Aibu to think men have got this very wrong

[pleasemothermay1]

Just watching a thing about these f4j clowns and the guy is going on about how the courts are biased towards women

If fact if he new anything about the law judges will always opt of the status quo they will were they can keep a child in the main home in there own room, school they always known and opt for the parent who dose the majority of childcare 9 times out of 10 that's the mother

So we're has moaning about 50/50 come from often from men who would have been hard pushed to do 20/80 when married but now think they can do 50/50

The rise of more women being bread winners has seen more men get residence however it's till mainly women

So bar mental health issues or neglect I am alway bemused when men say right I am going for custody when they have not don't s jot of childcare the school barely knows who they and would need to up root the children from there home to achieve this

poster Eebahgum Mon 08-Aug-16 09:21:06

Funny enough these men are never call for 50/50 financial split 😬

it's not a status quo though, is it?

The parents are no longer together, in most cases the mother has to work full time (if she wasn't before) to support herself. I do know a few cases where divorcing an ex on a 6 figures salary mean the mum can stay at home, but that can't be the majority. So it's unfair to say that staying with the mum is what will be the least disturbing for the children, it really depends.

It's all very good to say that childcare should be shared 50/50, but financially doesn't always make sense. If the choice is to both work equally, and rely on nannies to raise your kids, you can't blame people for choosing to spend time with their kids. It's not all about money, and you can't live your life planning your divorce!

st have no choice but to work and earn well therefore they have to have drive and a work ethic. Whilst women opt out of working so easily we will never be seen as equal as employers rightly see a waste of training and recruitment costs.
wow😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😕

Well I have 3 children and am a sham if my husband left me I would not be able to work full time

Unless I went back to childminding I would only afford to work pt do the satus quo would be me

Sorry but the stats say single or married women are more likey yo work pt and are more likely to take on the majority of the child care

I suspect this: "His only motivation for this is to "win" and for me to "lose", he has no thought for our sons best interests" is the rationale behind most F4J protestors.

Matt O'Connor hates women

Totally agree and I also think the withholding of maintence is often not about affordability it's about control

Lost count of how many times friends of mine had the payments stopped as soon as they have a argument with ex

One friend getting a text saying if your ready to be good I will give you the money for xxxxxx swimming next week 😳

sassh the simple answer. We can't afford to both decrease our hours due to the difference in our salaries.

I think sometimes (not in every case) women can be a bit insistent that it's their way or the highway, and men who were keen originally to be hands on and committed end up being pushed out a bit. I'm not disputing there are lazy men too, by the way.

I also think women are frequently the invisible glue holding it all together: this was the case in my own family. I have very few memories of my mum doing much parenting in all honesty - all the walks and park and beach visits were with my dad - but after she died he fell apart. I think she did a great deal behind the scenes, if you like, and none of us really gave her any credit for it.

It's not really fair grouping mental health problems with neglect

I have mental health problems and custody of both of mine (different dads) a lot of mothers have mental health problems and custody.

single or married women are more likey yo work pt and are more likely to take on the majority of the child care

I am sure many men would love to work pt too and spend time with their kids, but they simply cannot afford to. Someone has to earn a living!

The only reason men's salaries are higher is that most have no choice but to work and earn well therefore they have to have drive and a work ethic.

That's literally the only reason, is it? You've surveyed those men who do work and earn well (how much is 'well', are low paid men not a thing?) and been able to conclusively define the reasons for this, both in isolation in comparison to women? I'd be delighted to hear your research methodology.

Increasing paternity leave might well help sort out the status quo, perhaps. For example, in Sweden fathers can take 3 months off at the same time as the mother, and can take more time off overall. That way the leave from work can be shared more evenly over the first year or two of the child's life. This would also reduce the perception from employers that only women are affected by having children, as men would be equally likely to take time off. The amount of pay is also higher in Sweden too, making it more likely that men take time off because the financial penalty is not so great.

Do Fathers4Justoce campaign for anything like this, I wonder?

The problem is Speak that a lot of traditionally 'male' orientated fields - building, plumbing, working with cars - mean men either working for themselves or working for a small company. My friends DH is a self employed joiner: does really well out of it and is certainly a hands on dad but only took a few days off when their daughter was born because otherwise they wouldn't have met the mortgage payments: sad but true.

Really, where a split is necessary every case should be looked at on its individual basis and take into account the views of the child, too.

i think a lot of men don't really want to dispite the mutterings I think deep down a lot of men don't actually want to do what is perceived as women's work

I no for expample with adoption leave you can split it pretty much any way you want and still the majority adopters who take the full leave is women

My ex was a good Dad when he was around (he worked long hours and sometimes abroad) and when we split the topic of splitting residence 50/50 came up. I pointed out he'd need to move to be close enough for DS to stay at the same school whilst living with him or I'd need to move near to where he lived.....and that if we did a week on week off he'd need to make sure wrap around care was sorted for his weeks and I would only be able to step in for genuine emergencies as I'd be moving from part time to full time work. He'd also need to be responsible for 50% of school holidays too.
In an ideal world I'd actually have been quite happy with this arrangement as I could have got my career back instead of working part time as I'd done since DS was born so he was free to build his career.
Once he realised the logistics and how much more responsibility he'd have to take the penny finally dropped just how much more responsibility I had taken when we were together and that luxury wouldn't continue once separated he went right off the idea and decided just weekends suited him far better.

I do think some men (not all) simply don't get it and think everyone will run around them to fill in the voids in their childcare to suit them.

Increasing paternity leave might well help sort out the status quo

whilst it would be a huge help for every family, how would that even work for small businesses?

Even if you work for a big company, it would still mean a big pay cut. When commissions and bonuses are an important part of your pay package, you would lose a lot by taking a few months off. Not everybody can afford it.

Add message | Report | Message poster trafalgargal Mon 08-Aug-16 09:50:17
My ex was a good Dad when he was around (he worked long hours and sometimes abroad) and when we split the topic of splitting residence 50/50 came up. I pointed out he'd need to move to be close enough for DS to stay at the same school whilst living with him or I'd need to move near to where he lived.....and that if we did a week on week off he'd need to make sure wrap around care was sorted for his weeks and I would only be able to step in for genuine emergencies as I'd be moving from part time to full time work. He'd also need to be responsible for 50% of school holidays too.
In an ideal world I'd actually have been quite happy with this arrangement as I could have got my career back instead of working part time as I'd done since DS was born so he was free to build his career.
Once he realised the logistics and how much more responsibility he'd have to take the penny finally dropped just how much more responsibility I had taken when we were together and that luxury wouldn't continue once separated he went right off the idea and decided just weekends suited him far better.

I do think some men (not all) simply don't get it and think everyone will run around them to fill in the voids in their childcare to suit them.

this

I think most men don't really realise how much there is to do

When I had a opration last year dh had to book 2. Weeks off work and look after the children and I can tell you he had no clue he actually said he didn't think we would manage if I went back to work full time

That doesn't mean that a change in paternity leave wouldn't help a large number of men to have a more hands on role with their new babies. Yes, it's always going to be more difficult for self-employed or smaller businesses, but that isn't a reason not to campaign for change. Also you could have a scheme like Maternity Allowance so self-employed fathers could claim an equivalent benefit from the government to enable them to take time off. Small businesses could also be offered support to deal with this. It depends how much this is considered a priority by society. At the moment, our society doesn't give a huge priority to becoming a father, as paternity leave is short and low paid.

I found as I got decent child support my own earnings for part time topped up with tax credits were similar to working full time as a sole parent when looking at total income and the tax implications.

If the NRP is earning enough to pay reasonable support then there is a case for the PWC to work more child friendly hours and avoid putting a school age child into childcare very much if at all.

When dh and I separated and a divorce looked likely I visited a solicitor to get the low down. She said that as I had the children for slightly more time than dh (although at that point it was pretty much 50:50) I'd be likely considered the resident parent. If the numbers had been a bit different then he might have got our house (bought by me) and our children for the majority of the time and I would have had to pay him. Given that we had separated because he had an affair and also spent a large amount of family money that seemed really quite unfair. But I also thought it was unfair that my couple of hours extra a week were so pivotal (although I was obviously relived too).

If we had opted for a divorce immediately rather than separating he almost certainly would have been awarded our children most of the time as he wasn't working having walked out of his job a while before, knowing that my salary would support us all (I wasn't at all happy about that!). It seemed to me that supporting parts of the status quo when divorce throws everything in the air isn't a great long term approach. I'd rather the system started from a 50:50 assumption and then worked from there toward whatever is likely to work best for the children.

When we separated I changed my hours so that I could do as many as possible when I didn't have the children and so was able to pick them up from school two days a week. I didn't do that when we all lived together, but when circumstances change you can often change with them.

I actually think that when the children are older, the system is biased towards men, not women. How many threads here have been about 10-13 year olds begging not to see their father but the courts decide they're not old enough to decide?

You could argue courts favour men because CSA is never bloody chased up, some go on benefits, hide their self employed status.. None of this seems to ever been investigated.

practical reality though is that 50:50 is incredibly expensive with the need for two full time ready households, no child maintenance, both parents likely needing to pay childcare etc and presumably only one household can apply for child benefit etc.

in terms of 'interests of the children' one also needs to take into account economics and in the case of two households scraping by with no money and having to work potentially unsocial hours etc to make ends meet and have less than ideal childcare to do it??

50:50 sounds great where both are on great salaries and can afford to run a household, pay for any needed childcare and still find some time to actually spend with their children but practical reality for many isn't anything like that.

The Fatherhood Institute have an article about the way childcare is split between parents in the UK:

www.fatherhoodinstitute.org/2016/uk-mums-and-dads-are-worst-in-developed-world-at-sharing-childcare/

speak what a fascinating link

Even in Denmark where men are supposed to be shining examples of equality, they do far far less housework and childcare than women

And the answer to this inequality? Pass sweeping laws to enable and pay for men to do far far less than women do anyway, without that help

God anyone who says we live in an equal society is in denial!