I live with and care for my mother who has cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy. COVID has made this arrangement tough on our family because I have primary custody of our two children who until now were not eligible for vaccination. My ex husband has insisted they continue with all of their sports (hockey, soccer and swim team). There are no longer mask requirements in many places and children follow their parents’ examples. If I take them in a store, we all wear masks. I know when he takes them places he does not wear a mask nor does he require them to. They always complain to me about wearing masks because dad doesn’t require it.
At home I often have to keep the children away from my mother — especially when they are in quarantine, which happens frequently based on other children in school having COVID or being exposed in sports. It makes parenting while caring for my mother incredibly hard and I worry about the risk to my mother and the kids. I even suggested he take the kids more until the end of the pandemic if he wanted to keep them in all their activities and take them out maskless. He rejected my offer.
I was so relieved to learn our kids could be vaccinated and made appointments for next week. My ex just informed me he objects to vaccination and because we have joint legal custody, I cannot overrule him. Do I have any options here? Can I get a judge to order vaccination?
Every judge is different and every situation is different but the judges are sensitive to the issue. I do not know why your ex objects to vaccinations, but I do know some judges are ordering vaccinations when the issue is contested. The larger impact of this decision falls on your shoulders where the children spend most of their time with you, you are caring for your mother, and he has rejected the idea of doing more of the parenting. So from a purely impact driven approach, you should have more of a say in whether or not to vaccinate.
You should file a compliant for modification seeking sole legal custody for purposes of making medical decisions regarding vaccinations. You can narrowly carve out this exception to pure joint legal custody. The changed circumstance is the pandemic, the impact it is having on your home life and your ex’s position on vaccinations. Then, once you serve him with the complaint, file a motion for temporary order granting you sole legal custody for vaccination decision purposes. Be sure to provide all of the details you gave me in an affidavit supporting your request, i.e. his insistence on participation in sports, unwillingness to spend more time with them, having to keep them away from your mother when they are regularly exposed, etc. The more detail you provide to the judge the more likely you will get a temporary order allowing you to decide to vaccinate.