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Thanks for your message Dadof4. Its encouraging.

I have a friend that is going through your exact situation right now. He is in Ada County and the mother is in Twin Falls. She has kept his daughter from him for almost a year now as they were never married. They go to court very soon.

My own story ended with a Mediation agreement after about a year so we never actually went to court. So at least I get to see my son every week now.  

Thanks for your reply.

Hello, I would really like to hear from fathers in Idaho, particularly ada county, who have had their child custody case go to court. Does anyone have a story to tell?

I'm looking for information such as:
Was there a bias toward the mother in granting custody awards?

Were there particular strategies for getting joint custody that were most effective - particularly with children under three?

Please tell me your story!!  Your help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Idaho: I am father of 3 year old son.  Joint Legal and Joint physical custody. Current visititation arrangement is that child is with mother majority of the time. Visitation for me increases incrementally each year adding more time until age 7 when child will be 50/50 physical custody. The issue is related to mother's smoking habit.

Mother had quit smoking during pregnancy and as far as I knew she had quit permanently. I was shocked to hear son describing how mommie smokes inside and that he knew what a cigarette was. During a recent drop off I went inside and sure enough the place reeks of smoke. I have little desire to "rock the boat" as after three years we are finally able to communicate via email about our child. But I am concerned about the potential health affects. So far I am not aware of any particular health affect the smoking has had on the child.

I am going to bring up the issue with her, simply asking her to not smoke around the child, but based on past experience, I will most likely get nowhere and it will probably lead us back to a renewed cold war.

Questions:
1. Do I have any legal recourse to compel her to not smoke in child's presense?

2. Is this considered a serious or minor issue to courts?

Thanks for your help

Wow, this is just one more thing I asked my attorney to put in for me (the 14 day notice on short vacations) that he didn't do correctly. I have always thought only 14 days were required for the facts I provided and my attorney at the time confirmed this.

So, probably a stupid question, but is there is any recourse for me to ask the judge to change it to what I intended to agree to then?  Something like, the final sentence nullified the 14 day notice portion, but the intention was clear in terms of what I thought I agreed to, therefore can we change it?

I'm reaching, I realize - its just that I counted on my attorney on this one so just wondering if its a lost cause to even worry about it.

Thanks!

Thanks, I want to clarify one thing.

We've been going back and forth all week. In every communication I have had with her, I have stated that I will bring child back at 5pm. In every communication that she has had with me, she has said, you will bring him back at noon or you will not be "permitted" a vacation day. So I have maintained from the beginning what I plan on doing. Her final communication to me was, if you don't bring him back at noon, you can't have the vacation day.

I am going to go through the process to clarify the drop off time by filing a motion although I hate to go back to court so soon, just when I thought I was done with this mess. I can only assume this will take another 6-8 months, just like the last motion did.

So I guess I'm a little confused by what to do for this particular vacation day which is coming up soon. Obviously the last thing I want to do is anything that would jeopardize myself. I follow our agreement to the letter as I understand it.  

1. Would you recommend that I keep child until 5pm which is what I've stated all along? Or would you just recommend I just "give in" and take child back at noon?

2. This same issue is going to come up probably 4-5 more times by the time a motion can be heard. Is this going to set some kind of precedent that when we disagree on vacations drop off times, she gets to decide until a motion can be decided?

Hi Soc, I had previously posted some of these questions on Friday May 5th but you never responded so I'm reposting here and adding additional questions. Please let me know if I'm posting incorrectly. Thanks!

First, here is the exact text of our Idaho court order for our vacation section. Child is two years, 2 months.

"We agree that each parent shall have up to fourteen (14) days vacation within each calendar year, so long as thirty days written notice (of those dates) is given the other parent, provided that until child turns 5, for vacation periods of less than four (4) overnights, fourteen day advance notice is sufficient. Subject to this, when less than thirty days written notice is given, and vacation plans interfere with the other parent's schedule we agree we cannot exercise our vacation days with child unless we have the other parents consent.

Until child is two, we agree vacation shall not result in child being away from either parent for more than two consecutive overnights. Until child is three we agree vacation shall not result in child being away from either parent for more than three consecutive overnights. Until child is age four, we agree vacation shall not result in being away from either parent for more than four consecutive overnights. Until child is five, we agree vacation shall not result in child being away from either parent more than 5 consecutive overnights. Between ages five and seven, we agree vacation shall not result in child being away from either parent more than seven consecutive overnights. After age seven if a vacation results in the child being with one parent for two consecutive weeks the other parent will have the next two consecutive weeks prior to returning to the alternating schedule thereafter. These restrictions on time away from a parent are not applicable to the normal custody schedule."

Here is the situation:
I made a vacation request in writing with 16 days advance notice to take ONE vacation day to be tacked on to my normaly residential friday overnight. My residential schedule for this particular weekend is from friday night at 5pm to Saturday at 7pm. My added vacation day would be an additional 24 hours so that the required drop off is 7pm on Sunday. I have told BM that I would bring child back at Sunday at 5pm,  two hours early.

Mother has denied the one day vacation request due to the following:
She wants child back at noon on Sunday, not 5pm which I maintain is supported by our agreement. She  then said that if 30 days written notice is not given and it interferes with her time, then she has to consent to the vacation day (please see the portion in our agreement that addresses the notice). She is therefore "not consenting" since I didn't provide 30 days notice.

I feel that our agreement is quite clear that when child is under 5 and vacation days are less than 4 days, 14 day advance notice is all that is required from me and that I don't need her "consent" to a 5pm drop off.

My questions are:

1. Please clarify the written notice part - can she deny my vacation request based on the facts I've provided? For this vacation request, 14 days notice is all that is required right?
2. Does the agreement support my assertion that a "vacation day" equals 24 hours of time?
3. If I tell mother that I will not abide by her request to bring child back at noon and bring him back at 5pm instead what recourse does she have and what is the risk to me in doing so?

Please tell me what you'd recommend doing in this case. My real need is to not have to deal with this constant bickering about what our agreement says!

Thank you

Thank you this is what my attorney said as well when I originally signed the order - her attorney must have told her differently.  I have a related question.

When I take a vacation day as outlined in the agreement, I'm under the assumption that a "day" as described in this agreement is equal to 24 hours of time. For example, I have recently requested to have a vacation day that follows my normal residential friday overnight visit. The friday overnight visit would normally end at 7pm on Saturday night. I have requested a vacation day for Saturday night. Nothing in our agreement says what time child needs to be returned when taking a vacation day. Mother insists child must be brought back to her on Sunday at noon. I am maintaining that child should be brought back 24 hours later or at 7pm on Sunday. I've even offered to bring child back at 5pm instead and mother is still insisting that it be at Noon.  

My questions are:

1. Is it reasonable to assume that a "vacation day" equals 24 hours of time?
2. If I tell mother that I will not abide by her request to bring child back at noon and bring him back at 5pm instead what recourse does she have and what is the risk to me in doing so?

Please tell me what you'd recommend doing in this case.

Thank you

Hi Soc, I have a simple question that will require a lot of background.

Child is 2 years and 2 months old. Idaho. Subject is "vacation days" and the restrictions to them outlined in our agreement. Here is exact text of our agreement concerning vacation days (2nd paragraph, last sentence is the important one that has us in disagreement).

"We agree that each parent shall have up to fourteen (14) days vacation within each calendar year, so long as thirty days written notice (of those dates) is given the other parent, provided that until child turns 5, for vacation periods of less than four (4) overnights, fourteen day advance notice is sufficient. Subject to this, when less than thirty days written notice is given, and vacation plans interfere with the other parent's schedule we agree we cannot exercise our vacation days with child unless we have the other parents consent.

Until child is two, we agree vacation shall not result in child being away from either parent for more than two consecutive overnights. Until child is three we agree vacation shall not result in child being away from either parent for more than three consecutive overnights. Until child is age four, we agree vacation shall not result in being away from either parent for more than four consecutive overnights. Until child is five, we agree vacation shall not result in child being away from either parent more than 5 consecutive overnights. Between ages five and seven, we agree vacation shall not result in child being away from either parent more than seven consecutive overnights. After age seven if a vacation results in the child being with one parent for two consecutive weeks the other parent will have the next two consecutive weeks prior to returning to the alternating schedule thereafter. These restrictions on time away from a parent are not applicable to the normal custody schedule."

The situation is that right now, I only see the child two times a week (per our normal residential schedule) and of the two times a week one is always on tuesday for two hours and the other visit is an overnight either on thursday or friday night, alternating.   If mother takes a vacation day (away from my normal time), it automatically creates a situation in which I'm away from my child for an entire week, since I only see him twice a week. She says that the last sentence in the 2nd paragraph above allows her to do this. She says the total vacation doesn't count the normal residential schedule days she already has.   I had originally talked to my attorney about this sentence and he said it didn't mean that otherwise I would never have agreed to it. So now she is asking to take away one of my friday overnights via a vacation day which would result in me not seeing my child for a week.

My question is this: given the language in the agreement, can either of us combine requested vacation days with normal residential schedule days to have a combined total number of days which exceeds the restrictions set forth?  There is nothing in our agreement that addresses this in other sections.

Thanks for you help.

Hello Soc, hoping you can provide your interpretation of the transportation clause in our court agreement. Here is the section worded exactly.
******
"When child is scheduled to return to mother, mother shall arrange the transportation. When child is scheduled to return to father, father shall arrange the transportation. Until child is age 3, Father will supply transportation to mothers home when exchanges occur between the parents (i.e. non-daycare pickup or return). After age 3, exchanges, the parties will alternate providing transportation for exchanges between the parents (i.e., non-daycare pickup or return), with the receiving party picking up the child."
*****
Dad is providing all transportation for all exchanges that occur between father and mother until child is three (at mother's insistence) - there is no question about that in the agreement.
 
When child turns three we want to make sure we understand the change.  Agreement says that transportation after age 3 will alternate, with receiving parent being the one responsibile for pickup. Here is the situation: When the child turns 3 years old, there is NO situation in which the father is the receiving parent on exchanges. This is because when the father is picking up the child, he always picks him up from daycare rather than from Mother. When there is an exchange between the mother and father directly, mother is ALWAYS the receiving parent.  
 
Here are the questions:
 
1. Based on above, does this mean that mother is providing all transportation when exchanges occur between parents starting when child is 3 as she is always the receiving parent?
 
2. Does the word "alternate" in the last sentence cloud things at all or is it still very clear even with this word in there?  (while I don't know this for sure, its my guess that when Mother signed it, she didn't realize that the father was never going to be the receiving parent so she probably assumed tranportation between the two of them would equally be rotated back and forth).

Thanks and happy holidays!




 

 

Dear Soc,

Father and mother of 20 month old have court date in just a few days. Motion is to modify visitation. (father has little time with son now due to earlier "infant" agreement).  We've spent the last 8 months coming up with a residential schedule agreement in mediation and we are almost there with the exception of a few points. Mother wants Father to handle all transportation when there are exchanges until child is 3. Father proposes an equal transportation burden. (they live about 20 minutes apart in the same town).   The 2nd point of disagreement concerns holidays and vacations. Holiday schedule is fairly standard with many of them rotating between parents each year. Vacation is that each parent has two weeks a year of vacation. However, mother proposes that father be restricted from taking the holiday or vacation days to certain consecutive amounts. For example, father can have son for no more than 2 overnights for vacation or holiday prior to age two, from age 2-3 father can have child for no more than 3 consecutive overnights, and so on and adding an overnight each year. Mother proposes that these restrictions do not apply to her. So essentially this means mom can take a week vacation two times this year and father can take a 3 day vacation only.  Mom gets to spend all of thanksgiving weekend on her year with child, Father only gets 3 overnights - and so on.

She's said, "take it or leave it". We'd like to leave it so here are my questions.

1. If we go to court with 90% of a written agreement in hand, will the judge just decide on these two remaining issues or is the whole agreement in question since we are at court and either side can propose something entirely different?

(We do not want to risk losing the rest of the agreement that we've spent so long getting to so please advise as to whether we should just cave in)

2. Both attorneys have assumed that a settlement was happening for the last month so neither is really prepared for court in my opinion. If the agreement doesn't get signed and we end up in court that day, do the attorney's just wing it? Please tell me what you think we can expect.

Thanks for your help.