Need legal advice

[jgaff78]

SD changes her mind about flying unaccompanied every time I talk to her. She gets really excited about things when they are in the abstract, but when it comes time to actually do them, she gets really scared. It was the same way when we took her to her first amusement park. She was really excited on the way there and said she was going to ride everything, but then she got really scared and refused to get on the rides. She cried and screamed and was terrified, and we were right there with her. I have a feeling it will be the same with flying unaccompanied. We might be able to talk it up and get her excited before the flight, but there's a strong chance that she will change her mind when it comes time to get on the plane. We would be forced to be the ones to put her on the plane when she was upset, so we end up looking like the bad guys instead of her mother.

Another reason we don't want to fly her unaccompanied is because BM does not have a car of her own right now. She has trouble getting to the airport because she has to find someone to drive her. If SD flew unaccompanied, BM would have to get there even earlier to pick SD up from the gate. I seriously doubt she would be able to get there on time and SD would be left sitting there without a parent to pick her up. We don't want to do that to her.

I've tried to get SD prepared for flying unaccompanied during the last few visits we have had. I tried to get her to speak to the flight attendant on the last couple of flights and she wouldn't even tell them what she wanted to drink when the cart came around. She wouldn't tell the cashier her order at McDonald's either and she's very shy about talking to waitresses in restaurants. It's a bit hard to put her on a plane by herself when she won't even speak to the only person who is responsible for her for almost 3 hours. If something is wrong, she is not likely to tell them. She's just not mature enough yet. We're trying to work on getting her to become more mature before we attempt to put her on a plane by herself. At the very least she needs to be able to speak to the flight attendants.

I don't think BM really understands how it works for minors flying unaccompanied. With the airlines that she plans to use for flying SD, she has to present a copy of the birth certificate as proof of age and BM does not have one.

As far as school clothes, we were buying them so that SD could pick out what she wanted and so we knew she would have nice clothes for school. She's a bit of a fashionista so she loves having clothes that are in style rather than just whatever is cheapest or what BM picks out (BM likes to dress her younger than she is). It was something we were doing for SD, not really for BM, but it certainly helped with BM's expenses since she didn't have the expense of school clothes. However, since BM ticked me off and essentially said that we didn't do enough and that she is responsible for the majority of the cost of raising SD (even though we pay almost 70% of the state determined cost of raising the child), I have decided that she should see what it is like to not have our help. So we're not sending clothes back after every visitation and we're not doing any more than we have to (we haven't had BM send clothing with SD for visits for the last twoyears because the clothes were always dirty and smelled every time). We'll still provide everything here for SD like we always have, but none of it will go back to BM's house. We're also not going to give her extra time with SD when it interferes with our scheduled visitations anymore. If she wants something changed, she will have to take it to court.

I am going to let my husband deal with BM after he gets home. Odds are we'll end up buying the tickets for the 4th since that is the scheduled end of visitation and it will give BM the most notice for getting herself or someone else to the airport to pick up SD. If she doesn't show up, we'll just fly her back here. I get a check on Monday so I'll have the money then to fly her back here if we have to.