How common was EOW in the early 90s?

My ex has EOW and 6/13 weeks holidays. I pushed for him to have a Monday pick up and drop off as well so I have 1 full day every other week where I am not involved in the school run.

He also made noises about 50:50 when we split, funny that.

I saw my dad every other Saturday at that time. I didn't want more though and when I was old enough to drive and get myself there I didn't do it much. We don't have a good relationship but as some PP have said - that's not because of the little time spent together, it's because he is not capable of parenting. I never felt safe with him. In fact, I sometimes wonder why my mum let me go as he was abusive to her.

I think it depends how it is done.

The main options are half the week with each parent or alternating weeks.

Parents hate alternating weeks because they don't like the idea of not seeing their kids for 7 days at a time.

Kids hate half the week at each because it's like a yoyo and they don't feel like they belong at either house.

I did have 2 homes. We had a more unequal split of 5 days with my mum, 2 days with my dad. I don't see how a different split makes it any better. It's still going between two homes.

We did 11am Saturday to 9.30am Sunday every week and 2 weeks in the summer holidays

That wasn’t great but 50/50 would have been even worse and so unsettling

What time did your dad finish work? Ex couldn’t see our kids on weekdays because he got home so close to bedtime. I therefore suggested he take some school holidays off like half term and make his weekends longer but it took him 10 years to look at the school website and book a couple of extra days to make his weekend longer.

Yanbu to think it’s fuck all. My ex saw our kids EOW and one child is NC, one child is VLC and the third sees him about once every 6 weeks now. (They are all adults)

Pretty difficult for the child having to live across two houses and people all the time.

We were 80s onwards and saw Dad every weekend and most of the school holidays.

Lots of dads only ask for 50/50 so they don’t have to pay maintenance. It’s often not in the child/rens best interest at all.

That was my arrangement with my dad in the 80s

I don’t know about the 90s, but my arrangement with exh is EOW plus one night in the week - a Thursday (for my youngest, my eldest doesn’t do the week night now - she doesn’t have to go at all if she doesn’t want as she’s 16, but basically goes there EOW).

The weekends were meant to go right through to Monday morning school drop off, which I think makes a big difference, but my exh couldn’t cope with doing the Sunday nights 🤷🏻‍♀️

Edit - we also split the holidays in half so that get that time with him too.

50:50 is hard for kids though as they don’t have one base - and can feel forever on the move. Does depend on the kids and the set up of course.

We didn't stay with my dad at all. He came to my mum's house (old family home) for a few hours on a Monday night. Then it dropped to every other Monday. Once my sister started driving we'd go over to his for dinner with him and his wife. I don't remember how often. Maybe quarterly.

Why do people often say that they don't like 50/50? What's the problem with it?

We were more mid 80s but we only saw our dad one evening a week

50:50 is now the starting point a judge would work backwards from if the parents took the matter to family court. Most don’t though, go to court that is.

I think 50:50 is becoming more common as an informal agreed arrangement between parents. It isn’t the default by any means, people have regularly commented over the years that it is “so good” my ex husband wants 50:50, which suggests their expectation is it would be rather less.

I would have hated 50:50. I wanted one base.

Throughout the 90s, I saw my Dad every other weekend and half the longer school holidays (not half terms). I wish we'd been able to see him in the alternate week for an evening but we never did and we didn't talk on the phone between visits either (and I didn't have a mobile of my own until I was an adult).

I don't think 50:50 would have suited me though.

I didn’t even have that. It was sporadic at best and quite acceptable to just have random weekends committed. Definitely wasn’t any formal agreement.

Still happens a bit though? I know someone whose exh has EOW it’s 6pm pick up (never from school as god forbid they leave their office job early) and depending on the football or other sporting fixtures drop off can be from 11-4…. And this guy thinks he’s the world’s best father. Tbh only think he wants EOW and then some holiday weeks to make CM the most minimum he can get away with paying with the least disruption to his social life.

Maybe in theory 50/50 is the starting point, and my x made noises about that in the beginning. But has never followed through with it. I would be very happy with it although the kids probably wouldn’t and they are old enough to choose.

i think he probably knows that, and his level of relationship with him and part of the reason for the marriage breakdown was his detachment, workaholism, and lack of fathering.

I was talking about this with someone the other day - my DH has 3 DSC who are in their 20s now - he had the kids EOW, one night in the week and half school holidays - at the time this was the fairly typical arrangement (he would have liked a lot more) - 50/50 wasn't the starting point (certainly where we were) as it is much more these days. Not to say there aren't plenty of men who do a lot less than 50/50 but I think if a father wants 50/50 these days it is a lot easier to achieve than it was even 15-20 years ago.