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

I think you are right to ask questions of ‘the system’ and clearly the biggest problem is unpaid maintenance. There was a recent report by Gingerbread about this issue.

I believe that adult children should be able to sue NRP for unpaid maintenance, once they turn eighteen.

But apart from that I think there needs to be greater emphasis on personal responsibility, that an individual (unless they become a victim of crime, accident or other circumstances beyond their own control) mostly shapes their own life with their decisions.

A decision to have several children will make it far harder to house all of them in the event of a split. A decision to become a SAHP will decrease your earning power later in life. A decision to have another baby in a brand new relationship, which is less likely to last, will mean that you are tied to two different co-parents for a very long time.

Parenting is about sacrifice and sometimes it is actually better to keep a stable home and family unit for children to grow up in. Not always, but sometimes.

There is too much social weight given to adult fulfilment and not enough given to stability for children.

I always find attitudes towards nesting very interesting, because it literally puts children at the centre, which is what everyone claims to want to do. However, as soon as it is put forward, lots of people aren’t too keen because they feel that it will prevent them from ‘moving on’.

This is most of what is causing the housing crisis the vast increase in the number of single adult households.

You are literally suggesting that depending on tax from other people’s earnings to give your children TWO homes is reasonable.

Spoiler alert…. it isn’t!

Do single adults with no dependents get benefits? The ones I know in London do all live in house shares and work. Disabilities excluded obviously.

When I was a single adult I always lived in house shares, out of choice to save money for the future. It's not unusual or a particular hardship

The variable you are not considering is that separated parents with 50:50 have more capacity to work more hours, as they don't have children all the time.

This should balance out any extra needed, and child benefit, if each was getting 50% of any support.

It's not correct that you have to receive child benefit to claim UC. I claim CB and my ex claims UC and includes both our children in his claim even though I have them more. He actually checked with UC before he claimed and its above board surprisingly. Claiming CB is no longer a condition of claiming UC.

Couples often don't. My husband earned 60k last year, I earnt 38k as am part time, so we earnt 98k but still had to pay all the child benefit back. Your example only works when both partners earn exactly £49,998.50, which is pretty unlikely.

Not really. I'm all for benefits to keep people off the streets and from starving. I'm not for benefits to allow people to have exactly the living arrangements that they prefer when this costs double.

There isn't an unlimited pot for benefits.

Why should the state provide 2 homes for one child or sibling group?

I fully agree with the poster that if the children are 50/50 with each parent and the parents need state benefit for whatever reason, then the child element of UC should also be 50/50.

I understand where you are coming from, in an ideal world both parents would be able to afford for example a 2 bed flat if they had 2 young children, so a room for bunk beds for the children, and they may need support from housing to do this.

But unfortunately we are living in a housing crisis, particularly within social housing. I work with families where 2 parents and 5 children are living in a 2 bedroom flat, families with 1 parent and 3 children are living in a studio flat, children in wheelchairs are being carried up 4 flights of stairs on their parents back. Waits for housing are many years long, and if a family that was living in 1 property is then allocated 2 seperate properties, the wait will become even longer. The state paying out even more money to private landlords isn't viable when so many public services are at breaking point, that money would have to come from the nhs, or education, or social care etc money.

I fully agree with you in principle, but practically what you are asking for isn't viable.

Well we want another child but it makes no financial sense for us.

We earn no benefits so have had to make the difficult decision to not make our family bigger. Why should those who rely on handouts have more freedom than those of us who work and don’t claim.

I had this issue when I split from my exH. Having only one child made things quite difficult TBH.

So I can see what you mean.

Here’s an idea that you may consider pretty out there - support yourself and the children you chose to bring into the world. So now it’s not enough that one person sponges off the state, you think 2 should be able to for the same child... right okay.

It's a ludicrous idea there are so many abusive people out there who hate their ex more than they love their children
Some examples are

Going for 50/50 but not collecting the children until late and dropping them off the next day early so THEY don't pay for childcare this means the other parent needs to pay or work less hours limiting there access to work

Refusing to pay for clothing

Refusing to do any doctors/dental appointments

Getting 50/50 and promptly ditching the children if there is a court order child maintenance won't help and by this point you usually can't afford to ho back to court

Refusing to collect the children when they are ill

Refusing to return the child dragging you to court again and again

The list is endless and boring in it's predictability I don't think we should be too fussed about benefits and we should be more bothered about examples above why they are allowed to happen on repeat I've watched men violate court orders over and over again petty ones over photographs they were ordered to send digital copies of the kids photos to each other she sent hers he refused 10 years later she still has not received the photos of herself and her newborn babies this is the kind of person your dealing with you can't coparent with that there is no "sharing"

I'm certainly not rich but I've always earned just too much to qualify for any benefits. I'm a single parent and have worked full time since DD was 10 months old to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table.

The suggestion that separated parents should get double benefits is ludicrous!

As PPs have said, if you want to get annoyed about anything, get annoyed that single parents don't get child benefit if they earn £50k but couples do when they earn £99,999 between them. Single parents pay more council tax per head too... there's plenty of stuff you could get angry and fight for fairness about, double benefits isn't one of them.

I think I’m more bothered by the fact in a 50/50 residency situation that one parent is still considered the non-resident parent suggesting a lesser role.

I understand the issue OP that the person labelled NRP isn’t technically a NRP as the care and financial burden is supposed to be equally shared.

However your solution wouldn’t work because as others have pointed out it would either mean doubling the benefit entitlement for both parents to include dependents elements and therefore being paid for dependents when they aren’t there (although admittedly housing costs remain) or splitting the dependents entitlement between both parents where they both have more than a single person but perhaps less than they’d need.

Ideally however, disability aside, one or both parents ought to be getting themselves into a financial situation whereby working provides the majority or totality of their income. Planning life finances based on a reliance on state benefits is an unstable financial gamble for anyone in the long term.

The state shouldn't be paying to house either of you full stop.

Also imagine them funding for two homes when it's like getting blood out of a stone to get child maintenance and receive UC nowhere near enough for the RP to pay rent on the home the child lives in so you have to make huge cuts such as food for yourself! Never putting the heating on because the electric costs an absolute fortune every month and you don't dare get into more debt, just swaddle up with blankets! Give your bloody head a wobble. Those of us stuck like this appreciate the bit we can get, what you're talking about is ludicrous.

You're basing this on your own imagined circumstances. Which won't apply for many who aren't in your position saying "what if?"
Completely tone deaf.
Lone parent, escaped an abusive relationship. Finally after years of chasing I get £29.14 per month from the man who disappeared over 5 years ago leaving behind a 7 year old. It seems the mother of his other child still doesn't claim child maintenance because if she did then the amount would be reduced.
I spent a long time fighting for years of unpaid maintenance and to get it deducted from his wages. Child Maintenance had the gall to send me a letter saying they were going to write off his debt (to the tune of around £3000). I replied with a very strongly worded letter refusing and to their credit, they took it to court twice and he ended up with two marks against his name as a result, I forget what it was officially called. They can't pursue him for the money because he was then in receipt of benefits (yeah, me too due to health conditions for many years!)
I've still managed to be a lone parent and keep us just within breathing distance of the breadline, to the point now that I've had to take out a credit card which I've never had before but the rent went way up which UC won't take into account even though it's still way less than the LHA. I go without food regularly so that I have enough money to feed DD.
It's hard all over. Maybe reading my post you'll get some sense of that.

The only people I know who do genuine 50/50 and are entitled to CB have two kids and claim CB for one each.

they're never going to introduce a way of working benefits for both parents when it's still very rare that there is a true 50/50 split.

Of the other 4 families I know that do it there all high earning (which is why there's the flexibility for it) and benefits aren't relevant