Ok, so kids sports seems like a petty thing to squabble about but it's apparently going to create a huge issue over here. Let's start with some background info. DH and BM have joint legal and shared physical custody. We have skids thur-sun 3 weeks a month during the school year, split school holidays (although somehow she ends up offering us most of the time and we of course accept) and all summer with BM getting every other weekend. She ends up getting slightly more a year than we do. For the last 3 years she has always been the one to sign ss7 up for sports. The custody order says each parent will take kids to extracaricular activities and mother will make a reasonable effort to communicate with father before signing kids up for stuff. She has never come to DH before signing ss up for stuff and DH gets upset because we have him 3 Saturdays a month and she is telling us how to spend our weekend basically. We get over it bc ss loves sports and at least he is having fun.
BS7 plays football in the fall and BD8 cheers for the same team. It's a more demanding sport with practice 5 days a week and tackle football at that. Last year SS watched BS practice and watched quite a few games and says he wants to play too. We couldn't be happier and would love for the boys to play together! Last night DH called BM to tell her he would like to sign SS up. She flipped! Her arguments are that it's too time consuming and SS already is too rough in sports so she doesn't want to encourage it. Our response is that 3 weeks a month she only has to do 3 days a week and if she ever wants help taking him we are more than willing to help. Also, we feel football is constructive aggression. It also teaches stuff like teamwork better than any sport we have seen thus far. SS is normally a ball hog in sports to the point that other parents get upset and bring it to our attention. A sport where you HAVE to rely on team mates will be good for him. Plus, it teaches a lot of discipline and commitment. BM is big on "my time-your time" so I can see how she wouldn't want us taking SS to practice on her time. We will still offer it.
DH told her he was going to ask SS and base his decision on that (since their convo went no where. She said she's the mom and her answer is no). When we asked SS we reminded him of all the good and bad..."remember how often stepbro had to practice? How much he had to run and how he got tackled to the ground? Are you sure you want to do this? It's a lot of work and you can't be a quitter if we sign you up." He said he wants to play with his stepbro and it looks fun. BM said she is calling her lawyer on Monday. She technically has no grounds because custody order only says she has to ask father first. Nothing about him asking her. An oversight by her attorney I guess.
I feel kind of bad because it will be on her time as well, but she's done this to DH for 3 years. Granted, football is more demanding than most sports, but if you add up 3 years of her doing this to DH then he's still had to go along with her plans for SS more often. I also don't want DH to back down just because she threatens a lawyer over something as petty as a sport. A sport her son wants to play! BM is admittedly on anxiety meds to help with control issues and we almost feel she really doesn't want him to play because it wasn't her idea and my kids do it so she doesn't want to be a part of it. She doesn't accept that skids and my kids are part of a family at our house now (she said that at co-parenting counseling. That my kids are not a factor in skids lives, they just live together). We also live in the same small town both about 2 min from the football field. I feel like if we back down she will always use a lawyer to have control over whatever skids do. I'm kind of lost on this one.