To think 50/50 childcare split sounds terrible

I know a family that does that but it's 2 one bed flats and a house that the kids stay in. You do have to be fairly amicable though as well as being able to afford it. It sounds like a great set up for them but I'd end up cleaning up after my ex every second week if we did this.

My neice and nephew had 50/50 arrangement, four days on, four days off to fit in with their mum's shift patterns. They were a bit older though. Worked fine for them, although my BIL was annoyed that he had to arrange his life around his ex's work patterns. The court made the decision based on what's best for the children and not the parents though and they determined that it was best for them to have equal time with mum and dad.

My DC see me & their dad most days. We both live very close & it works well for us & the DC. I know it depends but the DC I know that see their dads less seem to be more impacted by the separation of their parents.

edited for typo

I had a school friend whose parents did 50/50 and swapped by one dropping the kids off at school and the other picking them up. Whoever picked up Friday night would keep them till Monday morning. I think my friend and her brother were a lot happier than the children in the class who only saw their Dads every other weekend and had half-siblings that they barely knew. The parents didn't really get on, they had totally different personalities and approaches to life, but they did make custody work for their kids.

What’s in the best interests of a child depends on their individual circumstances. It’s not a one size fits all principle.
the patriarchal dynamic at play here is the idea that “fairness” for men (fathers for justice) should be centred over the care needs, safety and wellbeing of children.

I would have always agreed and I would have been truly horrified at not being that for my daughter. However, she’s a tween now and her dad is as involved (truthfully more involved if I’m honest) in the day to day of her life admin, school admin, every part of her life, that actually we could not have anything other than 50/50 if we split - because that’s how we parent her. She’s as important to him as she is to me, and he’s consistently been as present for her as I have been.

The fact that I have female genitals and he has male ones doesn’t change this.

If you don’t have 50/50, you relegate one to a fraction of the role of parent - which is fine if that’s what one of the parents actually does. But what about when they want to be a fully involved parent and it’s not because of spite or reducing CMS liability?

Me and my ex did 50/50 split, our kids wouldn't have had it any other way, and they are now late teens and STILL do 50/50 through their own choice. Has worked fine for us.

My ex wanted 50-50 at first, and I knew it wouldn’t last. DC were only 2 and 5. It was never a true 50-50 as of course he couldn’t commit to the beavers after school Friday so I had to collect them and wait at his house for them. It lasted less than 3 months. DD (who was the 2yr old) is 17 at the end of the month, and he has spent 7yrs overseas during the 15yrs since we split, heading off again in the summer. Couldn’t even wait until she went to Uni the following year. The kids occasionally stayed at his house, but he tended to visit them at mine, not suited for everyone but worked for us, and he was away a lot. Most kids need and want a home that’s their home, and then access with a second parent. I don’t think kids generally prefer 50-50.

I’m basing it on real life experiences.

Would you be ar your best moving your belongings 3 times a week staying in two different locations, remembering homework, bags, gym kits etc on different mornings.

Two of my closest friends had parents who divorced and shared 50/50 custody. One family had a pretty amicable divorce, parents seemed to co parent v well, communicated well, lived a 5-10 mim walk apart and the children, in practice, moved pretty flexibly between houses. She's very positive about 50/50 situations and has a v strong relationship with both parents.

The other family had a very acrimonious divorce and the parents communicated solely by note or text, often via my friend. Both were very rigid about the schedule and unwilling to shift about for a school concert or similar. She feels like she lived out of her backpack, felt it negatively impacted her high school life and she only really felt able to socialise and join hobby groups at university. She does not have a great relationship with her parents and has said she'd do anything to ensure her kids don't go through that.

On what do you base that opinion?

It’s definitely not in the best interest of a child.

I'm talking about the best interests of the children. If you're a boy brought up equally by both parents then that will help you to see that your role as a father is important when you grow up to have your own children. Similarly, if you're a girl then you'd have it modelled to look for an involved father for your own children.

Perpetuating the dynamic that parenting is primarily a female role and not a male one doesn't seem to help anyone other than those who wish to maintain the patriarchy.

I know several families doing 50:50 with that rotation of 2:2:3 and seemingly works fine. These are primary aged kids mainly though there’s also a 6m old baby in one of the families too (family broke up during pregnancy). Whatever works best for people and what works for some might not work for others.

I agree

I definitely think we want to encourage men to take a more active role in childcare and that can be done through a range of social policies , but that shouldn’t be at the expense of the safety and wellbeing of individual children.
child custody decisions in individual cases should be about what is in the best interests of the individual child in question, not an issue about men’s rights/ entitlements, “fairness” for parents or structural gender inequalities.

I would say the battles are what parents create, it becomes about parents rights not children

This is similar to what we do and clubs etc are a main reason it works so well.

growing up without the stability of one solid home is not good for their emotional development

That's a very negative mindset. I would say my daughter has two stable homes.

It's undoubtedly the case that many men and women see child rearing as primarily a woman's role. Do we as a society want to perpetuate that belief, or do we want to change it by encouraging men to take a more active role in childcare?

We do 2,5,5,2, which I think is actually what is being suggested. Done it for 4.5 years. They are always with me Monday and Tuesday night, always with their dad Weds and Thurs and every other weekend. We live close, less than a mile away (same small town)

My dc are thriving and ex-dh has stepped up as a dad and has a great relationship with them.

I was a 50/50 kid from the age of 5 and I can’t begin to describe how glad I am my relationship with my dad was not reduced to EOW. I think the most damaging part is having parents who are acrimonious and won’t speak to each other though, never mind the 50/50 arrangement.

I agree with all your post except for this:

I don't believe that if the child needs greater time at one home it should default to the mother as so many people seem to feel.

I think it’s really problematic that child custody arrangements have turned into a men’s rights issue. Of course decisions shouldn’t be made by “default” either way, they should always be made on the basis of the best interests of the child. Very often that is in the primary care of the mother for a range of (mostly) social but (partially) biological reasons. Of course that’s not always the case, but we shouldn’t pretend that’s not a real pattern because of men’s rights.

My cousin does this - but a friendly split, they lived very close to each other (about a mile), and the kids were 10 and 13 when it started. It works very well and is a bit ad hoc because my cousin's wife travels with work. They communicate very well, both have new partners (not living with them) and the kids seem happy and well adjusted. I am very impressed with how well they have done - they are both fantastic parents who put the kids first.

That's actually the only case I can think of, with a 50-50 split. Others are more 70-30 in favour of the mother.

At the age of 3, in the situation you describe, it's harder, and I tend to think the child needs a main home with the main carer.