To hate my situation - anyone else separated from kids dad and hate your arrangements?

[Charliefarlie1192]

I currently have my son thurs fri and sat night until sunday tea time. This is because of work/school/holiday club/transport problems. It basically means that apart from a friday I do no school runs, and have very little to do with his schooling. His dad has him the rest of the time. I feel like a terrible mother. Is my son (7) going to remember a childhood with his dad being the main carer and resent me?

Could you not change your job to suit your child rather than your child fitting in with your job?

Just read whole thread. I feel for you OP. I like the suggestion of getting more involved with the school work yourself.

I would just like to pick up the points made by a couple that this is pcisely what most separated fathers have to go through, and exactly the same for them. No, I totally disagree. We can be as politically correct as we want to, but the fact remains the relationship between mother and child, and father child, is, in the vast majority of cases, completely and totally different. Women are, in the main, more nurturing than men. I think most would agree with this, and certainly most men would agree with this. And this very fact means that the OP being separated from her child during such times as she feels her son needs nurturing, is going to be more painful for her than it would be for most separated fathers.

Neo I don't know any lone parents or any parent for that matter who would choose to drop their child to a childminder at the crack of dawn if the child has an active, responsible, involved other parent who is willing to do so. Surely the childminder option comes after the available and willing parent option?

Sorry that should have said has another parent who is willing to have them and drop them at school. Why would it be a childminder first thing in the morning instead of his dad?

I wouldn't be happy if I was the Dad, with no weekends.

But the child is getting a lot of attention and interaction more than he'd get in a lot of households with his two parents still together and one parent working long hours or both.

So he's a lucky boy.

Plenty of working parents have little to do with the school, instead having to use childminders or before and after school clubs. I don't see what the difference is. Your also getting to spend every weekend with him. Sound like you have a great deal to me and it's actually your ex who is missing out.

If your son is happy, that is good. That is the main thing. I think it's normal to feel guilt and unhappiness whatever the arrangement. Try to see the good. Enjoy the weekends. Give yourself a break on the nights he's not with you.