How common was EOW in the early 90s?

I was EOW in the 90s too, usually Saturday late morning to Sunday late morning. I spent more time with my grandparents. Sad, but it was fairly standard then.

Living in a house where you're terrified of the arguments and the shouting and the throwing things and the hitting each other is of course much better for the children than living with mum, who is calmer and happier and more relaxed and can create a safer atmosphere. Of course. 🤷‍♀️

We went to our dad's every Saturday afternoon, would walk to Nan's every Sunday and be collected by mum from there on Sunday teatime.

You don't have to worry massively about reliability when you only have to bother with your kids EOW.

Of course it's bollocks.
My daughters see their father for 2 days once a month.
They only have a solid relationship as he sees them at mine and I get them to video call him twice a week.

No, it really doesn’t. Some might, absolutely. But there are many, many children who have a far better time of it with one parent out of the house. Especially when they get to an age where they can refuse to comply with custody agreements.

I was eighties. He took my mum to court for joint custody so she couldn’t do anything without ‘asking his permission’. He was supposed to see us Sunday afternoons from 12 till 6pm. He turned up maybe once or twice a month, and took us to a park for a couple of hours, if it wasn’t raining. He never paid maintenance, no birthdays or Christmas gifts. We only knew he’d got married because his wife told us it was their anniversary so they were going away on holiday. I refused to go when I was around 12 and my childhood improved immeasurably.

Every Sunday from mid morning until after dinner. It seemed normal at the time but it’s really not a lot is it! No extra during school holidays or Bank holidays. Alternate Christmas Days.

I saw my dad every Sunday 10-4. He managed to negotiate until 6pm when we were a bit older.

When he worked a Sunday the only day he could change to was after school on a Wednesday for 2hrs.

We couldn't stay with him as he was renting a room - my mum had never worked yet got the house in the divorce.

My mum made it as difficult as possible for him. On Christmas Day she used to time 1hr for us to sit in dad's car on the road outside the house and anything we hadn't opened in that time we couldn't have. She wouldn't even let him on the drive to come and knock on the door so when she was feeling particularly petty she'd 'not notice' him parked in front of the house for an hour.

We continued seeing him every Sunday when he remarried and had another child. I think I carried on the same routine until I was about 18 😄

I’m a 90’s baby. I saw my dad once a week on a Sunday for roughly 6 hours and started staying EOW Saturday evening to Sunday evening from around 5/6 from memory. At the time there were only a few of us with divorced parents and this was pretty standard. I did also used to go round on a Wednesday evening when I was very young but this dropped off for one reason or another or maybe swapped to the overnight EOW arrangement, I can’t remember.

Friends of mine in 80s and 90s only had a Saturday afternoon with their dads EOW was from what I saw rare dads often had less.

In the 90s? Well my xH sees our children 5 nights in 14... that's nights, not days. Wednesday from 4pm until Thursday 7am, one Friday 4pm until Sunday 9am, the other week, Sunday 11am until Monday 7am... I offered more, he declined. I wasn't surprised, that's a whole lot more parenting than he ever did when we were together!

My kids are happy, and actually don't always go those allocated days, and some weeks go far less.

That’s why most men don't want 50;50. Because if they want it, they would get it.

They want to cherry pick the more fun parts of parenting, as they have usually done during the marriage eg run the kids to football on a Saturday and watch the game while chatting to other dads, while mum cleans house . This is them “doing mum a favour”.

Now they are Disney dad taking kids to MacDonalds and letting them play video games to 2am while mum deals with homework and makes them tidy their bedroom.

Then once they move in with another woman, all bets are off.

EOW was my experience - parents split in 1991 and my dad moved out of the city to the countryside so wasn’t at all practical for school commute. My brother and I never had a proper bedroom at my dad’s house - slept on couches in the living room and always felt slightly like guests, but didn’t resent it at the time and maintained a good if slightly formal/reserved relationship with my dad.

My mum’s house was definitely my home - my dad’s never was, especially after he remarried and had another child. To be honest, I’m not sure I could have coped with having to split my whole life and all my possessions over two locations. I don’t think 50/50 is automatically best for kids - they need stability, a home that feels like home, a predictable routine, opportunities to see their friends etc… all much harder to manage consistently across two houses.

I think my parents split before I was born (80s) and I don’t know what the formal arrangement was supposed to be, but thinking about it now (for the first time actually 🤔) I never stayed with my father anywhere. He was very chaotic though, I hardly ever saw him and I think he was couch surfing a lot of the time. I remember other kids of divorced parents having to be shipped all over the place though. I don’t think I’d have liked it.

None of my friends’ kids who have to do EOW enjoy it once they reach about 9 or 10 it seems, and they really don’t like having to do a day in the week as well. I think they find it really disruptive.

I was a single parent from 1986, when dd was 4 years old.

I asked her father to phone her daily, at bedtime. He refused, saying I was 'trying to control him'. I wanted nothing to do with him. I wanted my baby to know her father.

She saw her father for roughly four hours on Saturdays. He was often late. Sometimes he didn't come. He took three holidays a year, often timed to coincide with her birthday so he would be absent. His idea of a present was to take her to a cash machine, draw out some cash and hand it over. On Christmas day he took her to his parents, returning her around 4pm to see me and my family. Later he decided he wouldn't do that, he'd stay at home with his new family. A couple of times I drove her over and waited while she visited.
She knew him by then. She knew she had to keep up the visits to keep the maintenance coming in. He didn't always pay the full amount but he did, mainly, pay. She didn't stay over at his until she was a teenager, and even then, she didn't find it pleasant. They didn't provide proper meals, for example. When she married, she didn't want him to walk her down the aisle or give a speech, as he didn't really know her. So, he and his entire family (including her aunt and grandparents) refused to come to her wedding.

The bold above answers the OP's question. The rest is me remembering. It's better forgotten. My child was depressed. She came back miserable every Saturday. She continues to find weekends difficult now, in her forties.

He's dead. It's a relief.

I think EOW is awful and will never understand men who only want that. 50:50 can be done in ways that benefit children and lead to positive relationships with both parents. Also prevents all
the Disney Mum/Dad nonsense and makes sure that both are pulling their weight throughout the week.

My DH and his ex have 50:50 with a split week but set days for clubs etc. They’ve asked DSD if she’d like to do week on/week off to avoid feeling pulled about every few days but she’s always said no, she likes knowing her routine. We live 5 mins from her Mum and Step Dad though, nothing travels with her expect her school bag, and it’s very much home from home. They are also very amicable so swaps for weekends away, functions, family parties etc is never an issue.

I grew up in the 90s and had 3 friends who had divorced parents. Two had EOW and one had 50:50 (Dad was on the oil rigs so they did a two weeks with Mum two weeks with Dad system). The EOW girls were openly jealous of the 50:50 girl and one used to comment that she wished her Dad wanted her that much.

That’s pretty shite.
back in the past, men were much more remote and always working- My dad was with us (but my mum died when I was a young child)
Dad collecting me from school was a rare special occasion as he worked full time, but when his diary allowed it, he collected me.

My own son missed out on his dad doing stuff like this, too.

I’ve never really thought about it much but we didn’t really have any sort schedule for dsd. It was late 80’s/early 90’s and when she fell out with her mum she came to ours and vice versa. It was only a 10 minute drive between houses and she was 12 when dh and I moved in together so sometimes she just appeared at the door. If we were going away for a weekend, going somewhere nice or even out for a meal we’d ask if she wanted to go and pick her up if she did. I worked shifts so she often did things just with her Dad and sometimes, if he was working we’d have a girls day out.

If dsd’s mum ever had any concerns regarding the arrangements, she never mentioned it and I admired her for that. Her mum died a while ago but she has a great relationship with her dad, myself and particularly her step siblings.

It was unusual when I was a teenager in the 90's. Divorce was taboo in Ireland, I had only one friend with separated parents.

Plenty of friends with unhappy parents though.

I don't think that friend ever spent a night in her Dad's.

A family member I know has as near to 50/50 as possible, he cares for his daughter from Thursday after school until Sunday after lunch. This works for his shift pattern. The downside to this is his ex always has “weekends off”. Which my in laws think is unfair - but he chose to stay in his current job despite having an opportunity to work a different shift pattern that would allow him to be able to do EOW with days during the week.

My dad would pick the three of us up at 4pm on Friday and drop us home at about 7/8 pm Sunday but got later as it got older. My eldest brother moved in with him at about 15, then my other brother at same age then I did at 16. He used to alternate Xmas and had us for two weeks of the summer holidays. We were 2, 4 and 6 when my mum had an affair and left him.

We stayed at our dad’s once in a blue moon. He’d sometimes say he was coming and then wouldn’t turn up, leaving me and my sister waiting with our bags packed and devastated. I then didn’t speak to him for about 4/5 years through my teenage years and then sporadically as an adult. No wonder as we had nothing in common 🤷‍♀️

So does a terrible marriage or relationship where parents don’t want to be together.

My dad lived a 5 minute walk away so I didn't have set days or times with him I would just go there whenever I wanted to. My kids currently see their dad EOW. Their schedules are far too busy to go there midweek and he doesn't live close enough to take them to school/clubs. It's an arrangement that works for us

After many attempts by my divorce lawyer to get my ex husband to agree to any custody agreement, she wrote the minimum time allowed. So he had our DC for 2hrs a week 🤔

My ex only saw my DD EOW, he was too “busy” during the week to manage to fit time in with her. When he got a new GF and she fell pregnant they suddenly wanted to play happy families and asked to see her more, he was confused why DD refused to visit him. She’s not seen him or been in contact with him in 15 years now.

My mum and dad were wonderful, my parents separated in 1975 and I saw my dad every day, he took me on holiday every year and my parents were wonderful coparents. Both remarried and I loved spending time at both houses as well as with wider family on both sides. I can never remember my mums husband or my dads wife parenting me, in both houses my parents set my boundaries (and the boundaries were the same in each house).