How much time will I have with my children?

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.