To wonder about 50/50 child arrangements

We did 50/50 with DSD until she was about 7, although we never had any court involvement as everything was amicable. After that age it became harder to work due to changing shift patterns of my DH and his ex, and DSD wanting to be closer to friends - we were only 20 minutes away but her mum lived on an estate close to the school.

Now that she's a teenager she probably does closer to 80/20 with her mum because her room is bigger there, and it's more convenient for her part time job and school bus route.

Hmm not sure how that worked for me then. My son was 50/50 but my daughter's didn't see their dad

And what's wrong with women wanting a social/relationship/sex life anyway? Enought blokes do it

How on earth do you know mum is lying in and not playing and enjoying her time with her child at home? Why do you think she should put her childcare in 9am instead of 11am, when suits her? So so strange to be keeping tabs on a neighbour like this!

Been 50/50 for a long time. My son feels like my house is his home base even though he is with his dad half the time.
He brings anything he loves or valuable to mine 🤣 calls mine home and the other his stepmothers house.

As his mum I recognise he's not "my child" and so we did 50/50 but as a human I didn't carry him for 9m to see him half the time. It's hard. But you adapt and get used to it. But best interests he's thriving has more love not less and double of everything and it works for us.

He's pre teen now but when he's a teen I recon he'll vote with his feet a bit more and it won't be a true 50/50 if he's allowed the choice but we'll see!

It’s all well and good anyone saying they’d do this or that but you don’t know how you or your ex will react or be after a split. How soon people move on is a huge factor.
i couldn’t bare to not see my children for a whole week I think I would genuinely be so low! But my husband works away so that would never happen anyway

It's great to hear that this is working so well for you as it's what we're going to do too and we'll have the same setup (living close, joint account). I guess it's up to me to make sure that I have things to do on my "off" days/weekends so that I don't feel like I'm just waiting until my dc is back with me

Exactly, it's a give and take so you need to be flexible with each other and be able to communicate. We both travel a few times a year for work but we've not yet had a situation where it hasn't worked. Neither of us has family so we're still each other's default.

Do you know many people who do 50/50? We live in Germany where only 5% of divorced parents do, the majority of people believe it's best for kids to stay with their mums and only see their dads every second weekend. By now I'm used to the surprise and pitying comments though and I believe we're giving our son the best out of a bad situation.

I left a marriage five years ago and we have had 50 50 since, both of us keen to share equal custody. Some problems when he moved in with his new partner, but we have on the whole made it work, and kids are used to the set up.

I enjoy my child free time frankly.

That post was suppose to quote you @Crole ☺️

We have the same set up as you, even down to a shared bank account and 5 min away from each other. All relevant and helps. Also no child maintenance and flexible too (if he needs to work late, or I need to stay away with work, we talk and switch it about, without worrying about the other saying no). That’s been a blessing disguise for me, as I have RL friends who do not have that flexibility (schedule set for 12 months and one parent will be adamant it can’t change!)

We've been doing 50/50 for 4 years, since our son was 3. It works well for everyone, we've asked our son if he'd like to change the setup to weekly but he's happy to have it the same as it's been for 4 years:

• Monday after school to Wednesday before school (2 nights)
• Wednesday after school to Friday morning (2 nights)
• Friday after school to Monday before school (3 nights)

Then it switches.

Summer holidays we do 2 weeks each then one week.

I can imagine 50/50 isn't ideal for everyone, our circumstances helped a lot. The divorce from my ex-husband was very civil, he also wanted shared custody, we live 5 minutes away from each other and I don't get any child support or financial support from him so there's no tension there. We still have a joint account that we both pay into for clothes, school lunches, hobbies etc. He was a crap husband but has turned out to be a pretty reliable co-parent.

I suspect the reason you see more men saying they want it is because fewer of them have either that or are the main caregiver. And lots would like to have more time with the kids.

I think there are a fair number of women who are a little less keen, for several reasons. Some just think mums in general should be the primary caregiver if possible - this is especially the case with younger kids ime. Some think that 50/50 is not good for kids. And some may have worries about the level of care provided by the father.

However, in my experience I see a fair number of mums ho like the idea of 50/50 as they feel it's more fair. In some cases I think in detriment to the kids.

This. In my experience they’re not interested in parenting at all until a woman wants to split and it is annoying that you’ve been the unrecognised primary caregiver for years.

What job are you finding that allows you to have a week off every month?!

Obviously you could realistically find a part time job at £15 an hour working 64 hours a month, but you could also do that anyway when the kids are at school. 50/50 isn’t magicking up some fictional job that suddenly allows you to work early mornings and afternoons and weekends and give you a week off - which is what it would have to do to make your theory correct 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

@user1476613140 I appreciate you saying that. I don’t get offended by online things, I just wanted to point out that it was a very generalised comment, and you’ve accepted that 🫡

Thing is, there will always be knobhead mums like your neighbour, and knobhead dads as mentioned on this thread who don’t want anything near 50/50. I’ve come across both in my experience, opened my eyes a lot when I went back into dating (a good 14 months after separation) that there are mums who don’t put kids best interests first and harbour a nastiness towards ex’s (seen it in my friendship group too) and use kids as pawns in their weird games. I can’t understand it as it wouldn’t and hasn’t crossed my mind to ever do that against my ex (and he was an arse in our relationship so have every reason to hate him)

Apologies if I have caused offence - it wasn't intentional. It's just the way my neighbour behaves isn't giving a great impression on this topic.

It sounds like you've tried to give your own DC a fair amount of time with each parent in a way that works best for your circumstances 👍🏻

It’s your experience, I get that (and she sounds bloody awful, poor kid).

But perhaps consider the generalised view you’ve posted accusing all mums who want 50/50 only want it for a shag. It wasnt tactful, totally inaccurate and inconsiderate of how fuckin hard separation and divorce actually is on parents trying to make a shit situation as good as it can be for a child.

Point 2 - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6880406/

Point 3 - https://farskampmotsystemet.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/2010-mcintosh-postseparationparentingarrangementsanddevelopmentaloutcomesforinfantsandchildrencollectedreports.pdf

Point 1 source - childrenbeyonddispute.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Pruett_McIntosh_Kelly_Parental_Separation_and_Overnight_Care_2014.pdf

Had to scroll back on my ChatGPT search as I remember reading it ages ago, I’ll copy and paste but it was point 3:

Big caveats (important if you’re comparing to “one main carer + one overnight/week”)

1. Selection effects are real: families who manage 50/50 are often (not always) more socio-economically advantaged and/or better able to cooperate, which can partly explain better child outcomes even if studies control for some factors.
2. High conflict / coercive control / safety concerns: “more time” isn’t automatically better if it exposes children to ongoing harmful conflict, manipulation, or unsafe parenting. Some studies and reviews focus specifically on how conflict interacts with parenting time and quality.
3. Very young children and frequent overnights: the evidence is more mixed and contested for infants, especially around attachment/security and very frequent overnights with a non-primary caregiver. Two often-cited pieces in this debate:

• Tornello et al. (2013) – frequent overnights associated with more attachment insecurity among infants (interpretation debated).
• McIntosh et al. (2010) – Australian work raising developmental concerns for infants/preschoolers in some overnight patterns (also debated).

@DrKovac
Do you have any links to research showing young DC benefit from a main household/carer?