When did 50/50 become so common?

[Luckylooloostar]

I have a SC and when contact was set up over 13 years ago it was really common to do EOW with maybe a night in the week. No mention of 50/50 ever. Really common among others too around that time.

but Iv noticed a trend over the last few years that seems to be when you split its now 50/50…

Do more men now want this so they don’t have to pay CMS?

I have just read the rest of the OP posts. Someone is bored this week 🙄 and popped on MN to be a GF

I suppose because if a woman wants 5050 to get her life back him she isnt asking for anything the dad isnt getting.

You see it all the time, dads pretend they think childcare is the easy way out and sooooo much easier than their paid job, until they have to actually step up and parent. Even then some of them default to camping out at their mums so they can piss about on their smartphone.

The focus is on dads not wanting 5050 because rarely do dads return to work part time after the baby is born.

And I say that as someone who expects DH would want 5050 and went part time as well. He is in the minority of men walking the walk.

Who knows but it’s not always best for the child . It’s been made too much about what the parents want in my opinion .

Obviously that is not the case for everyone. But men who aren't useless fathers when it comes to the shit, boring, relentless, thankless, non-performative but absolutely necessary stuff are much rarer than mums. You can see this every day in RL as well as on MN.

@Luckylooloostar

What drove you to post this today? Did you just get up and think:

"I wonder why men want 50/50? I will post about why people think men want 50/50. I already know the answer though. It is only about CMS payments. So I make sure I will put this in the post and if anyone says its not just tell them it is"

I mean that itself is a bit weird unless there was some other compelling reason we are not privy too.

This is AIBU OP but you have already decided that you are not so why post? Is it just to have an argument with people over an issue that actually will have caused a lot of heartache for a lot of parents (and children)?

I honestly cannot think of a single positive reason why you would have posted this.

I bet there are quite a few couples staying together so that they can see their children all of the time. I know one lad who's parents broke up days after he turned 18.

Unfortunately I’ve seen many a thread on MN advising the OP that their ex’s petition for 50/50 is entirely financially driven.

😂😂😂
Go on, patronise a bit more.

For the record, my husband was shite. He raped me, used coercion routinely and tried to kill me (just the once). Tried to properly 'gaslight' me, using tricks to try to make me afraid of supernatural interventions! He belittled and undermined me constantly. Our dd, in therapy again, considers he might well have been a psychopath and a narcissist.

But

It was pre-50/50 days so he had to pay maintenance for about seventeen years ('while in full time education', she went to university).

Yep.i have also seen many threads advising the Op to just stop contact often for very tenuous reasons " and let him to take you to court"
No thought to what's in terms best interests of the child.

There's also plenty of women on here who I've seen want to avoid 50/50 because they realise they'll receive no CMS. There was a thread the other day with a woman wanting divorce and said she thought her husband would want 50/50 and the immediate responses were 'You know you won't get maintenance don't you?"

People used to split over extreme reasons only so the man in these circumstances would not be the best of dads

Now people get divorced for all sorts of reasons and not just bad dad.
Good dads will want to have their kids

Of course some do, in the same way that some women spend the CMS on themselves or, like my friend, palm their kids off on grandparents half the time. It doesn’t all men or women do either.

I've also seen people on here encourage OP to not have her DH go part time or be a SAHP because ''then he might get 50/50 or be classed as the main carer''.

I've also seen people on here encourage unmarried pregnant OP's to ''remind'' their partners that their names don't have to be put on the birth certificate for really minor things.

But no, women are never selfish and don't use their children as weapons at all.

You're talking about a small baby. After the baby stage, none of that matters. Whether their mother breastfed and cuddled them or not doesn't mean anything to a 5-year-old, a 10-year-old, and definitely not to an adult. Every species of animal that I know of leaves its mother in the end. That bond isn't meant to be exclusive or eternal for the child. Your child will never love you as much as you love them. They can love their father just as much, if not more. That is biology. That is natural.

To add to my post above...
What's he like?
He's dead.

Which is also not always the case, especially when there is a large disparity in income. I do work full time, and did when I had 3 at home too, but I still get maintenance. That way we both get to do nice things with the kiss, which his much higher income allows. He earns that because I put my career on hold for many years, to be there for our children. Seems fair that our children now benefit from that in both households

Exactly. 50:50 also gets the mother out of paying maintenance. I reckon the only reason my DSDs mum won't give up 50:50 contact is because she'd worry DH would ask her for maintenance. He wouldn't but she would lose her child benefit. She tried to make my DSS stay on at school when he wanted to leave so she could keep claiming CB for him. He left school and moved in with us full time. He's actually my DHs DSS but he's raised him since he was 3 and has never asked for a penny from his mum.

People are quick to paint dad's as the villains but there are plenty of deadbeat mum's out their too or mums who use their kids as weapons and treat them like possessions.

I completely disagree with literally everything you’ve said here, but that’s ok isn’t it. We’ll agree to disagree. Have a good afternoon.

What if the mother didn't breastfeed and the dad was actually the more active parent? I mean dad's are quite capable of cuddling babies too. My DH did all the night feeds, baths and bedtime routine.

Hormones like oxytocin -the bonding hormone- have been found to play a role in both parent and child and their connection. It’s certainly not one sided.

And studies show that if dads are actively involved in care and have lots of physical contact with heir children then their levels of oxytocin increases.
it is absolutely possible for dads to have just as strong a bond to their children.

Exactly. Who feeds and cuddles doesn't actually matter as long as they are fed and cuddled. It just suits a lot of mothers to think that only they have the power to make their children happy.

Drama!

Of course you disagree. You think you are special because you are a mother.

Exactly.

Not every family has a default parent either, we don't.

We both work full time and when DC isn't at nursery, he is cared equally by both of us. Neither of us are his ''main carer''. Both of us flex at work so we both do equal shares of drop offs/pick ups.

I didn't breastfeed so DH and I split feeds equally and of course, we both give him plenty of cuddles. The fact that I was the one who was pregnant gets more and more irrelevant the older DC gets.

DC and DH have an equally strong bond as myself and DC. There's no doubt about that.

I think you have hit on a really interesting point. I suspect most dads who could be entitled to CMS don't even try to claim it. I know I have not for the past 5 years I have had 80/20 care (so mum has EOW). But then she doesnt work because she has a millionaire boyfriend so I probably would not get anything anyway.

The reason I didn't claim though? My daughter had asked to move from 48/52 split (don't get me started) to be with me all the time because she hated spending time with her mum. I contacted her mum and said maybe you are going through a tough time and suggested just a bit more time with me and I promised it would not make any difference to maintenance. She through a hissy fit and said I had been brainwashing her and so I would have to go court. So I did. My daughter had to go in front of the Sheriff alone (we were in Scotland and she was 12 at the time) and he then fed back to my ex and I that she had told him she didn't want to be at mums because she just shouted at her all the time. Broke my heart and cost me £5000 in court and solicitors fees (but worth every penny)

So yes things much better for my daughter now. But I never claimed CMS because I never wanted her to turn around and say it was all just for the money. I even paid an additional 6 months of CMS to the ex wife (and we are talking £550 a month here) after I had my daughter effectively full time just so she could not say it was all done for CMS.