How Much Time Will I Have With
My Children?
This is often the first question
that is asked by a father when a divorce starts. This is particularly true if the mother has
been a stay-at-home mom or the father’s work requires him to be away for
regular periods of time. Mothers are
often concerned about the other end of the spectrum when the father’s are
absentee in terms of child care and the mother has a career or is going to
start a career. Who will take care of
the children if the father does not exercise his parent-time?
First, let me start off by saying
that an absentee father prior to a divorce will often be an absentee father
after the divorce. Moreover, an over protective
mother prior to the divorce will often be an over protective mother after the
divorce. Divorce does not automatically
change your spouse’s parenting style.
There are two ways to look at
parent-time. The more positive way is
focus on creating a parenting system that works for the children and that works
for the parents. This is ideal and
should always be pursued. The more
cynical way is to focus solely on the number of overnights because in Utah,
child support and custody are determined based on the number of overnights that
a parent has with a child. This leads to
most parent-time issues dealing with the difference between sole physical
custody and joint physical custody.
In Utah sole physical is defined
as one party being the primary custodial parent with the other party having
parent-time. The Utah legislature has
set the magic number at 110 overnights using the rotating weekends and holiday
schedule set forth in http://le.utah.gov/code/TITLE30/htm/30_03_003500.htm. For children over the age of 5, the rotating
“statutory minimum” schedule is every other weekend from 6:00 p.m. on Friday to
7:00 p.m. on Sunday, and one 3 hour visit during the week usually from 5:30
p.m. to 8:30 p.m. with additional overnights for holidays, winter, spring, and
summer vacations.
Joint physical custody is
technically anything over the statutory minimum of 110 overnights, but
typically if it is just a couple of nights over, the label does not quite
apply. In a joint physical custody
arrangement, neither party is designated as the primary physical custodian
(unless they agree to this) and a joint parenting relationship exists between
the parties. A joint physical custody
arrangement also has other legal ramifications such as hindering a parent’s
ability to move further than 150 miles from the other parent as well as its
affect on child support.
Keep in mind that child support
often motivates divorce litigants to push for joint physical custody. A few numbers may be helpful to understand
why this may happen. Assuming that the
Petitioner has sole physical custody with 2 minor children and makes $2,000 per
month and the Respondent makes $4,000 per month. The Respondent’s child support obligation
would be $864 per month. Same facts only
now the parenting arrangement is 50/50, which results in Respondent’s child
support obligation being $231 per month.
Giving Respondent an extra 30 overnights reduces the child support
obligation to $686 per month. With these
numbers, it is easy to see why parent’s fight for a joint custody situation.
As for how much time you will
have with your children, you should work towards what is natural and works in
your situation. A great place to work
this out is in mediation, which is required under Utah law.
