The summer vacation can bring all sorts of changes to your regularly scheduled programming – and that can be good, bad, incredibly stressful, and wildly expensive, especially for working parents with little flexibility. Even though the school year has its own challenging moments – sick days, snow or other inclement weather days (even ones, like here in Hampton Roads, with no *actual* snow), teacher work days, lengthy vacations (we’re looking at you, winter break), election day(s), and other random interruptions (hello, random half days), there’s much more predictability during the school year.
Both my child’s father and I are working, so our childcare solutions are much more expensive in the summer.
For many working parents, childcare requires creative solutions. Whether you’ve got a sort-of-steady, daycare-esque solution, you’re patching together various weeklong summer and/or sports camps, you’ve hired a nanny, or something else entirely, it’s a lot of logistical work to figure out.
It can also mean your costs are higher.
Work-related childcare expenses go into the child support calculation, but child support doesn’t change month over month, unless you and your child’s father have reached an agreement to handle child support that way.
In an ideal world, you would more or less account for these expenses when your child support guidelines are run. When you add together your work-related childcare costs for the year, add in what you normally spend in a summer. If you haven’t had a summer yet (like, because you used to stay at home or because your kids haven’t yet been school aged and required a different non-school solution), then do your best to estimate these costs. Remember, too, that anything related to the children (child support, child custody, and visitation) is modifiable based on a material change in circumstances, so if you experience an unexpected change later (like, that things end up being more expensive than you initially contemplated), you could modify your award of child support at a later date, too.
Child support is awarded on a monthly basis, so you’ll still have to budget a bit for the summer. If you receive a certain amount each month, it would be prudent to set some aside to help compensate for the higher childcare expenses you’ll have over the summer (since it will sort of look like your school year child support rate is inflated, at least based on work-related child support figures alone). You don’t have to, of course, but, then again, when summer comes you’ll be more strapped than you’d be otherwise.
What if my child’s father has more parenting time over the summer? Does he pay less child support?
No – and the same logic applies here. I get it – especially if he has all the parenting time or most of it – that he’d be annoyed to still pay. However, that’s just the way it works.
Child support and work-related childcare are averaged out across the year, so if you’re still being paid child support, that’s because, on average, you should be. We aren’t basing child support off of the random one-off months that defy the norm; we’re creating a normal, reliable schedule that is predictable for the benefit of all involved. (After all, just because you don’t have your child in the month of July doesn’t mean you don’t have child-related expenses!)
Your child support will be averaged out throughout the year, and it should continue to be paid – as per your court order or custody agreement – even during the summer, even if you don’t have the child, even if he doesn’t like it. And, yes, if he refuses to pay, you can still file a show cause on him for his failure (and be sure to ask for attorney’s fees, too).
If it is ordered in a court order or an agreement incorporated by the court, it is enforceable. Enforce it!
What if family is providing childcare, so my expenses are actually less in the summer?
Well, you should thank your lucky stars! It is so hard anymore to have a real village that shows up when you need it, especially to provide something as challenging as summer time childcare.
Ideally, again, you would have accounted for this in your child support calculation; your childcare expenses are what they are throughout the year (or maybe they’re nil then, too, because your family is showing up in a big way), but they’ll still be averaged out throughout the year. If you’re not paying childcare, that number will just be zero – but that doesn’t mean, of course, that child support is zero. Even if your mom or sister are watching the kids, you could still have child support coming in.
The same is true if it’s his family, too – though, of course, I hope that means everyone is onboard with the solution. It can be challenging to rely on inlaws after a divorce or breakup, but it’s also not unheard of, especially if they’re a generally positive and supportive presence in the children’s lives. And, additionally, the fact that the childcare is probably either free or super low cost can go a long way to help matters, too.
What if he wants to pay his mom or other family member to watch the kids?
If you can’t agree on a childcare solution, you may have to agree to each set up your own childcare on your own time. I have definitely seen scenarios where grandparents or other family members were paid to provide childcare. After all, childcare is a legitimate career and truly difficult work – and we can’t just count on the unpaid domestic labor of women to keep the world running smoothly.
If we can’t agree about the compensation, or the fact that compensation would be offered at all, or we’re wondering whether the compensation is actually paid (or is just being used to offset a child support obligation), we can look into it – and you could certainly make different arrangements for your own parenting time.
This can get messy, but it’s not – on its face, anyway – illegitimate just because the family member in question is being reimbursed for the time they’re spending providing childcare. It’s just one of a number of factors we look at when we petition the court.
Summertime childcare is a complex animal that requires sometimes less-than-orthodox solutions. If you’re struggling with it, give us a call at 757-425-5200 and we can help you run child support guidelines or figure out possible solutions – for this summer and beyond. (Because you know the next one’s just around the corner!)