Why don't women with kids force the dads to have them 50% of time?

Op I'm not going to give you an answer that is sarcastic/rude etc but I really think you need to read the room when it comes to matters like this.... it is never as simple as black and white.

I have a couple of friends, who have children with the same man, he's abandoned them, trust me when I tell you that they have done everything they can to force a consistent relationship with the children and father and the father for whatever reason isn't interested.

My eldest child didn't really know his dad, that was partly on me and partly on him, I'm not going to go into detail here of what/how and why that came to be but it was traumatic and destroyed me at the very tender age of 19 who had been a mum for less than a year at that point. Looking back would I have liked my child to have more of a relationship with the dad, yes absolutely I would of and hindsight is a bitch because our child will never get that now.

If me and my partner broke up, he will have every other weekend, I absolutely will not push or force for 50/50 for personal reasons that mostly stem around not wanting to be away from my children and what happened to me and my eldest when I was 19.

You can't force a man (or a woman) to be a dad (or mum) even the courts cannot do that. You say you would force them but how do you think you would do that? Dropping them off on the doorstep and leaving Is child abandonment even if it's with their other parent. You also can't get the other parent done for child neglect because they don't want to see the child/ren that's not legally child neglect.

I think you've asked a good question but it's a very touchy subject for many.

Because he’s a shit father who doesn’t understand how to parent a child on the spectrum or to have difficult conversations.

because he’s more worried about how he won’t be able to portray this image of a high earner and kudos if he has to be constantly leaving work early

because when he doesn’t know how to speak to child when they’ve disagree he gives my son the silent treatment

would you like me to go on

I was separated with 3 under 9 and naively sat saying to my lawyer.. ' and I'd like him to have a week at Easter and 2 weeks at summer and every other weekend... blah da blah da blah. Lawyer states ' if he ain't doing that now, the chances of him doing any of that because of a bit of paper are unlikely. She was so correct. No overnights no weekends no holidays. The kids were miserable with him and drifted away from him because he couldn't be assed. His loss.

When I separated from my DCs Father I assumed that we would co parent. 50:50. He refused. So I suggested an access plan - alternate weekends, one night during the week. He refused. He finally agreed to take them to some of their weekly activities that I organised- swimming/ballet etc but pretty quickly he didn’t bother showing up as arranged. So I left the country and took the DC with me. He then dragged me through the court system for access, accused me of alienation and sought sole custody of the DC. The judge ordered him to return to occasional taxi driving duties … it’s now 6 years since he last seen our DC. It’s shit but nobody can be forced to be a parent…

I'm so sorry, how horrible for your poor daughter and how upsetting it must've been for you. Wtf is wrong with some men I swear.

You cannot be serious 🤣🤣🤣

Force a parent to have children they don’t want? What a great position this is for the child to potentially be neglected or abused

My ex-wife purposely restricted access as she wanted to continue controlling me through the kids.

Why would you want to force your kids to stay with a man who doesn't give a shit about them, is probably a lousy parent, and could easily be abusive? What possible good would that do them? I would have hated being made to spend time with my father and his OW and her kids, one of whom I knew from experience was a bullying shit.

I actually agree with you. But you can’t force a parent to be a parent.. and sometimes it is in the child’s best interest to actually not see them.

Yeah, I agree this is true that many women also want 50/50, but the societal expectation that the mum will take the DC full time is strong and single mums face much heavier stigma and judgement if their DC are not with them full time. As you say they are often judged as not wanting their own DC, when that isn’t the case. Most just want to be able to pursue a career and that’s almost impossible without a co-parent doing 50%.

I would love to see society saying 50/50 is socially expected and the norm. I don’t think this can be legislated.

I was (trying to) highlight the ridiculousness of the idea of being able to 'force' people to do things they don't want to do rather than suggesting the two were analogous.

Well op my ex lives with his mother and sister in a 3 bed council house
she absolutely won’t allow the kids to stay overnight at all ever ( they aren’t even allowed in the lounge when she is there) not sure how I could force her ( or him) to have the kids 50% of the week.

Anyway he is too busy enjoying his single life to be bothered with his kids.

But I’d love to know your thoughts on how I could force the ex mil to have 3 children in her house 3/4 days week every week

Many mums don't want their kids 100% of the time especially when a father has decided to walk away, not because they don't want their kids (some exceptions of course) but because it restricts so many things for them too. Single mums are constantly being blamed for being a burden on society (just like the disabled) because society doesn't support them, decent paying jobs often aren't compatible with having 2 kids under 5 without family taking on the childcare burden.

It would be lovely to see a law to make all parents equally responsible for their children, dead beat parents of either sex should be banned from having additional children if they don't look after the existing ones. Be less deadbeat dads if they were given vasectomies instead of shared custody. (Yes I'm aware it's a human rights violation of some sort but some of the men I know with multiple children to multiple mothers and zero responsibility could do with some repercussions.)

You would be wasting your time.

Mothers can’t force absent fathers to be present and have joint DC 50/50.

But YANBU in the sense that many mums actively fight against 50/50 so they have the DC full time. Our culture’s messaging is that DC are better off with mum and the dad gets to wander off and pretend he is a childfree bachelor with an extra small optional monthly bill to pay as CMS.

I do think we need to change that societal expectation so that more men will want to fight for 50/50 instead of just going along with it.

Op logistics aside I agree with the basic point of your thread - in simple terms where there's no abuse, neglect etc what is it that makes dads be able to refuse to have them 50% but the mum doesn't have the option? What happens if both parents say they can only have them on weekends, for example. Then what?
I guess for decent parents they would usually want to see them and would try get as close to that as possible, or would come to arrangement in the best interests of the kids.
In my situation (I'm married with 2DC) my DH works away, so if we ever split up I'd get lumped with all the childcare unless he quit his job to earn significantly less elsewhere. And I'm not sure what would be better, a stable home with one parent most of the time and dad on weekends, or 50% of the time with a resentful parent who either had to quit and start over and barely able to provide, or in some form of paid childcare instead of with the other parent.

I dunno, in principle it's a good thing but in reality it's not straightforward.

I don't think most mothers would want their kids to spend 50% of the time with someone who doesn't want them there. Would you really do that to your kids??

It would open a lot more children to abuse. Many marriages break up because the dad can't cope not being the centre of attention. Fewer men can manage to put others needs before their own. They can lack patience with children

Children either end up being out in front of a screen with no stimulation or can end up doing activities that are not age appropriate

If course it's not always the dad but more often than it being the mum

Plus there's always the problem of both being able to afford accommodation near the school and the child shuffling about. Also parents have to constantly be in touch which can be a problem in a nasty divorce

How would I force my ex, he moved over 5000 miles away! They can hardly pop over for the weekend!

I have tried reasoning, begging and pleading over text/email and that is all so can do. ‘Forcing’ him to take the children by abandoning them there against his will would be extremely upsetting for them. Can you imagine your parents arguing because neither or them ‘wanted you’? (I know that this isn’t the case from my side but that’s how it would seem to dc!)

In an ideal world, we can only dream.

I feel like this should be rephrased to “why don’t some dads want their kids 50% of the time?”

I'm sure most single parents would love their ex partner to share in caring for the children, but the reality of life is

• access can be limited due to behaviour or living circumstances
• the absent parent maybe cba (or as my DB put it when he and his ex split up, "...the worst thing is leaving the DCs cos you know you won't see them for a while and that really hurts...")
• the kids cba cos they want to see their friends etc so want to be with the main parent
• etc...

In any case, whichever parent the children are with don't kick back and relax if the children are with their ex, they spend a lot if the time worrying about the children!

When DD is at her dad's, she doesn't have a bedtime, doesn't clean her teeth or have a bath/shower, he doesn't brush her hair so it ends up with dreadlock style knots (she has afro hair). He loses his temper with her over everything and nothing and calls her stupid and slaps her. When she was a baby he refused to change nappies and would return her with poo seeping out of her nappy. Social services refused to get involved and said if I refused contact, it would be parental alienation. He now doesn't want her overnight, and honestly, I'm not going to push it as he can't look after her.