As someone who works on the front line, it’s important that you’re able to respond to calls for help. Whether you are a firefighter, medical provider, EMT or other front-line worker, your job is essential and important to the community and those who need your help.
Being divorced and having custody can put a strain on your job (and vice versa). You may need to be on-call for work, but that may make it harder to have regular custody of your child. What should you do?
Custody and working on-call
When a parent works on-call, they need to be ready to respond to emergencies or calls from their employer. For example, a firefighter might be at home, but if he or she is at home and on-call, they could be called at any time and told to come in for work. While on-call staff members won’t always go in, they are still supposed to be ready to do so.
With child custody, it’s better if a parent does not have custody on the days when they’re on-call. It’s easier to schedule custody during hours when they know they’ll be off from work completely. However, that might be tough with some jobs, such as those of in-demand surgeons or EMTs. In those cases, other arrangements should be readily available, such as a babysitter who is in the home with the parent on the days when they’re on-call. That way, someone will be there to watch the child or children while the parent is gone.
Creating the perfect parenting schedule may take time, but it’s possible if both parties can be flexible and have backup plans in the case an on-call parent is called into work.