Is this child neglect? What actions could I take?

Continuing my awful situation of having to live with my stbx her decisions are starting to worry me.

Let me explain what happened yesterday:-

Even though we live together I have complete supervision over my son during the weekends as she''s always either sleeping or out of the house. Yesterday I had to go round to my mums house to help with some renovation work so my son was left with his mother. My stbx was not at home at 4pm so I was calling and texting to find out where my son was,
She would only text back saying "don''t worry about it". Considering he has school the next day I was worrying about it. I tracked her down at her place of work (restaurant) at 7pm, she was there but our son wasn''t so I demanding to know where he was. To save herself embarrassment in front of everyone she wrote down the address on a piece of paper (I did not recognise this address) or know who the person living there was.

I drove to the address and it was in a very run down and deprived area of the town, known for prostitution and drug dealing. I''m a grown man of 35 years old and either I had to watch my back. I found the house and I women I didn''t know let me in, the house was a hell hole and my son came running over to me. This women told me that my stbx had called her and dropped my son off at 1pm and asked her to look after him but didn''t say exactly when she was going to pick him up.

Considering she doesn''t finish work until gone midnight, that must have been the time she would of collected him and got a taxi back home or just left hint there all night.

This is very worrying for me, would this be child neglect? I fear for my sons safely while he''s under his mums supervision.

How is it child neglect? She arranged child care with someone she felt is a responsible adult as either parent is perfectly entitled to do. You are only guessing what the arrangements for collecting him were.

She might argue that it was your decision that left her in this situation. You always provide child care at the weekend but this weekend had something you felt was more important and left her knowing that she had to go to work.

1.) leaving a child at someone else''s house on a Sunday night with school in the morning, I would view as unacceptable.

2.) she dropped him off at 1pm and left him even though she didn''t start work until 6pm. None of his homework had been completed.

3.) we have no official agreement that I look after him every weekend, I just do because she is never around. However she did know in advance that I would be out Sunday helping my mum.

Her work is not contracted, so she can go in on which evenings she''s available. I''m sorry but leaving a six year old round someone else''s house on a school night while your out to work until midnight is not responsible parenting in my view. He did not have his school uniform round this persons house so his mum must have planned on collecting midway through the night. Surely people wouldn''t find this type of behaviour normal?

I agree with Wyspecial - it''s not child neglect.

It sounds as though your wife made the best arrangements possible at the time as you were unable to be with your son. What you consider to be unreasonable another person/parent may not.

You need to pick your battles very, very wisely.

I can''t see how it''s "the best arrangement possible". Her work is 20 minutes away and does not start until 6pm. Could have easily waited for me to come home at 4pm and then went to work instead of leaving him with someone else and trying to hide his whereabouts from me.

maybe it''s not child neglect, I would certainly class it as putting her needs before her child''s. This morning she just stayed in bed and decided not to take our son to school. I ended up getting to work nearly a hour late because I had to get him ready and drop him off, otherwise he just wouldn''t have went to school.

There isn''t really much to add. You asked for an opinion and the opinion is that this isn''t child neglect.

You may not be happy with the arrangements your wife made for child care on this occasion but either parent is perfectly entitled to make whatever arrangements they like when the child is with them.

You need to learn to live with it because going forward, unless there are welfare issues, what parenting choices your wife makes and who she uses for childcare when he is in her care will be none of your business. Same goes for her when he is in your care. It''s one of the things separated parents need to understand and better to cooperate with each other and "sing from the same hymn sheet" than use it as an opportunity for conflict.

Whatever argument you put forward to criticise her decision yesterday she will be able to counter by criticising your parenting. You look after your son every weekend but this weekend going to your Mothers was more important. You could have taken him with you, you didn''t ask what time she needed to start work etc etc.

WYSPECIAL

I did not discard your opinion and did admit that you are probably right that it would not be classed as child neglect. Situations like that are so alien to me because after say 6pm on a Sunday it should be making sure homework is complete, bath time, read a story and settle down to bed at 8pm ready for school in the morning. It may sound boring, but leaving your child with someone else on a Sunday night for non emergency reasons is bad parenting IMO.