The Court Allows This Alternative under Certain Circumstances
Video Transcribed: Can I watch my kids instead of paying for daycare costs in Oklahoma? I’m Tulsa Child Support Collection Attorney James Wirth and that’s the question we have related to the Oklahoma child support guidelines can you elect to take on the kids during the time period when the other parent cannot watch them and is trying to get daycare? So can you watch them instead of daycare?
And there is a statutory answer for that and I can read that for you. It’s title 43, section 118 G subsection E. It says “A parent may be allowed to provide childcare incurred during employment, employment search, or while the other parent is attending school or training if the court determines it would lead to a significant reduction in the actual annualized childcare costs.”
So if you can take that on and it’s going to result in substantial reductions in the annualized cost of daycare, then the court should consider that and allow you to watch the child instead of having strangers watch the child in daycare.
But what they’re looking at as far as the significant reduction in actual annualized care, what we look at and what we see happen a lot of times is maybe the other parent wants to take the child on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, but still wants daycare Tuesday, Thursday, or maybe the reverse of that.
In either case, what we find is that it’s a lot cheaper per day to get daycare for five days than it is for two days. And because of that, if you’re only taking on part of that time, that may not actually significantly reduce the annualized cost of childcare.
So if you’re taking that on for the entirety of it, then it will likely significantly reduce the cost. But if you’re only taking on part of it, then it may not, and that’s what the court looks at in deciding whether to grant that or not. If you’ve got questions about your specific circumstances, talk to a Tulsa Family Law Attorney about them privately. To schedule that with somebody at my office, you can go online to makelaweasy.com.
