to wonder why men are almost always the non-resident parent

[womblesofwestminster]

Yes, I know I could win an award for most clueless person, but please humour me.

Why is it that when parents separate, it's almost always the mother that the children live with and who has to do the bulk of the mundane parts of the childcare? While daddy gets to pay a cash sum each week, pursue his own interests most of the time and then be Disney the rest of the time.

Doesn't sound like a good deal to me.

I've seen it so that I am sceptical every time.

It is your scepticism and labelling of all men as irresponsible, lying and a let down that leads in turn to the branding of all separated/divorced mothers as manhaters.

What's worse is that many women who feel as you do turn on other mums who have a supportive/responsible ex - as if a mum who is successfully coparenting somehow undermines the experience of those mums whose exs aren't so responsible.

Isn't it possible that everyone's experience is unique?

Of course every experience is unique. It's just some single mums seem to have a lot of shared experiences ...

It's just some single mums seem to have a lot of shared experiences ...

As do a lot of NR Dads - but we should take their experience with a pinch of salt?

I don't think courts are biased towards the mother for residency. I actually personally only know one father who went for residency and got it.

I'm pretty sure if both parents fought for residency the courts would order fifty fifty or maintaining the status quo with an aim for contact to be such that eventually it is fifty fifty.

From my own experience I had to fight very hard for my children to not have to endure direct contact with ex, who was continuing to mentally abuse my DC during contact and was grooming my eldest. My eldest was very mentally disturbed because of it.
I know of many other mothers and children subject to contact orders to the detriment of the child and social services and CAHMS will not step in as it's with the courts.

People want the mundane parts of parenting, they are the ones that count and get you close- being the 'Disney' parent may seem appealing when you are clearing up sick at 2am but they are the sad ones who miss out. Women get at least 50% because that is what they want.

It sounds a very good deal to me- I would absolutely hate to pay cash, follow my own interests and see them once a week- that is not why I had children.

fuzzy You might be pretty sure that courts would award 50:50, but there is a high profile case in the Court of Appeal right now that directly challenges your view:

Case of M

Personally, I think that any system is flawed if it allows even one DC to be deprived of one parent for no reason than the behaviour of the other.

My very good friend who is going through a divorce right now has made it impossible for her husband to have shared custody. Her not working for the past several years has put strain on their marriage which has led directly to it's demise, and now the fact that she hasn't been working means that she's seen as the main carer.

I love my friend, but I can't even imagine how much her ex must hate her.

Mumallthetime
As do a lot of NR Dads - but we should take their experience with a pinch of salt?

I haven't at any point said that. Minimising shared experiences is taking it with a pinch of salt. I think you have a bit of an agenda here yourself, which is fine, everyone does - but don't kid yourself you haven't and the rest of us are all wrong.

I don't condone the all men are bastards viewpoint because frankly that is a tragic thought. I know some lovely men. I also know some two horrible examples of women who actively excluded the father from the children's lives after divorce. Vile behaviour.

I do however believe that although that happens, it is far rarer than the numbers of lone parents coping alone with no maintenance.

Another opinion proffered: The 'blame for marrying that type of man'... Yes it falls squarely on my shoulders. We were married for nearly 23 yrs. 23 yrs of being a good father and a good man. It's not as black and white as people think

Crowley I am observing similar behaviour in a friend. Several mutual friends are confronting it but the red mist of divorce has settled.

I know various sets of divorced couples who have worked out their own arrangements where the man has a significant share of the parenting role.

One case where the man has formal custody of the children. His ex wife works in television and basically does not want the children living with her at all as it it would constrain her career choices. She spends a lot of time in the USA. She is literally 'Disney Mum'.

I know another man who is the non resident parent but lives and works very close to the former home and takes his daughter to school picks her up, supervises her after school every day and looks after her at last one day at the weekend. That 50:50 share allows her mother to have a career as well The daughter goes home at about 6 pm every day to sleep and sometimes eat with her mother. The father drops the daughter off on the doorstep.

Several other parents who are divorced that we know send their children to boarding school so both parents can work and then they share their children in holidays - I am not sure this is a very good idea and as the children don't know where 'home' is.

Santa my friend is pretty unhinged ATM. I doubt anyone will confront. her. She has a laser-like focus on how wronged she is.

I know quite a few single dad's who are the resident parent. Usually because they were the parent who did the most home/caring while mum continued with their career.

my friend is pretty unhinged ATM. I doubt anyone will confront. her. She has a laser-like focus on how wronged she is.

Which is no different from friends turning a blind eye when a NRP avoids maintenance/refuses contact.

Society is allowing these things to happen and it will take generations to change it.

Yes, I agree that I'm wrong here. I'm afraid the time for me to have said something is in the past.

My fiancé would love to be the RP. His marriage broke down because his ex wife made him choose between her or his parents (among other demands). His parents are lovely so it wasn't his parents that were the problem.
He didn't do 50% of the care before the split because he worked full time so she could be a SAHM. When he arrived home, she passed the children to him, weekends were his responsibility too and "holidays" were for her to sunbathe and him to look after the children.

Since the separation, she has allowed 2 hours supervised contact per week (not even allowed to take pictures of his own children). He has never been aggressive or violent towards her, no other welfare risks. CAFCASS removed their involvement right from the start of their court case. Her own solicitor told our barrister that she's "unhinged".

Now he's spent thousands of pounds trying to get more access, he's up to 5 hours unsupervised, except she doesn't have them ready and says things to the children so they don't want to go. For example, telling them that there are naughty boys at my house (my son is autistic, she's never met me or him) or encouraging them to call him by his name instead of Daddy.

He never does the Disney dad thing, not even to encourage them to come for contact. He's a fantastic dad. I haven't seen him with his own apart from on videos but he is the best step father my sons could wish for.

He pays 25% of his take home pay in CM and as for pursuing his own interests - we don't have any money left after the legal fees! He took all of the marital debt and left her all of the equity in the house, and we're talking tens of thousands on both sides.

Not all NRP are lazy or irresponsible. YABU.

mumallthetime

You do know your the only one currently talking about the decent dads don't you, because we are all talking about the shit ones.

Most posters have made it perfectly clear they are talking about there own experiences,its a bit daft to go through a thread making bizarre statements like your doing in the context of this thread, why don't you start your own about man hating cunts who deprive children from wonderful fathers,it shouldn't get as clogged up by pesky pwc's talking about there own situations and how real having a shit nrp is for them and there children.

Fwiw, I've never seen or known a pwc who has a shit nrp involved be anything other than very very jealous and impressed when faced with others who have good nrp's involved.

I come across a very high amount of really bad nrp's ( not representative of the comunity as a whole) and I mean really bad ones and even I don't think they are all like that,its just the bad ones who are, the good ones are not likely to be described in a thread like this.

Regardless of good and bad parents, to go to the original qu of the thread, I presume there are more male NRPs in cases where both parents are committed etc pre-split, because men are more likely to work full time, men have not had career breaks for mat leave, men aren't bfing and so the woman usually has more direct child related responsibility pre split, and this is continued after the s

Sorry mumallthetime I've just noticed your doing the challenge generalisation thing as opposed to posting as a fluid discussion.

Whilst its good to challenge things like that it does make it quite strange to try and follow so its easy to misinterpret

Regardless of good and bad parents, to go to the original qu of the thread, I presume there are more male NRPs in cases where both parents are committed etc pre-split, because men are more likely to work full time, men have not had career breaks for mat leave, men aren't bfing and so the woman usually has more direct child related responsibility pre split, and the man is more likely to have greater work commitments and this is continued after the split. I assume this is also why there are more SAHM than SAHD (on average- obviously for some people it works the other way!)

Anecdotally- my stepmother is RP for her two boys as at time of split one was baby, bfing etc, and she had been SAHM before the split.
My Dad was NRP because when my parents divorced they asked us (we were 15 and 12) and we both wanted to live with our DM as had been closer to her growing up (even though divorce was at her instigation, she had affair, she left marital home and we went with her).
My DP(male) is NRP because he worked away from home in another city and could only see his DD and (now ex-) DP at weekends before they split, and during the week he lived in a house share with other guys- neither work schedule nor living arrangements were suitable for then 2 yr old DD, plus she currently lived with her DM 100s of miles away from her DF, in a situation with childcare set up and within 10 miles of all 4 grandparents. On a purely practical level, him becoming RP would have made no sense.

Sorry earlier I hit post too soon!

My ex wanted full residence of our children. To try and obtain this he told a lot of lies about me to the courts and to CAFCASS officers. I had agreed a 3 day a week arrangement with him (3 days to him, 4 to me) and was more than willing to uphold that until the children came home with tales of being slapped around the face by the girlfriend and my then 4 year old asking me what a 'fucking dirty slag' was because 'that's what daddy and S call you, mummy'.

The children now live with me full-time. The ex eventually got rid of the vile girlfriend but has had countless others since. All introduced to the children within a couple of weeks of seeing them - the latest introduced only after they had decided to move in together so he had no idea whatsoever how she would be with them (she seems lovely, thank goodness). He disappeared entirely for about 18 months (went living with vile girlfriend again).

As soon as my ex got his court order, he stopped seeing the children anywhere near as much as the order suggests he is allowed, by law. I guess the reality is that children get in the way of going out and having a good time. Or he had his fun dragging me through court (not so funny when he got his legal bill, I suspect!) and now he feels the need to torment me in other ways. He is currently super dad (presumably 'cos of latest girlfriend and being seen to be super dad) so that's good for the moment.

I would happily share residence if he were prepared to sensibly share the care of the children, share the commitment it takes to bring them up, share the cost of bringing them up and be committed to having them see us work as a team, despite our differences. I have more chance of seeing flying pigs.

Rubbish uninvolved parents who are like that during a relationship rarely tend to change after it.

I'm quite sure there are a fairly high amount of break ups because one party is rubbish and uninvolved

Im guessing Dads who share the load are probably less likely to be nrp's because one would think that it would reduce stress on a relationship and that would be a happier one, so may be under represented because of fewer break ups.

Where do you draw the line between the role of husband and Dad though, sock?

If a man fails to support his DW to the degree she wishes in her career or life goals does that make him a bad dad because Mum isn't happy, which in turn, affects the DCs?

I don't think I know many people who would jump ship on a marriage because of a lack of support on life goals but I do know lots who would if that was on top of much worse behaviours or the cause of abusive behaviour.

But if you have a parent who is actively involved in parenting and both parents are interchangeable with regard to the children and they just fell out of love it would strike me as more likely for those parents to continue parenting like that as I expect its less likely to end up in hostility.