Your Vacation Clause Is a Dumpster Fire and Nobody Told You
Apr 30, 2026If you have never tried to use your vacation clause yet just wait because that shit is about to show you exactly how screwed you really are.
In this episode I am breaking down four vacation clauses that I see written into real parenting plans all the time and every single one of them is trash. Not kind of problematic. Not a little vague. Trash. And somebody charged you money to write them.
"Reasonable vacation time" means I think two weeks and your ex thinks ten and now you have a fight and nothing in your plan to resolve it. "Parents will cooperate" means your ex just says no to every date you propose because you handed them that power when you were still being nice to each other during the divorce. "Mutually agreed upon" means I don't even need to send the email because the answer is already no and it will always be no. And "reasonable notice" means your ex texts you four days before your scheduled trip and calls it sufficient because technically it is and there is not a damn thing you can do about it.
Every single one of these clauses sounds fine until you actually try to use it. And then it blows up in your face and you are back on the phone with your attorney spending money you did not budget for over a vacation that should have already been yours.
I also walk you through everything a vacation section should actually include because it is not one sentence. It is not one paragraph. It is specific, it is detailed, and it is written so clearly that your ex cannot wiggle out of it no matter how hard they try.
Share this with every divorced parent you know. They need it more than they realize.
Here’s What You Can Actually Take Away:
- "Reasonable" Is Not a Rule -- It is a placeholder word that means nothing, enforces nothing, and will cost you a fight every time you try to use it.
- Cooperation Clauses Are a Gift to Your Most Difficult Co-Parent -- Any language that requires both parents to agree hands the more combative one total control over the outcome.
- "Mutually Agreed Upon" Is Just Legalese for No -- Your ex does not have to say yes, and with that clause in place, they probably never will.
- A Number Beats "Reasonable" Every Single Time -- Thirty days. Sixty days. Any specific number eliminates an entire category of future argument.
- Not Every Trip Is a Vacation -- Traveling on your own parenting time without disrupting the other parent's schedule is not a vacation. It is just Tuesday. Go.
- Do the Hard Work Once -- Have every uncomfortable conversation about travel, passports, and communication now so you are not slowly renegotiating your freedom for the next 15 years.
- Vague Parenting Plans Are a Revenue Stream -- For someone. And it is not you.
The Truth Bombs
- "I think two weeks is reasonable. My ex thinks ten is reasonable. That word does nothing for either of us and everything for our attorneys."
- "You wrote 'parents will cooperate' during the part of your divorce where you were still being nice to each other. That era is over. And now your ex runs your vacation schedule."
- "Mutually agreed upon. Are you kidding me. I do not even need to send the email. I already know the answer and the answer is no."
- "Your attorney is either dumb or they want your money back. Anyone with two functioning brain cells knows that vague language in a parenting plan means you will be back."
- "You should not have to ask your ex for permission to take your own children on a vacation. Somebody did you real dirty and you probably paid them to do it."
- "Rip the bandaid off once. Stop torturing yourself slowly by avoiding hard conversations now and then bleeding out over them for the next decade."
- "A vacation only happens when you interrupt someone else's parenting time. During your own time? That is just your life. Go live it and stop asking for permission."
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Samantha Boss: We had a previous episode where we broke down some common mistakes in parenting plans, and this episode is no different. We are going to break down how vacation clauses in parenting plans can cause a lot of post-divorce custody fights. Primarily because once again, the wording is not crystal clear about vacations.
And again, when we think about vacations as a single parent, or maybe we have moved on and we have a new significant other, and we are taking our kids, this is supposed to be a joyous occasion. It is supposed to be fun, it is supposed to be lighthearted, and then we get in the weeds when we have to work with our ex on something specific about our case. And vacations is one of them.
So I am going to break down some clauses that I have been reading in some parenting plans that my team did not write, and they are pretty shitty. And I want to share them with you in hopes that if you see something like this written into your parenting plan, you run for the hills, or you ask for it to be changed because it will not work in the future when you actually start participating and using said parenting plan with your co-parent.
"Reasonable Vacation Time" Is the Most Useless Phrase Ever Written
First and foremost. Each parent may take reasonable vacation time. Period. End of paragraph. End of sentence. Let's break this down. Each parent. Okay, that's good. You, me, we both get to take vacation. How much vacation? Reasonable.
Well, I think three weeks is reasonable. My ex could think ten weeks is reasonable. I could think a week or two, my ex could think let's just split the day in half. So yes, I have a real big problem with leaving such a vague sentence in a parenting plan because it doesn't tell me anything. What is reasonable?
So when you are working with your attorney or you are working with a mediator, or you are working with somebody on my team, my team doesn't write shit like this, but when you are working with those people and you see, oh okay, I get to have reasonable parenting time, this sounds good. Okay. You think that sounds good? Yeah. To somebody that hasn't tried to use that vacation time yet. So nothing is defined here, which makes vacation come back on the table as something that you are going to have to focus on again, and that's not something you want to do right? I want to be one and done.
Cooperation Clauses Hand All the Power to Your Most Difficult Co-Parent
Parents will cooperate regarding vacation scheduling. This one's cute. This one's almost comical, and this is usually put in those parenting plans by two people who get along during the divorce process. They're besties, they're still doing stuff together, and then it always ends up that somebody remarries or somebody gets with someone else, and then it all blows up into a shit firestorm.
And now we're no longer agreeing about vacations. When we wrote it, we were getting along and it was copacetic and we were besties and we wrote this sentence in there thinking that it would be logical and reasonable. And then now we try to use that sentence and you hate me and I hate you, or one or the other.
And now it's not. So this is a problem. Cooperation clauses fail because a high conflict person gets to actually make the decision. If we're supposed to cooperate, but somebody hates me, they can easily say no to everything. So then therefore they're actually leading. They're determining it's a no. So one parent could refuse a date. One parent could say, oh, that doesn't work for me. They might not respond to you right away. So it makes planning a vacation damn near impossible. So this sentence, run for the hills.
"Mutually Agreed Upon" Means Your Ex Gets to Say No Forever
Vacation time will be mutually agreed upon. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? So let me get this straight. We are divorced and now I have to ask my ex, the person that hates me, if I can go on a vacation. I can tell you right now, I don't even have to send the email. The answer's no. I don't have to send it. I can just tell myself no and save myself the stamp or the money, or the time, or the energy or the email.
The answer will be no. So again, I don't know who's creating these vague sentences, but I can tell you they're either one of two things, and I'm not meaning this to be rude. This is fact. They're either dumb, I said what I said, or they want my money because anybody with two sides of their fucking brain would know that if I put this sentence in a divorce decree, two parents will have to mutually agree upon it, which means that one parent, my client, will be calling me back.
When they don't agree, your attorney is just dumb or your judge is just dumb. And I don't mean that to be rude, I mean that to be factual, that they don't understand how high conflict people navigate co-parenting, which is with hatred on their heart ahead of the love for their children. That's facts. That's not me being rude. That's not me stereotyping. That is an absolute fact. And so this sentence right here. It's dumb or it's a money strike. So one parent can simply say no. It gives one parent veto power over all of your vacation time, and families end up stuck in financial loss negotiating and arguing this out with their attorney later. It's ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous.
"Reasonable Notice" Is Just Another Way to Say Nothing
Parents shall give reasonable notice of vacation plans. Now again, this sentence doesn't bother me too bad, other than the word that I hate, which is reasonable. What's reasonable to me? I want to know 60 to 90 days ahead of your vacation. My last minute ex may only give me four days notice. Reasonable to him is four days. Reasonable to me is 60 to 90 days. So reasonable is not measurable. Stop signing parenting plans that use that word. Just take it out.
Now, I would rather that sentence say that each parent shall give notice of vacation plans. I would rather it say that than reasonable, because now we're arguing about what reasonable means. Or here's a crazy thought. It could just say, parents shall give 30 days notice of vacation plans. What, you mean that I could actually just have 30 days written right there? Yes, you can. Absolutely. My team does it all day long for people. We give actual details of when to do shit that's respectful with your co-parent. Shocking. I know.
What a Real Vacation Section Actually Looks Like
If I, me, Sam, were writing your vacation section, which I do for a living, by the way, okay, my name is Sam and I write custom parenting plans for high conflict situations and you never know when your situation will turn high conflict. Here are the things that I would include, so get ready to record this, pause this, take notes.
Number one, how much vacation time does each parent get? How many weeks, days? Can it interrupt a visitation schedule? Can I take somebody's weekend? Can it be consecutive? Can it be year round? These are the questions you have to answer. This should not be one sentence. This is not a one sentence event. My whole vacation is written in one sentence? I think not. This is a paragraph situation and in our parenting plan it is like three paragraphs.
Number two, how vacation time is requested. Is it written? Is it verbal? Do I get to stand in your driveway and be like, hey, June 10th through the 17th, I'm going to take the kids on vacation? I'm sorry, what? I need that on paper somewhere. I need that with notice. How much notice, not just like oh it's the ninth and you're telling me you're leaving the tenth.
Number three, travel and location rules. We have got to talk about out of state travel. We are going to talk about international travel, we are going to talk about passports and usage. These are the kind of things that I would rather have in here than not in here. Don't ever assume that your ex is going to be okay with you going and getting a passport after your divorce. Talk about it now. If you are already building this parenting plan and you are already pissing each other off and you are already having hard conversations, have them all. Get it done. Rip that fucking bandaid off once. Don't be slowly torturing yourself by ripping off a piece at a time.
Number four, communication and safety. If you don't want your kids skydiving, put it in there. But you also need to know where they are, what city, what town, what state, what hotel. This is common respectful sense to say hey, we will be in Colorado, Denver, we are riding a train to get out there, we are going to be there from June 10th to June 17th, and we are riding the train back. Cool. I now know if something happens in Denver, Colorado, my kids are there.
The Difference Between a Vacation and Your Regular Parenting Time
You are allowed to take your kids anywhere your parenting plan allows, out of state, in state, international, during your own parenting time, and it is not a vacation. So if you do a week on week off schedule, take your kids somewhere, but it doesn't have to count as one of your vacations. You just have to let them know if your parenting plan says you have to let them know that you are out of state or out of the country.
Vacations only happen when you interrupt someone's parenting time. Now that's not legal advice. Ask your attorney always if what I'm saying is making sense. But you deserve to have the ability to take your kids on as many vacations as your visitation schedule allows. If you want to go for three days, go for three days. If you want to go for five because you have five consecutive days, go for five. That's not a vacation because you did not interrupt the other parent's parenting time, as long as you don't miss the normal drop off and pick up. Let's go. That's a lot of reasons why people pick week on week off because they want to be able to go on as many vacations as they want in the summertime.
If your parenting plan uses those words of vagueness, like reasonable, cooperate, mutually agree, we are running. We are running for the hills on that. We are not doing that. Make sure your parenting plan is written really well. What is in here is so important for your future. You have to make sure all of the things that you want to do are written clearly so that you never have to spend more money with your attorney. Please consider writing the details you heard down today and sharing this episode with somebody so that they don't get screwed for their vacation.
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