Neither parent wants to live with their child fulltime what happens?

What about what the child wants? They are used to living primarily with their mother. To drop the child off for the whole of Easter and then refuse to have them back is appalling. The dad's hardly a disney dad if he has them EOW and half of the school holidays. He's paying fair maintenance through CMS. Plus it's one child! Most of us are coping with more than one dc. The father should consider 50:50, but the mother needs to stop playing games and discuss this properly. The dad may not be able to adjust work hours at the drop of a hat. I agree it shouldn't be all on a mother's shoulders but she's using her child as a pawn in a battle with her ex. I'm sure we'd all love to step out of parenting for a while and live the child free life, but you make a commitment when you have children. Feel very sorry for the child.

Terrible title.

How about "Woman is trying to insist that her childs father takes responsibility".

Its not that she doesnt want her child living with her, but that she wants her childs father to actually be the father that he isnt being.

ETA.....why the hell does dad get to say "Cant see her more cos of work" and mum has to pay through the nose for childcare? He COULD see her more, but he doesnt want to pay so he offfloads the work and the cost onto the mother and Disney Dad's it EOW.

Dont blame her for saying ENOUGH, FUCKING STEP UP DEADBEAT.

*I realise that sounds really dismissive and shitty towards childminders. I know that some/most childminders are great, and perhaps there are some that take only one child at a time, or a couple of similar-aged children. But most childminders I know mostly mind quite young children.

"The title of the thread is misleading. It's not that they don't want child. The mum wants the dad more involved in parenting so she can work nights and see more of him."

That, I think. PPs have suggested that the mother "just change her hours" if she doesn't want to use so much childcare- she's trying. I assume she doesn't have some magic unicorn job where the hours are 9.15am- 2.30pm M-F, no nights, tons of annual leave which can all be taken in the holidays, and which you can just walk out of in 3 minutes flat if school ring to say the child is unwell.

Also, childcare wise- unless the mother is minted, I assume this is a childminder. So possibly this verging-on adolescent child is going along to the childminder's house, doing a bit of homework and then having to watch Frozen for the forty millionth time and play with playdough, or trudge to the park at small child speed, spend 15 minutes feeding the ducks then trudging back with a revolving cast of 4-8 year olds (variable amounts of crying and pant wetting involved) to whom they are not related. Fun times. They might as well be with their dad even if he is a bit shite.

It’s about time that custody agreements should be default 50/50 unless both parents agree differently with the option for the resident parent to apply for 50/50 at any time with no option to refuse from the non resident parent without prosecution for child neglect.
I’m disabled and bed bound 90% of the time with 2 children,if my husband decides he no longer wants to parent and walk away, very few people would judge and the pressure would be on my daughters to be child carers. If my husband was in my position and I decided to walk away, I’d expect to be prosecuted for child neglect and heavy social service involvement at a minimum.
Double standards need to change if the government doesn’t want our birth rate to decline to that of certain Asian countries as women are waking up to this inequality and are making the choice to be childless more and more.
why should it be, when two people both make the decision to have a child, one can just decide to mostly walk away with very little societal and legal pushback?

The title of the thread is misleading. It's not that they don't want the child. The mum wants the dad more involved in parenting so she can work nights and see more of him. ATM he's just a Disney dad every other weekend not having to deal the school runs out of school activities and homework etc.

Honestly, I do find it incomprehensible that any parent - mother or father - who has been the primary carer for a child for so many years could suddenly step back and decide that they've had enough, that they don't want the child any more, that they would like to send the child to someone who hasn't ever really bothered with them.

I think it's every bit shitty when NRPs decide that they can't be arsed with their kids, and I consider them to be equally bad parents. But I can understand it more easily if they have been shitty all along, as I assume that they simply haven't bothered to develop any sort of bond with the child.

But when you have loved, cared for and nurtured a child over many years, there is a usually a strong bond. The child is attached to you in a way that they probably won't be attached to the parent who hasn't ever made any effort. They will feel the rejection way more deeply.

I'm not sure that the earlier investments that a parent may have made in a child in any way make the subsequent abandonment of that child any less shit. Is it better to build a bond with your child and then reject them or is it better not to bother trying to build a bond in the first place? Frankly, I think either approach is pretty shit.

@Forflipssake24 I read not only the title but the post too.

Did you read the title? Neither parent “wants’ to live with the child. The OP has also queried whether about the child possibly living somewhere where the mum could occasionally visit - neither parent wants the bother of caring for the child.

@stormywhethers321 in that case, and I sincerely hope it’s not the case here, they shouldn’t be allowed to be anywhere near children.

@Medschoolmum ask the OP for specifics please

@powershowerforanhour yes, I’m not sure how son came into it either, looking back through OPs (not tft) posts…son/daughter, doesn’t change much I suppose.

I have had custody of a relative's child for the last fuve years because of a situation like this. It started with parents claiming to need a break, time, space, etc. It turned out both were drug users and resented the child's needs intruding on their ability to fully indulge their addictions. Neither parent has seen her in three years and the last form of contact at all (a rambling, incomprehensible text) was almost two years ago. She didn't reply.

I don't know what would have happened to her had my home not been available, but I have to assume the foster care system would have been involved.

"It's horrifying to hear of a child that is totally unwanted by either."
The child is not totally unwanted by either parent. The original post says that the mother would be happy with 50:50. Even the dad is willing to continue to do his little Disney bit.

It is difficult...a good male role model does wonders for both boys and girls.

Too many young women are attracted to shocking men -probably as they themselves didn't have decent fathers as role models.

If only every child had stable, loving parents - how much easier life would be- and much less pressure on Social Services.

But as things stand, there are so many fractured families around now.

It's very sad, and the children are the ones who suffer.

Even the very responsible dads who do the 50:50 sharing becomes tricky when the kids get older - living between two houses, often with new half siblings -It's definitely not good.

BY PHILIP LARKIN
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
**
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
**
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
**
**

Quite a lot of assumptions have been made on this thread. That the child is a boy, for a start.
That the mother's motivation is an easy life rather than trying to facilitate the child's expressed wish to see more of the father. That the mother is "threatening her child with foster care" rather than so far, thread title and "What happens if neither back down?" question has come from the OP who is a relative not the mother.

So why are social services involved and why is the mother's relative asking strangers on the Internet for advice about foster care?

No, those comments apply equally to men and women who bring children into the world and then decide that they can't be arsed to parent them.

Nobody is saying that the father isn't equally responsible for this tragic situation. He is every bit as vile, shitty, selfish and despicable etc as the mother.

If you choose to be a parent - a father or a mother - then you have a duty to care for your child appropriately and put their needs first, until they reach adulthood.

If you are a woman who happens to have chosen a shitty father for your children, then you have a duty to care for your children without their father's involvement. If you are a man who happens to have chosen a shitty mother for your children, then you too have a duty to care for your children without their mother's involvement. That is the duty that you each accept when you choose to bring children into the world.

You are assuming that the comments reflect what people really think about women in this society. You are wrong, they reflect what people think about parents who abandon their children.

And yes, we might be less shocked by men abandoning their children simply because it happens more often, but that doesn't make it any less despicable when they do.

Most kids can rely on having at least one parent who will do the right thing. It's horrifying to hear of a child that is totally unwanted by either.

"For the sake of your kids you do sometimes have to paint on a smile and keep going. "
Not sometimes. Always. For 18 years, she is going to have to eat shit the dad has doled out and smile while she's eating it.

As PPs including the OP have pointed out, the brinksmanship is doomed to failure. At some point you have to show your hand...and the dad knows that she will never get closer than he can to saying "OK yep foster care it is, where do I sign?" He knows she'll crack first, and he knows that she knows that he knows too. She's taking a knife to the gunfight.
Also, from a legal POV, I assume that the arrangement already in place and established for 8 years- him 2 day Disney, her 12 day donkey- is the default setting. So he just has to take the child for his scheduled EOW weekend, say, drop DC in to school et voilà. He can lock his door and switch off his phone for 12 days and if the mother fails to turn up to school to collect, or drops the child on his doorstep, legally she would be the one prosecuted for abandonment.
He's untouchable. He holds all the aces. She has nothing.

👏 ABSOLUTELY.

It's women who have the ultimate say as to wether a child gets born- or not.

Men can't be relied upon to be good parents , so unless one can face raising a child alone- best not to have one.

Once a child is in the world, it's too late to realise that you need space and time to yourself.

@Forflipssake24 the child is not unwanted, the mother after 8 years, most of her son’s life, wants a fairer split of the responsibility, stop with the hyperbole.

I would say each of these things about the father too. I realise that the mother may really really be struggling and need and should have much more support and rest but it’s despicable the child knows that they are unwanted.

Quite a few posters have stated that the parents are "as bad as each other"
Even though the mother has done the vast majority of the parenting for 8 years (and, I'll wager, the 2 years before that)
Even though the first post says that she'd like to try a RP swap for a while but would be happy with 50:50, but the dad doesn't want to do a tap more than the fuck all he has done already
And even though she has seen the child every day over the Easter holidays, ferrying them to and from childcare and leaving them back to school (has the dad done a school run ever, like, ever?)
They're "each as bad as the other"

You are lovely. Apologies - I meant neighbours who are child-free by choice/shown no interest in the kids (as opposed to fellow school mums who might trade favours). Wish you were my neighbour.

Yes when you have young dependent kids you should put them first - they’re your responsibility. He is a shitty Dad as fathers and mothers often are but there is no need to sink to his depths and have the child, the school and social services knowing that the child a burden that no one wants. For the sake of your kids you do sometimes have to paint on a smile and keep going. I think people know and expect before we undertake it that parenthood is a massive responsibility and one that we all could end up doing alone.

"All these comments just reflect what people really think of women in this society. What people really think of mothers.
You can birth a child. Raise a child. Do all the grunt work, the shitwork, work full time to keep your heads above water, lose your health, your sanity, be there for that child for ten years....
Butneverslip up. Because, if you ever do, you will be judged so harshly. Be "disgusting", a "piece of shit", no matter what the circumstances."

This. Quite a few people have expressed sympathy for the mother, but according to quite a lot of others, the mother:
Should be ashamed
Should be sterilised
How fucked up is she?
Is throwing away her kid
Is making her child feel unloved+unwanted
Wants rid of her child
Is having a sulky shit fit
Is point scoring
Is abandoning her child
And is:
Horrible
A twat
Despicable
Cruel
Terrible
An absolute disgrace
Disgusting
Awful
Unforgivable
Vile
Selfish
Repulsive
Gross
An arsehole
Shit
Shitty
Shitbag