16. How Does Babysitting Work in a Parenting Plan?

Sydney Mitchell:

Hi. My name is Sydney Mitchell.

Matthew Brickman:

Hi, I’m Matthew Brickman, Florida Supreme court mediator. Welcome to the Mediate This! Podcast where we discuss everything mediation and conflict resolution.

Sydney Mitchell:
So in our last episode, Matthew, you began to take us through the parenting plan. And today we’re pretty much going to just pick up right where you left off and dig a little bit deeper into it. And so let’s get started. Take us through the next part of the parenting plan after communication.

Matthew Brickman:
Yeah. So after communication Sydney, the next section is babysitters. Sometimes this is pertinent sometimes it’s not, it all depends on the age of the child. I always joke there’s like a 12 or 13 year old, especially a little boy, you know, I’m like I’m sure he would love this section, he’d be picking his own babysitter. I want that girl to babysit me. So this section is sometimes in a parenting plan sometimes not. Um, but we always start off and we’ve got, we’ve got two different paragraphs. So the first paragraph actually is where both of the parents can select their own babysitters. They’re able to just pick their own babysitters. Now this does non daycare, non aftercare, non summer camp because those under the statute as part of child support, but each of them can just select their own babysitter if they need a babysitter, pick your babysitter or pay for your own babysitter.

Matthew Brickman:
But here’s the deal about the complete legal name, contact info address and telephone number of the babysitter has to be exchanged with the other parent prior to using the babysitter. And the babysitter must have the contact information, name, address, and telephone number of both parents as well. Now sometimes people ask me, well, why do I have to give, you know, the other person, the babysitter’s contact info, right. And why do they need my info? Well like this, you know, if mom goes out and let’s say she goes out on a date and she’s at the movies and something happens with the child, um, and her phone’s on vibrate. Right. Is that her purse she’s in the movies, the babysitter’s gotta be able to get ahold of Dad. Right, And so

Sydney Mitchell:
That’s a good rule of thumb to have a second emergency contact. So, yeah.

Matthew Brickman:
And so, and so, yeah. You know, um, and also we’ll then, you know, that’s enough information, legal name, address, and telephone number that you can run a background check and see who’s around your kid. Like these are safety things. This is, this goes back to the statute of best interest of the child. This is not about being, you know, um, restrictive or, or, you know, I got to ask permission, no, this is about protection. This is just best interest of the child. So that’s paragraph one.

Sydney Mitchell:
And so this is SNO choosing, you know, whether or not parents need to choose, you know, or have the opportunity to choose their own babysitters or if they have to agree and what information is exchanged, this is all completely up to, you know, if two parents say that they really don’t care, you know, not that they care, but you know, they’re completely, you know, give consent to the other parent to choose their own babysitter. Then none of this applies.

Matthew Brickman:
Exactly. Yeah. It’s like, look, you know what? I trust you. You know, I know that you’re not going to put the kid in harm’s way. Yeah. You may have been a really crappy spouse, but I know that you’re not going to make bad decisions regarding our kid. Right. But then you’ve got option two. Option two is all babysitters must be agreed upon by both parents. But no, I want to have a say, I want to be able to say no, but Sydney, what I’ve noticed through the years of doing this is a parenting plan is meant to be protective and prohibitive. It’s like a shield. It’s not meant to be a sword. You don’t pull this thing out and start attacking the other person with it. But it also needs to be preventative maintenance so that you’re not constantly doing damage control. So years ago, that’s all that, that section said they have to agree. But what if they don’t agree? Well, they guess what they’re left in this perpetual loop of no, no, I want Sydney. No, I want Matthew. No, I want Mary. No, I want bill. No, I want Ben. No, it’s like, come on. But the agreement says they have to mutually agree. That’s a problem. Right?

Sydney Mitchell:
Okay. So then what do you do if too, if you’re it, you know, if two parents are in the situation and they cannot agree on somebody. Okay.

Matthew Brickman:
Okay. So that takes us into the second sentence and the rest of the paragraph that says, if the parties cannot agree. So if you’re just going to be stupid or selfish, not best interests of the child minded, but if the parties cannot agree, then three names of three different babysitters shall be given by the person who needs the babysitter. And one of those three babysitters must be chosen immediately. So that keeps you out of the perpetual loop. So at that point, if you need a babysitter, psycho halo, fine find your you’re just, you’re just blocking everything. So I’m going to give you three names. It’s Sydney, it’s Matthew it’s bed. Tekoa now it’s a lot like voting, like rarely do you go to the polls and be like, yay. I got my candidate. You’re going to going, okay, who’s going to do the least amount of damage. Right. That’s sort of how your pick of babies. I was like, okay. I don’t like Matthew and I don’t like that are fine. I’ll use Sydney. I’m not happy with it. But at least they’re not caught in this perpetual loop, right?

Sydney Mitchell:
Yes. So the standard, so this is a standards, you know, way to resolve the conflict. Two parents decide that this is not the solution they want to arrive at. Let’s say they want to, you know, have five options or in, they want to do something completely different because they have the freedom to do that. Is this just a standard?

Matthew Brickman:
They do. That’s a great question. They do. I’ve never had anybody that wanted to, you know, expand the options. Like three luck. You’re going to get something like, people are difficult though.

Sydney Mitchell:
Do you know? Everyone’s got their own thing. So you never know,

Matthew Brickman:
But Sydney, thank you very much for giving the rest of the world an option to expand this section notebook. Can we add five? Maybe so, but yeah, three babies. There’s NES still, still with the babysitter’s complete legal name, contact info address has to be exchanged. And the babies with the other parent and the parent has to have the babysitter’s information as well. But those are your two options. If you need a babysitter either. And I tell people all the time, do either, you know, this, this comes down to trust. Do you trust them or not? If you pick your own, just pick your own babies, or if you don’t we’ll then find, you have to mutually agree. Now sometimes parents say, look, we always use the same babysitter. So really neither of these are applicable. Like we have one babysitter. Our kid has always been with the same babysitter. We want to continue using that babysitter.

Sydney Mitchell:
So even no matter whether they’re at their Vermont, their moms or dads.

Matthew Brickman:
Exactly. So then what, well, so I tell them your, your mediation agreement, your parenting plan, it is your umbrella for a rainy day. You carry an umbrella in case arise. You hope it does it, but you need to, you know, and so when creating a parenting plan, even if the parents are getting along, I tell them, pretend that you absolutely hate, like this is Lex Luther and Superman sitting at the table, negotiating. Like you might get along today, but you were actually going to be arch enemies because that’s when this paperwork gets pulled out, it doesn’t get pulled where you’re getting along. I mean, this paperwork to go in a drawer and you just ignore it. And then people just co-parent. But in the event that they can’t, then they pull this out. So I tell the parties. Great. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. But in the event that, that babysitter graduates high school and goes to college, or they are sick and available or they’re double booked, like, okay, then what, like now what do you do? Like, you’re just going to put your life on hold so that babysitter’s available again. Right. So I tell them that’s a great idea. And we can even add to it, like, you know, at the time of executing this agreement, Sydney is the chosen babysitter for both parties. They agree to use Sydney fine. But in the event that Sydney is unavailable. Now we still leave one of these two paragraphs. Does that make sense?

Sydney Mitchell:
Yeah. I have a question. How often do, how often do families? You know, so for me, you know, as a reminder, I grew up in a, in a, um, my parents were divorced and I grew up on a parenting plan, which, you know, we can share more about later, but you know,

Matthew Brickman:
The parenting plan share now don’t share later. Well,

Sydney Mitchell:
I was, um, I actually think, I may have mentioned it in an earlier episode, but I was, let’s see, I was on every one to two days. I was at my mom’s Monday and Tuesday and Thursday. And I was at my dad’s a Wednesday and Friday. And then every other weekend, which from up conversations, Matthew was an older, you know, pre 2011, um, you know, approach to time sharing or custody as he used to be called. And, um, so for me, it was up to either of my, you know, I didn’t have a, uh, a babysitter that baby, you know, that watched me at both homes. You know, for me, I think my parents said, you know, I trust you, you can, you know, have over who you want. And it was up to my mom to find her babysitter. And it was up to my dad to find his, how, you know, I’m sure there are a ton of families that you mediate, you know, for, that are in the same situation. You know, like you said, they trust that person. How often do parents trust the other party and how often do they have to instill some of these standards that we’re talking about now?

Matthew Brickman:
Um, what I have found is, is Sydney. It really depends on what was the catalyst that created the divorce. Um, when there’s, it’s interesting when there’s infidelity. Oh no, we have to agree usually because it’s out of, it’s punitive. They want to punish the other person. They want to make life difficult because they’re hurt. Right. Which then they’re not looking at best interest of the child like they should, but

Sydney Mitchell:
That’s just a side note. I’m sure that that motivates, you know, like he said, the reason for divorce kind of motivates the attitude with which parties approach this entire process, which has got to make it kind of challenging for you to reach resolution.

Matthew Brickman:
Yeah. Well, but, but you know what, too, it also depends on how fresh is the web. So for example, um, last week I had a mediation where, um, there was infidelity, right. But they’ve been separated for three. The wound is not fresh anymore. So you know what? It was just like, you know what, he’s moved on, I’ve moved on, let’s just move on. And so, I mean, so, so sometimes it’s the proximity, like, for example, if, if Bob and Karen are together and let’s just say that Karen cheats on Bob, like Bob fell asleep at the wheel, wasn’t doing his job as a husband. She stepped out on the marriage, then that Bob files and they’re immediately in mediation. You know what? It could be a little bit more difficult because the wound is fresh. If there’s a little bit of time that goes by, sometimes it gets better, but sometimes it gets worse.

Matthew Brickman:
I mean, you know, we are, it is still hard to really predict because human nature is, it’s just so individualized, right? Like your reaction to things are different, you know? Um, we, we, we shared, you know, my ex-wife had multiple affairs and it’s 2020. We got divorced and I don’t know, one, I think, and it’s still like, you know, at times I’m still just like, ah, I can’t believe she’s like, you know, I’m not going to lose sleep over it, but still, you know, there’s, there’s still that wound now, granted, just like my example, I fell asleep at the wheel. I wasn’t doing my job. And then she stepped out. Um, and you know, we’ve shared in the past that I wasn’t the greatest of husbands then, um, I probably would have divorced me as well. So, um, but, but yeah, I mean, it, it, it all depends on the wind.

Matthew Brickman:
Um, now we had gotten divorced. It was fresh after a number of the affairs. And after I had found out and still, I, you know, I mean, I trusted her with the kids. I didn’t like her as a person, but I trust her with the kids that we’ve been with with, with me and the infidelity that I went through with her, it was still a selector of ABC. Right. So it’s, you know, um, now here’s the other thing I’ve had it where like, they’ve, they’ve been separated and mom absolutely unequivocally hates dad’s girlfriend. And so absolutely she’s not babysitting my kids. Right. And it could be three years. Doesn’t matter. She’s not babysitting my kids.

Sydney Mitchell:
So then does that have to go in? It has to be listed

Matthew Brickman:
Well, no. So, so, so then, so, so then fine, all babysitters have to be agreed upon. And so, you know, dad may say fine. I want Bob, my neighbor that you don’t even know, or I want Carl, my coworker that you don’t know or anyone.

Sydney Mitchell:
So you’ll just make the three options really.

Matthew Brickman:
Well, it goes back to almost like voting, like, okay, who’s going to do the least amount of damage. And in, for example, they may have two little girls. And so mom’s like, Oh, I don’t know who these two men are now. She has to pick the girl for her. So yeah, I mean, a welcome to welcome to my daily life. Okay. Now, now before those two kick in, before each of them can select their own babysitter or all babysitters have to be agreed upon sometimes in some situations, people want what we call a right of first refusal. And what that says is before choosing a babysitter, you have to give me the other parent, the opportunity to watch the kids now, based on all of our conversations that are topics, you can see where this is going to go wrong. This is never, this works out well because these create lit litigation, but still some parents want it there and that’s okay.

Matthew Brickman:
You know, I’m there to empower the people I’m not there in general out there to tell them, but I’m there to give him lots of creative suggestions to give them options, as you said. And so I need to tell them the good, the bad, how it works like in the real world, rather than just words on a page, how does it really play out in the record once you sign your agreement? So we’ve got two paragraphs let’s, let’s go through the first paragraph option one. So just like selection of babysitter, we have option one, option two. So like a game show, right? Like, do you want curtain number one, Curtis. So then we have two different options for a right of first refusal. The first one says that each parent has the oppor, uh, offer the other parent the opportunity to care for the children before using a babysitter.

Matthew Brickman:
If the child or children will be left with any third party for a period of time, exceeding blank, number of hours with the exception of a parent’s scheduled work hours or child attending schools. Sometimes people are like, I want two hours. And I’m like, okay, two hours, you can barely go grocery shopping and two hours without the kids. Right? Like, did you really want to involve the other parent that much in your life? They’re like, okay, well maybe four hours. And I’m like, okay, you can barely go to a movie and dinner on a date in four hours. Because these days they’re making movies that are three, four hours long to make it feel like you got your money’s worth. I like, I like 90 minutes in and out like, Oh my gosh, just tell me the story let’s be done with that.

Sydney Mitchell:
I know anything over two hours. I’m pretty much like, Ooh, I don’t know if I’m on it.

Matthew Brickman:
Like you’ve got all these long dragged down, but so, but anyways, and I’m like, do you want to have to call your husband or your ex-husband or your ex-wife every time you want to go out on a date, where are you are like way too much, like you’re getting divorced. You, you should not be involved that much in each other, in each other’s life. So typically what I suggested, you know, if, what would I have seen if the courts are going to get involved with something like this is they’re going to say longer than a work day, it as longer than a Workday. So like six or eight hours. Um, the other option option two is if the child’s going to be left with anybody over night, that’s more consistent with the statute. I’m sorry, I’m sorry that it’s more consistent with timeshare that if you’re not going to exercise your court order timesharing, well then fine. You give the child to the other parents, um, with the exception we, and we do build in some exceptions, like with the exception of the child being invited to spend the night with a grandparent, but we put a limit on it, not to exceed two times or three times or four times per calendar month. That way a parent is not always getting their time. And then just giving it to a grandparent who doesn’t have any rights to timeshare.

Sydney Mitchell:
Yeah. So this is, this I guess, gets really muddy because it’s so family specific, you know, everyone’s got family members and you know, like, this is, this is just like a hundred percent customizable, I guess. And you, you know, you’re really getting down into the details with each different family because everybody has different situations. So,

Matthew Brickman:
And we’ll, and, and exactly right, because some of the questions I get is, well, what does, what about my spouse? What about my fiance? What about my significant other? We’re all, you know, so, so what, you know, the child can’t spend the weekend with my wife, uh, when I have to go out of town for a business meeting, it has to go back to the mother, but it’s my time. Well, then it’s like, well then I want makeup time sharing. And we all, yeah. I mean, it can go lots of different ways, but you know, these are the pieces and components that are part of the parenting plan. So then that’s okay.

Sydney Mitchell:
I had no idea. There were so many like nuances to all of this. My, um, this is true of some more of my experience, you know, my, my, yeah, like I said, my parents trusted the other to make those decisions. And, you know, they were a hundred percent comfortable with me, you know, being supervised by their significant others. And so it, it, you know, to me as a child growing up, I didn’t notice that, um, you know, there was, you know, too much animosity regarding all of these things. So yeah, it’s now I’m hearing and reading all of this and I’m like, Oh my gosh, people, you know, that, you know, it’s, it’s yeah. There’s just, there’s just a lot of nuances to it, you know? And it all depends on the relationship that the mother and the father have.

Matthew Brickman:
Yeah. And that’s why too, you know, doing mediation. Um, you’ve got to understand the law you have because guys, you know, I tell people all the time in mediation, we, and it sounds like a fun place, but a dirty place to live. But we live in the shadow of the law. That sounds like fun, right? Like, Ooh, Google is living in a shadow, but I tell people, you always have to be cognizant of the power of the court, because if you cannot come to an agreement, you got to at least know what the power of the court is, what, what are the judges really doing? What does the statute say? Because that’s what the attorneys are advising people on. That’s what the judges are having to rule on. And so you always have to know that, but then you can create just about whatever you want.

Matthew Brickman:
And like you said, although nuances, you can customize this, you know, your comfort levels, your belief systems, um, your particular family. And so as a mediator, you’ve got to understand the law, but then you also have to understand human nature and the psychology, if people would be able to, you know, help people negotiate and hold onto their belief systems and their feelings, but let logic and reason come in and then negotiate this part. And you know, it is, um, it is a very, very, um, what’s the word I’m looking for. It’s a very difficult, but rewarding job better know what you’re doing as a mediator, because as you see all these little nuances, you can either create litigation for people even knowing it. Um, I wa you know, I want to help people avoid litigation. I, you know, as, as I’ve shared my story in the past, in and out of litigation constantly, I know this firsthand, like, okay, I know what it says on the piece of paper, how’s it going to play out in the real world? It’s not real world experience to bring to it as well as education. Um, so that’s a great transition because the next section is education.

Sydney Mitchell:
I have a quick question actually, before we jump to education, if that’s okay, what happens if, and when a parent violates these, you know, whatever agreement two parents have decided upon for their babysitter situation and what happens when that agreement is, has been violated.

Matthew Brickman:
All right. So we’re going to get into that in extreme detail at the end. And when I say at the end, at the end of the parenting plan, because it is the last section of the parenting plan, which is the enforcement clause.

Sydney Mitchell:
Okay. And that encompasses the entire agreement as one. Yeah.

Matthew Brickman:
Okay. Yeah. We have an enforcement clause that says, um, and we’ll dig into this deeper, but I’ll just give you just an overview that a parent’s failure to abide by the terms contained in this parenting plan. Well, so that means that any of this Sidney, any of this, all the nuances, all of the babysitter section and the shared parental responsibility and communication, and time sharing occasion, failure to abide by the terms contained in this parenting plan. Then there’s a lot of different options that the court has at their discretion for enforcement. So we do have a catch-all enforcement clause, and it is important that, uh, that, you know, in enforcement clause is there. I’ve had mediation agreements, Sydney, where there’s no enforcement clause. And if, and I’ll tell you that if, if, if, uh, if you do not have an enforcement clause, when you start the free for all we’ll we’ll know, then you come back to a mediation because somebody has said, Oh my gosh, they have violated.

Matthew Brickman:
Do you think that person or that person’s attorney is going to let a, a, uh, an enforcement clause be put into future agreements when they already know their client has violated it? No. Which is why it is so important to make sure that there’s an enforcement clause and every single agreement. I mean, look, even if you go and buy an appliance, you buy a computer, you buy anything and sign a contract, right. There’s a mediation arbitration clause in that contract. This is an event. We have an issue. You got to go to mediation arbitration. I’m not even sure if people, and this is, this is just a little side note, it’s still on the enforcement clause, but did you know that when you buy something from eBay, that when you click buy, you have signed a contract that says, if you have a disagreement with the seller, you have to go to SquareTrade, which is E-bay online mediation program to try to resolve the issue before you were allowed to file a lawsuit somewhere in cyberspace or wherever they actually live.

Sydney Mitchell:
I had never heard of that before.

Matthew Brickman:
Yeah. So, so there’s, there’s a, there’s an enforcement clause or an arbitration clause in almost every single contract on this planet. So definitely everybody out there make sure, make sure, make sure that is so important, make sure that you have a, uh, an enforcement clause in your document because otherwise, unfortunately, you’re going to have a whole lot of words written on a paper that you’re going to have no teeth to actually get enforcement, and that’s going to be a shame. So we are out of time, but in the next episode, we are going to be talking education. So we ran out of time, but we had a lot of good stuff to talk about with the babysitter section. And as you know, Sydney, you know, I’m not going to rush the way this, because there’s so much that that people need to know. I want them to be prepared when they come to mediation, understand, as you put it all the little nuances, all the co-creativity that they have and the power that they’d got. Um, so we will pick up in, in, in the, in the next episode, um, on education. And, um, then after we get through education, we’re actually going to start with time-sharing. And, uh, so I’m looking forward to this.

Sydney Mitchell:
That’s where it gets. Um, that’s where it gets complex.

Matthew Brickman:
It’s very, very complex. You want to talk about nuances? Wait until we get to the timesharing. Absolutely. Yeah.

Sydney Mitchell:
Well, yeah, a lot of these things, you know, as you mentioned, parents don’t really understand, you know, what some of the implications are as they make these decisions. And again, what some of the options are. So Matthew, thank you for your insight. Thank you for answering all my crazy questions and, uh, looking forward to jumping into our next topic.

Sydney Mitchell:
If you have a comment or question regarding anything that we discuss, email us at info@ichatmediation.com that’s info@ichatmediation.com and stay tuned to hear your shout out and have your question answered here on the show.