Holidays for her, playoffs for him in unusual custody agreement

Recently, two divorcing parents reached an agreement regarding the custody and parenting time of their two children, ages 7 and 5. In exchange for the mother receiving parenting time with the kids on four Jewish holidays and half of the children’s winter break from school, the father will have the kids on one very specific occasion: if the dad’s favorite college basketball hill team makes the NCAA finals.

According to the father, he decided to make the unusual child custody request after thinking about what was really important to him. “I’m not a very religious person,” he said, “so I tried to think of culturally some other things that are important to me that I wanted to make sure I share with my kids.”

One of those things, he decided, was his lifelong passion and excitement for the Syracuse University basketball team. And although the team has only won the NCAA basketball title once, and may not again during the father’s life, he says that he wants the right to have his kids there with him if it happens. Under the couple’s custody agreement, he will have that right. Specifically, the agreement grants custody to the father for the “NCAA Men’s BBall final until end of game is Syracuse is in.”

Certainly, the agreement is a unique one. The father says that his wife’s family law attorney had never seen a request of that kind, but in the end, it seems that both parents are satisfied with how the agreement turned out. And if Syracuse makes it to the NCAA finals, the children will be watching it by their father’s side.

Source: Yahoo, “Syracuse fan makes unusual custody request in divorce settlement,” Jeff Eisenberg, July 27, 2012