What is Primary Caregiver

[findingreality]

I am expecting my first child (little girl) in September. Me and the childs have since broken up and he is on me to let him have the Primary Caregiver in a joint custody agreement. Out of curiousity what does this entitle him too?
I don't want him to have all the rights to the child where he has moved away twice since I became pregnant, stopped attending doctor appts, ultrasounds, prenatal, and he already has two children that he hasn't seen in two years because he hasn't attempted too.
I don't trust him, there was a past of abuse in our relationship and his previous marriage, which he had taken care of a couple years ago. ( No issues since)
But I'm curious to know what Primary Caregiver in a joint custody agreement is, because he has papers for me to sign that I don't understand. I just don't want him to take the child and run

[standing on the sidelines]

first off do not sign anything you do not understand!!!! Do not take his word on anything. Others will chime in to answer your questions

[findingreality]

thanks SOTS

[Mess]

Primary Caregiver is not a legal term in Ontario Family Law Act. It does apply to things like caring for the elderly and can mean having legal access to someone's home. It can be for a nurse as much as a relative.

Usually in Family Law a primary caregiver is a description of someone who was stay-at-home parent, while the other parent was the breadwinner.

You might also see the term primary residence or principal residence, which just means usually what school district the child will be in and the main mailing address for the government to send things like health card.

The terms have nothing to do with access or decision making.

The main terms you need to be concerned about are "legal custody" which means decision making, "physical custody" which means where the child lives, "access" which means time with the non-custodial parent, and "shared parenting" which is the Family Law Act term for a shared arrangement between 40-60%.

That said, if the spirit and intent of the agreement is slanted toward the father with a slew of terms like "primary caregiver" this could open up the door to him seeking amendments later in his favour. He will always claim things like "primary caregiver was meant to mean custodial parent" and use that to try to get legal custody. Wording that is unclear can still sway a decision later.

If it were me I would not agree to such vague wording and I would stick to terms like "physical custody" and "legal custody" (which could be joint or for one parent). If they insisted on using terms like "primary caregiver" then I would insist on the term being defined and limited to explaining a particular role.

[findingreality]

I think what he is looking for would be the primary in a joint custody agreement. Where we aren't together I'm not sure if that means the child resides with him and he makes choices on her behalf, or if I still have a say.

[Mess]

Assuming you agree with this, what you want is for him to have primary legal custody (decision making) and for the two of you to have joint physical custody (shared parenting). You want to word it like that, with or without the brackets, so that the meaning is clear, especially that it is clear that you both had the same intention.

You also want a clause that states that the day to day decisions and emergency medical care will be made by which ever parent the child is with at the time. Major decisions regarding education, religion and elective medical or dental care will be made by X, the custodial parent.

You should have a section with the header "Parenting Plan" where you outline in general which parent will take care of which needs, like who will take the child to school (one or the other or both in turn), which parent will arrange after school activies, visits with relatives, how you will handle holidays, etc. Here is a sample parenting plan, but feel free to add things, this is your child and you know more than anyone else what sort of things will come up (ie dance lessons or hockey?)

You should have all of this read over by a lawyer and be very sure that you really want to agree to this.

[Kenny]

A primary caregiver is the parent who is responsible for administrating the day-to-day life of the child.

Even if there is a 60/40 or 50/50 split in residence, the primary caregiver could be either parent depending on their involvement in that daily administration.

The more the children enjoy shared parenting, the more gray the primary caregiver is identified in many cases.

[jgjvisions]

Primary Caregiver

It sounds like you should be the child's primary caregiver not the father and the primary caregiver is the one who will probably get custody of the child... that is the parent the child will live with most of the time...

Do you want the father to take over the upbringing of this child; do you want the child to live with the father?

If you want control of this child's life; if you intend for the child to live with you do not sign that paper... be strong.