Is she being unreasonable? Parental childcare split.

If he’s working full time then this is certainly affordable?? He would qualify for UC and help with childcare (up to 80%) if his wage is that low.

if he’s not working full time then he absolutely should be having the children more.

you say she’s been in a low wage part time job since age 18. But can you see how doing so meant she could be default parent and he was able to work shifts? It’s not fair to hold that against her now!

you are a parent so surely you can empathise with the frustration of getting no help. Is her mother helping with childcare so she can have a social life or so she can work?

as others have suggested it seems like a good idea you and your brother help each other out with childcare a bit. If he collects and returns his kid then surely you can have kiddo for an overnight sleepover while he’s on nights and he can return the favour by taking yours for a day at the weekend?

if he can’t work his job around his kids he has to change his job. It’s that simple. By being difficult about it he’s telling his ex the job is more important to him than the kid. My ex is the same, expecting me to accommodate his shifts cancelling his contact whenever he wants overtime/to go out and it’s massively impacted my ability to earn. Single mums get the raw deal, often the relationship has ended because for whatever reason she’s not respected perhaps most of the child and housework fall on her then when we split that doesn’t change except now we really should have to be the ex’s fucking PA and childcare. My 8 year old asked me last year why daddy cancels seeing them for work so much but mummy cancels work instead….. his kid will notice before too long I assure you. You and he need to stop seeing this as her vs him and what’s fair for the parang put that child and their needs front and centre in all decisions and your thinking.

Yabu. The solution isn't to see his kids less. It's to change his job. If he's not happy with that, then he needs to suck it up then. What mum does or doesn't do is irrelevant. He has his children 2 nights a week & reducing that would be unreasonable. If would suggest he pays the obligated CMS so he can save up for his own place. Surely he can't live at your mum's forever with 2 kids.

The responses on here are harsh! Parenting is always really tricky with shift work. It's shit.
And yes, CMS is the bare minimum, but the fact that it's calculated by the government means that men think it's legitimately more than enough. I don't know a single father who pays more than CMS. Not one. So that is really good of your brother.
I'd say though that if he isn't able to meet his own housing costs, he should probably give less money and put it towards getting his own place with rooms for the kids. Their needs have to be met at both parents' homes.

She’s his mother and the kids grandmother! She should WANT to look after them

Then someone needs to explain to him that hes being ridiculous and needs to give his head a wobble as many dads have actual 50/50 as in 7 days and nights out of everyday 14 not 4 nights and days he has. What dose he want a medal for beung an adequate dad instead of being a complete waste of space dad

It sounds more like she gets angry when he wants her to do his parenting.

He wants a day off? If you’re a parent you’re either working or parenting. Days off from parenting aren’t a thing. Even on holiday most of the time you take your kids with you and have to look after them!

Those poor kids.
Is this really best for the kids?
Mediation maybe the way forward.

It's easy to be loyal to our family, but it sounds like she just wants a bit of equality. They've had children, seemingly in a relationship and taken on that responsibility together which should be equal. Now she's on her own, earning minimum wage in a full time job living in an expensive area while doing 70% of the parenting. You honestly can't see why she's a bit pissed off with him? £500 doesn't go very far so I'm not sure he deserves a big pat on the back for this either when he'll have very little outgoings.

If neither of you have much help, can't you help each other to get some downtime?

No one to help babysit occasionally, yet he lives with his mummy and has a sibling arguing his case on MN?

I expect his mum is already furious that she feels compelled to have him in her spare room, coming and going at all hours and with two young kids. Expecting her to look after them on top of that?!

Yeah, I'm finding a lot of the opinions here a bit mind boggling.....he seems to have his kids a lot of the time, live with his mum so he can pay over the odds CM despite having them overnight a lot,and he's getting flamed. Everyone needs a day off sometimes.

Why can’t you have the kids to help him out and he can reciprocate by having yours for you?
You say he has ‘not a soul’ to help him which is absolute rubbish. He has you for a start. He also lives with his mother. She can have them for him!!

Everything revolves around him at the moment and he’s expecting his ex to just work around what he wants. The only fair way of doing it is 50/50 with a set schedule. He lives in his mum’s spare room so if needed he could work part time to facilitate that, or ask for a different shift pattern. How he makes it work has nothing to do with the ex, if he needs to change jobs to a more parental friendly one he’ll have to do that. God knows women have to make such compromises all the time.

OP’s posts aren’t that clear and I think people are misunderstanding the times the brother has the kids. I assume she means day time at the weekends (because he’s night shift) and two overnights in the week (on his days (nights) off). CMS works on overnights so he’ll be considered to have them c. 30% of time.

How does she afford to live in the expensive area in more than a 1 bed flat OP?

Neither of them can have it all - a stable career, time to themselves, and a fair share of childcare. She is sacrificing the career, he is sacrificing free time. That’s life.

Thats as maybe but it certainly sounds like it needs revisiting.

Would it be better if he had his DC every other week for the week and sorted out childcare when he’s at work?

That’s not true at all, Just because he’s having 50-50 potentially does not mean that he won’t have to pay anything in child support.
Maybe less, but maybe not

Now he’s a single parent he needs new career. That’s what everybody else has to do to be quite honest.
My career wasn’t child friendly, so I got a new one

He doesn’t sound like he sees 50:50 on equal terms as the starting point for what’s fair (and neither do you). He’s set things up to work around his work schedule. She has to set up her life around that instead of deciding what she’d like to do and him having to sort out everything that doesn’t work for her.

It’s true that he deserves some time to sort his life out too - has he considered getting his family to help out or getting some childcare in place like his ex has?

I agree the kicking off when he asks for flexibility is not great. Kids with separated parents do best when their parents can get on amicably and be flexible about arrangements. But he’s already doing less and insisting on a disruptive schedule, so maybe he needs to do a bit more of the giving bit of being flexible before he asks for something back?

Would he not be better doing 50/50 amd getting a childminder if his days clash with his shifts. My childminder is open 7 days a week 7-7 and loads of police, NHS etc use them. He could offset the cost by reducing maintenance

He needs to go back to CMS and submit every single night he has had them since the split. I would be surprised if he needs to pay her anything, given that they seem to be pretty close to 50/50 if he is having them every weekend and two nights in the week.

Sounds like she wants half the week free but still wants him to pay up and it doesnt work like that.

the children are in full time childcare also to facilitate his career - because his days off aren't fixed each week. Would he prefer an arrangement where she had them whenever he isn't at work, regardless of her own working pattern? Of course that would be ridiculous, so childcare for when she is at work is the only option for her, to ensure she can maintain employment, regardless of his shift pattern. The only alternative is to have a fixed arrangement that doesn't work with his shifts and would mean he has to pay for childcare on his set and she pays for childcare on hers, or changing his shift pattern or role. she is actually being reasonable by not pushing for this; her life would be easier to organise. The downside of him maintaining his career and making no change or sacrifice for this is a lack of downtime without caring for his children.

He's already extremely lucky if she's largely ok with accommodating his shift patterns, rather than insisting on a fixed schedule.

If he wants a day 'off' during what should be his time, why doesn't he book an extra day at nursery for the DC? I know a few single mums who work 4 days but pay for 5 days of nursery so that they have a bit of time to themselves.

It's not awful as a parent to want a bit of a break sometimes, but a lot of us have to use paid childcare to get this. As for being at his mum's and not being able to have a babysitter there, there's no reason why a babysitter has to stay in the house with the kids. My regular babysitter will often take the kids out to the park or library if I need some time at home alone (though usually that's for unexpected work calls, rather than just because I want the house to myself!).

I actually don't know any men who do every other weekend. Most are similar to your brother they have their children whenever they arnt working because the mothers need to work aswell. It's tough but that's parenting the breaks are few and far between. One of my brothers has four children full time on his own and he literally never complains. I honestly don't know how he does it but he just accepts thats life and gets on with it.