal perspective would be when two holidays fall on the same time and which parent would be the one to get that time - again from a legal perspective- if we could not agree amongst ourselves.

I can "accomodate" all I want to and give up every whatever with my daughter, that does not necessarily mean that her father will also "accomodate" or adjust his schedule in order to keep it even. If parents could work that well together 100% of the time there would be no need for child custody or parenting plans in the first place.
 

ceara19

Senior Member
Honestly no one "neeeeeeeeds" the child on any particular days. We have provisions for 3 day holidays on birthdays but none for a lot of holidays other people would consider normal. We do not have holdiday schedules for Labor Day, Memorial Day, etc. That it is a parent's birthday is wholly irrelevent; it is about time with child.

I know what the best solution would be. As you can see from above I am more than willing to be flexible and I am not complaining about losing time with my daughter or trying to start some kind of pi**ing match with her father. I was just curious what the legal perspective would be when two holidays fall on the same time and which parent would be the one to get that time - again from a legal perspective- if we could not agree amongst ourselves.

I can "accomodate" all I want to and give up every whatever with my daughter, that does not necessarily mean that her father will also "accomodate" or adjust his schedule in order to keep it even. If parents could work that well together 100% of the time there would be no need for child custody or parenting plans in the first place.
When you modified the paqrenting plan, was it done through the court and signed by the judge or is it an agreement between the 2 of you?
 

Nicola

Junior Member
When you modified the paqrenting plan, was it done through the court and signed by the judge or is it an agreement between the 2 of you?
We used a private mediator (lawyer) to come to an agreement, he drew up the court order which was then filed and signed by the judge. That is probably why the wording is not as tight as it should be.

Really though there have been no real problems with it so far, I was just curious as to what might/could happen in the future.
 

LdiJ

Senior Member
You did get the "legal" answer. The legal answer is that you would get three weekends in a row, and dad would be sol.....and the same will happen to you sometime down the road.

The rotation does not start over. If there is an actual conflict between two holidays (which I can't imagine a scenario where that would be the case, unless one of the birthdays is near a holiday that doesn't have a fixed date) there really isn't a "legal" answer.

As already suggested, if the two of you are willing to compromise, then you can give him your regularly scheduled weekend as a makeup weekend, so that you both have two weekends in a row....which would keep you on the rotation.

One thing that you can do that may help, is that you get a calendar and map out the parenting time for the whole year. Look at situations like that and agree in advance as to how they will be handled....then make sure that you both have a copy of the calendar so that everyone is on the same page.

Or...you can just go the "legal" route.
 

Nicola

Junior Member
You did get the "legal" answer. The legal answer is that you would get three weekends in a row, and dad would be sol.....and the same will happen to you sometime down the road.

The rotation does not start over. If there is an actual conflict between two holidays (which I can't imagine a scenario where that would be the case, unless one of the birthdays is near a holiday that doesn't have a fixed date) there really isn't a "legal" answer.

As already suggested, if the two of you are willing to compromise, then you can give him your regularly scheduled weekend as a makeup weekend, so that you both have two weekends in a row....which would keep you on the rotation.

One thing that you can do that may help, is that you get a calendar and map out the parenting time for the whole year. Look at situations like that and agree in advance as to how they will be handled....then make sure that you both have a copy of the calendar so that everyone is on the same page.

Or...you can just go the "legal" route.
Thank you, yes I did get a legal answer regarding my initial question about the holiday falling on a weekend. The question about two holidays falling over the same time was just an aside out of curiosity.

Dad's birthday is around spring break (usually) and my birthday is near the end of November so it is feasible that those days could overlap. We have mapped out this year and next already. Isn't that a given before one would agree to a particular modification? So I know we will not have a problem with the holidays for the next year and a half. It was just a "what if" in case it happens in the future and we cannot agree so that I would know what to expect.

Thank you for your response, but you did come across as rather snippy, perhaps you did not mean to. As far as I can tell I have not acted like so many of the people on here do trying to stick it to the other parent or trying to cause drama etc. It really was a simple question, if the answer is "there is no legal answer" then that is all that needed said.

Again, if you read my posts you will see that I have no desire to go to court, no desire to deny dad anything and no desire to be disagreable. It is my intention to keep our relationship as it is now with both of us being able to come to some sort of agreement amongst ourselves without having to let a judge control our lives. I am not however, naive enough to beleive that there is no possible way things will ever change. I just wanted to have some sort of an opinion or knowledge to fall back on in the worst-case scenario.

Thanks again (to all) for your responses. We have solved the immediate question of 3 weekends in row and now I know that the weekend rotation will not change ever so we can keep our current calendars and count from the beginning if there is ever a dispute. That does help with my confusion.
 

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