Legal Question in Family Law in Texas
In Texas if you have visitation on weekends and for some reason can not pick up your children for that weekend is it my responsibility to find other arrangements for someone to watch the kids that weekend? My ex is saying she will not watch the kids on a weekend I am moving and says I will need to find someone else to watch them. We have the kids every weekend.
3 Answers from Attorneys
Generally, unless there is a "right of first refusal" in place (which gives the other parent the right to watch the children if the parent in possession is away for a certain period of time), each party is responsible for their own child care if it is necessary during their designated possession time.
You have a right to possession of your children, but not an obligation. You do not have to pick them up at all. Of course, if you do not do so on a regular basis, the mother might ask the court to modify the order to give you less possession. Also, you cannot get the kids and then take them back. If you get them, you are responsible for making arrangements. Either you exercise your rights for that weekend or you don't; you do not get to partially do so.
Let me step back and look at this from a different perspective.
What would 2 resonable people do? They would talk and reach a reasonable agreement. They would try to make this "bump in the road" easy on the kids. Instead, it sounds like the 2 of you are using the children as a "burden" that neither of you wants to be responsible for! How sad for your children!
As a parent, I would want to keep the stress away from my kids. So I would try to do whatever it took to make the kids lives easy. The two of you have already disrupted their lives. They already have to sleep in 2 beds. Their lives are already in enough chaos.
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