Child custody can make childhood extracurricular activities extra difficult to schedule.

If your ex asked you before signing your child up for an activity and you told him it wouldn’t work due to scheduling issues, what would you do if he signed your child up anyway? Would you stick to your schedule or be willing to change your plans even though you originally told him no?

In this story, one mom is in this situation, and she is really frustrated with her ex. She’s not sure what to do.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITAH for not wanting to take my kiddo to football

I (36F) and my ex husband (48M) have two kids. We split our custody 50/50, every other week, with a midweek visit (I.e. pick the kids up from school and keep them until 7:30p).

My day is Wednesday, as we originally discussed, but since my ex changed his to Thursdays.

We try and stay cordial for everything and before signing the kids up for activities, check with the other parent to make sure it fits within our schedule and budget.

I’ve had to say “no” before, and he chose to sign them up and take them on his time, which is fine because it works within his schedule and budget.

This time, her ex didn’t really care about her schedule.

Recently, my ex asked if we could sign my son (5yo) up for a flag football team that started at the end of October, and goes through mid December.

I told him “no, I know of several weekends we’ll be busy and I can’t take him, and several others that I won’t be able to attend to support him because it’s getting into the holiday season, and my family lives out of state”

His response “It’s settled. He will be playing football this season. It will be your choice not to allow him to participate. I’d think you would want to encourage him to be a part of team sports, socialize with his peers, etc. All good, I’m happy to carry that for both of us. As always – appreciate your cooperation.”

Which ticked me off, and I just said fine, you’re paying for it and can take him on your weeks.

Her ex expects her to change her plans.

Fast forward a bit, and he’s already asked multiple times to change our parenting schedule to accommodate last minute practices during the week, and additional games added on the weekends.

He cornered me when we were trick or treating past his house and asked if I’d be taking my son to football the next day.

And I said “no, we already had plans, which was why I didn’t want to sign him up.”

He got mad at me and said “I let you take him to support his cousin last week which any normal person would assume you’d cancel your plans and take him to his game this week. I’d never have let him go with you[to my nephews league game] if I had known you weren’t going to take him to his own”.

She refused to let him continue.

I turned around, put my hand up and said “stop. You cannot walk with us if you’re going to fight, manipulate, and insult me. Turn around and go back”

He then started accusing me of pushing him (because he did not stop walking and ran into my hand, stepped back, then walked into it again) and being a bad role model in front of the kids.

I told him to leave, then turned and left.

Her ex wanted her to change their schedule again.

Fast fwd to today, he asks me to switch my parenting schedule to accommodate an impromptu practice this week.

I’m mad!

I like to stay consistent with my kids schedule for all of our sake, but adding an outdoor practice in some guy’s backyard is wild to me.

My son is 5!!

She really hates this situation.

I didn’t want to do this because it didn’t work in our schedule, now I’m constantly the bad guy for saying “no, that doesn’t work for my/our schedule”

So Reddit… AITAH for not wanting to take my son to practice, or cancel our plans made in advance for his games?

Her ex asked. She said no. He went ahead with it anyway, and now he is mad at her for not going along with it.

I can see why he’s her ex.

I feel bad for the little boy. The honest solution might be to talk to her son about it. If he’s all in on flag football, maybe humor him, but I’d be furious with the ex too.

Let’s see what advice Reddit has to offer.

It does sound rather disorganized.

Here’s some good advice.

It really is easy to see why they’re not together anymore.

The answer to this question is what really matters.

I feel bad for their son being caught in the middle.

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