To think we have to stop punishing parents for splitting up.

Surely it’s up to the parents to house the children
If parents split up that will be more difficult

She’s childfree 30% of the time so he’s got 40% more free time than her. She’s being compensated to the tune of £2500 for that extra 40% of her childrearing time and he’s down £500.

Do you think many parents earn £2500 for 40% of their time? 100% would be £6250 a month, after tax. Equivalent of £125k.

Like I said I do think OP is unreasonable but it does rankle a bit. We suck it up and pay for the children from our salaries.

If benefits were split according to residency, there’d be a lot more children in poverty, just with two homes. And as a country, we can’t afford to pay for children twice and empty bedrooms.

There are negatives of living in London obviously but I don't think it's a case for special treatment. There are benefits to living in London too which counteract the negatives. London gets so much more investment than other parts of the country.

But ultimately this could result in for eg housing benefit being paid to house those children twice over. Sorry but you sound so entitled. Is it not enough that that state is willing to contribute towards the cost of housing and rearing those children once, you think it should pay for that twice?

This is one of the most entitled things I have ever read. Relying on the state to look after your children is not taking responsibility. Of course the state shouldn’t pay for children twice, it shouldn’t have to once.

I do agree that there is a problem with families (whether divorced or not) and key workers being priced out of places like London and Cornwall, especially when their jobs and support network are there.

But that's a separate issue and not easily solved.

But might be making OP's situation worse if she's London based.

Who does it fall to, then? Teaching boys to respect women isn't going to come from women, is it? Or the majority female teachers they come across daily in school? You can tell people till the cows come home that having children is difficult but it doesn't stop those natural urges we have to procreate, to carry on the family line. And in my case, you didn't need to tell the couple about the long term implications of children - you needed to tell it to the one who had a long term affair and buggered off, using his self employment to not pay maintenance but at the same time demand plenty of time with his children, as per his rights. Sod all about responsibilities, eh?

The real issue is getting society as a whole to recognise that children are not just women's work. That men who shirk their responsibilities towards their children are not somehow justified in doing so because 'she got the house' or 'she has a good job' or 'who knows what goes on behind closed doors? She probably deserved to be left high and dry'. The abandonment of children and non payment of child maintenance should be as unacceptable as drink driving or smoking over a newborn. But it isn't. And that's why we are where we are.

But the thing is your partner is child free 70% of the time so can use that time to earn whereas his ex is more limited in earning capacity.

Well... I think the general consensus until 5 minuts ago, and upon which is based the legality you critique, is that the state must look to protect the most vulnerable in this situation, the children, because children are the most negatively affected by the dissolution of their family unit.
(Not talking about abusive situations here, just parents splitting up as per your post). So I guess the state has the duty to disincentivize separation of the parents. A way of looking at it is "we're punishing parents for splitting up".

Bloody hell! Is there anything that people can actually take responsibility for themselves without dragging the state into it? I am sick and tired of people trying to push more and more onto the state and then complaining that the state has failed them by not erasing all their problems (including those if their own making).

Children will replicate what they see at home. This has been proven time and time again. The state can try to educate kids about respecting women etc but all of this will be erased if they see the opposite being modelled at home. Women need to raise their standards and not facilitate these awful men. We can't expect men to change when they have every incentive to stay the same.

Again open to abuse how many parents take the money and dump the kids

Child support payments are no longer taken into consideration for benefits because the paying parent would often stop paying randomly and the departments were too slow to move to correct the balance children suffered what is stopping people claiming 50/50 getting the payments then not getting the children? Absolutely nothing they cannot work fast enough to keep up children will again suffer

The simplest way is to have a nominated main parent and encourage them to share unless their income is significantly lower than the other parent anything else is just nannying

Why is that the states responsibility? Why can’t parents teach boys to be respectful, model good family relationships, think about implications and plan their families themselves and get their own contraception sorted? Seriously people need to start taking responsible themselves and their own lives. These are basic things.

There's also nothing stopping single parents from banding together and living communally. We have a national housing crisis. Our public sector is crippled. The last thing we need is having to fund people to have bigger homes than they need half of the time/benefit top ups they only need half of the time. Perhaps the resident parent can get half of the usual top up instead and then the other pwrent can get half subject to means testing - but then you'd probably find that one home doesn't meet the threshold so less money overall is divvied out and it wouldn't have the effect you think it would.

I can see where you’re coming from OP but still disagree.

DH has children from his first marriage and we have them about 30% of the time (can’t do 50/50 as she moved away) and his ex receives about £2000 in benefits plus £500 child maintenance for them. In reality, we have a lot of the same costs that she has - bigger house, bigger car, same petrol costs, clothes - and we receive no money.

It does feel unfair but the admin of splitting the benefits would probably be impossible and his ex certainly wouldn’t volunteer anything. As a PP said, the benefits are to provide a stable home for the children, which they do.

This, to be honest. Perhaps the system should just split it if 50/50 though so not reliant on the parents to do it themselves

It is not the fault of the taxpayer that you and your partner separated.

That's not the responsibility of "the state". It's the responsibility of parents.

Where would the money come from for this? We already have plenty of people who are homeless or crammed into tiny properties with their kids. I don't think Starmer can pull a few million family home out of his arse for them to sit empty half the week.

Completely agree with @SereneCapybara and further I think the state should consider what it can do to better prevent family breakdown. And when I say prevent, I don't mean at the point where it is actually happening, which is far too late. Real prevention would mean teaching boys to grow up to respect women and treat them properly, it would mean helping couples really think about the long term implications of having children and recognise how much dullness and drudgery is involved and how to cope with it together, ensuring everyone has excellent access to contraception and the confidence to use it effectively, teaching children what good relationships look like and so on so that as a society we are better at building positive long term relationships. And frankly I do believe that most of the burden of change in that area falls to men.

The OP doesn't want to be financially "punished" but has no issue with the rest of us being financially punished for her life choices. She reeks of entitlement.

The entitlement of some people never fails to astound me.
NO @JustAskingThisQ I don't want to fund two homes for your family while me and my husband are working full time to keep one roof over our children's heads.
If you don't like living together anymore YOU fund the properties you want to live in.

More housing stock and benefits to cover family sized-homes that are only fully occupied a maximum of 50% of the time?

Yet people who are still together with children are unable to live in appropriate housing.

Yeah- I do get that.

But there could be other things that London boroughs could do to prioritise established community and family links that aid things financially..it's off topic though... But also god to note that OPs problem is amplified because of where she lives.,

I’m divorced have roughly 50/50. We don’t pay maintenance to each other. He earns more than me so tends to splash on holidays etc. I cover more day to day costs. We have 4 dc so each claim for 2 dc.

50/50 parents need to be forced to share any benefits if they both qualify in terms of earned and other income. I know of a couple of ex couples with 50/50 where only the mother receives the benefits and doesn't split it. In one of those ex couples the mother berates the father for not earning enough. I believe if you have your kids 50 percent of the time you can both claim the housing element part of UC for the extra bedrooms though, so that's not really an issue.