My ex-husband and I have joint physical and legal custody of our children. I want him to take care of the children while I am on business trip. I agreed to keep the children on weekdays and him on the weekends. Because he is currently paying me for child support, he asked for money whenever I want him to take care of the children on the days I travel, which are on weekdays. What are my rights to this issue? How do the judge in California calculate physical custody time?

Thank you!

I don't know about California. You risk opening a whole can of worms; just curious: who claims the children on income tax return?

http://www.childsup.ca.gov/Portals/0/resources/docs/GdlnCalculator.pdf

The time is calculated with overnights. That's what creates the split custody. If a father picks up the children in the morning from moms house and returns with them at the end of the day to tuck them in at moms house every day for a year. Child support would be based upon mommie 100% and daddy 0 % of physical custody.

So to find out how much time it is you relly need to look at the overnights to get your percentages straight.

A typical 80/20 would be visitation Tue and Thurs with every other weekend. That's the norm in California.

If you take a lot of business trips, I think your ex is making a reasonable request. If it's just one or two a year, and you don't want to pay, why not offer to take the kids some weekends to make up for the days you'll be gone? I think if your trips are rare, he's being annoying, but I wouldn't bother fighting it.

My ex frequently canceled his time with our kids, so that his total time with them each year was far less than our agreement. But I gladly kept our kids without complaining, even though I didn't get any more money. He was the one who eventually complained about not seeing them enough. I couldn't control my ex, but I didn't want my kids to ever feel unwanted by both parents. Don't fight over this if you can help it.